Job was a piker

[NOTE: I am posting this "Thanksgiving" post in advance of Thanksgiving Day in hopes that it might help even just one person redirect their thinking as we approach a day set apart especially for giving thanks.]

The biblical story of Job is a story of faith in the face of extreme adversity.

You probably know the story well. Satan makes his appearance in the court of The Most High and suggests that he can turn even the most faithful of men, Job, away from faith in God. God gives Job over to Satan to afflict reserving only Job's life for Himself.

In the trials that ensue, Job loses his wealth, [almost all of] his family and his health. His friends counsel him to forsake his faith, and in one of the most famous lines of the Old Testament, his wife tells him to "Curse God and die."

Pretty darned bad, eh?

But Job's just a myth, right?

How about an historical example, well-known and verified?

It was the worst of times; it was the worst of times. (Not so Dickensian, but oh, so true.) War had ravaged the land for 30 years. During that time, Martin had served as one of the pastors of a once-prosperous town that had suffered greatly in the war. Sacked three times. Saved from sacking once only by courageous negotiations with a conquering general/king by one simple pastor... but still ruined again economically at the end of the negotiations.

This simple pastor had also seen his family, friends, colleagues and thousands of townspeople and refugees killed by plague and hunger, and at times during the war years, when he was the sole remaining pastor of the town, he was called upon not only to conduct the funerals of his own wife and children, but also to conduct 40-50 funerals a day for families of friends and neighbors-the townspeople he served so long and knew so well-and of those from the crowded masses of refugees from the war-torn countryside. All-in-all, he performed nearly 5,000 funerals during these years.

The war was the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). The town was Eilenburg, in Saxony. The man was Martin Rinkart. In response to all those years of affliction, he penned these words:

Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mothers' arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and blessèd peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed;
And free us from all ills, in this world and the next!

All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given;
The Son and Him Who reigns with Them in highest Heaven;
The one eternal God, Whom earth and Heaven adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.

Be thankful for your blessings? Yes. But even when you cannot see any "blessings" be thankful still.

Crossposted to third world county and Cathouse Chat.

Evensong

You know, sometimes when things around me are moving at a pace that challenges my sanity; when I'm just too darned tired for words; when the tintinabulation of the bells (the bells, the bells... ) in my ears beckons to the Edgar Allen Poe part of me, it's time to take a break and listen to the voice of Robert Louis Stephenson...

EVENSONG

THE embers of the day are red
Beyond the murky hill.
The kitchen smokes: the bed
In the darkling house is spread:
The great sky darkens overhead,
And the great woods are shrill.
So far have I been led,
Lord, by Thy will:
So far I have followed, Lord, and wondered still.

The breeze from the enbalmed land
Blows sudden toward the shore,
And claps my cottage door.
I hear the signal, Lord - I understand.
The night at Thy command
Comes. I will eat and sleep and will not question more.

I love the story of Stevenson's life; it is the story behind his poetry.

"Stevenson had a very uncomplicated view of art; he would have rewritten Horace to assert that it was better to entertain than to instruct...."

And yet. His words often do more than either entertain or instruct. I wonder if folks bound up in power games, "success at any cost" climbs up corporate or or bureaucratic or political ladders ever stop to consider The End. No, really think about it. How many congresscritters or ladder-climbing backstabbers (a partial redundancy? :-) will be able to look at the end of their lives and say,

Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you 'grave for me:
Here he lies where he long'd to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

Linked at third world county, Choose Life! Crossposted at CatHouse Chat

Plus Ça Change...

Plus C'est La Même Chose...

Paris, July 14, 1789:

Paris November 4, 2005

That's right. five days ago was the tenth day of rioting in France.

Pray for the French people, their leaders and even the damned fool* rioters.

"... I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to themthat hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you..." -Matthew 5:44

(Yes, that was NOT profanity; it was a theological assessment.)
Linked at third world county and at Diane's Stuff.