Showing posts with label cat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cat. Show all posts
Thursday, February 13, 2020
Religious Place Names
Lalibela, Ethiopia: This historical site is named for an Ethiopian Orthodox saint, King Gebre Mesqel Lalibela (ruled ca 1181 + 1221). The buildings are laid out to represent Jerusalem and each of the eleven churches is carved from a single rock.
Remlap, State of Alabama, United States: This community is named for a local family. Since there was already an existing community named "Palmer," the name was reversed to spell "Remlap."
The surname is of Old French ("paume" = "palm tree") by way of the Latin word "palmifer" which means a "palm bearer" or a "pilgrim." and the suffix "erius" which means "descendant of." This is in reference to a pilgrim to the Holy Lands who returned, bringing back palm branches.
Bubastis, Egypt: aka: Tell - Basta; Per-Bast; Pi-Beseth . This city is mentioned in Ezekiel 30:17 as Pi-Beseth. It was a center of worship for the feline Egyptian goddess named Bast or Bastet, Numerous mummies of cats have been found at the site.
Touba, Senegal: "Tuba" is the Arabic word for "felicity" or "bliss." This is in reference to the sweet pleasures of eternal life in the Islamic afterlife paradise. The word also refers to closeness to Allah.
Nymph, State of Alabama, United States: Nymph is an unincorporated community in Conecuh County. In classical mythology, a nymph was an animating or maintaining nature spirit who appeared as a beautiful maiden and lived in the woods and rivers.
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Cat chases it's tail.
Cat chases it’s tail.
Jesus laughs as Zebedee
Boanerges is an Aramaic word meaning "sons of thunder." Jesus gave this nickname to his disciples James and John. The term is never explained further and has engendered many attempts at interpretation.
The Bible says that Jesus knew the hearts of men (John 2: 24-25) and some commentators believe that Jesus gave the nickname to the men in reference to the two brother's loud and hot-headed nature as shown in Luke 9:54. This may well be the correct interpretation, but there are others.
Dr. James Blevins, my Greek professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, believed that the meaning of the phrase laid in "thunder" rather than "sons." The nickname was humorous. He envisioned Zebedee as red-faced and spitting and bubbling as his sons tossed away their fishing nets and followed Jesus.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
A Little Fable
I believe that "A Little Fable" is in the public domain. If I am in error on this I will remove it immediately.
A Little Fable, by Franz Kafka.
""Alas," said the mouse, "the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when at last I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into." "You only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up."
When I was in college, there was a student there, a very free-spirited girl, who had a reputation for never missing a party. She was friendly, never met a stranger, and everyone liked her. Then, one day, she disappeared.
Eventually, her body was found and her murder was linked to a serial killer after one of his victims was able to escape.
Everyone was talking about the case. When the idea was advanced that the girl contributed to her own murder by the situations in which she placed herself, one person became incensed. "You're saying that she deserved to be raped and murdered!" Others insisted that no, she did not deserve to be raped and murdered, but she did place herself into dangerous situations which she could have avoided if she had chosen to do so.
We sometimes create our own boxes, our own mazes, our own traps, our own prisons. There is an old Southern saying (I've "cleaned it up" for this blog), "If you walk in the sewer, you will get sewage on your shoes."
We all make many choices and each choice we make in a particular direction, good or bad, makes it easier to make the next choice in the same direction. It also makes it less likely that we will turn around and go back the way we came. (Remember our old friend, μετάνοιά/repentance, from the 9 February 2011 post?)
Each bad choice we make can limit our future choices and we can paint ourselves into a corner. This is an American idiom which calls to mind the image of a man with a can of red paint who begins painting the floor as soon as he enters a room. When he reaches the far corner of the room, the only way out is to walk back across the wet red paint.
The foolish mouse in "A Little Fable" made poor choices, increasingly boxing itself into one particular direction. When it finally realized its error, it turned around, and there was the cat.
A Little Fable, by Franz Kafka.
""Alas," said the mouse, "the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when at last I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into." "You only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up."
When I was in college, there was a student there, a very free-spirited girl, who had a reputation for never missing a party. She was friendly, never met a stranger, and everyone liked her. Then, one day, she disappeared.
Eventually, her body was found and her murder was linked to a serial killer after one of his victims was able to escape.
Everyone was talking about the case. When the idea was advanced that the girl contributed to her own murder by the situations in which she placed herself, one person became incensed. "You're saying that she deserved to be raped and murdered!" Others insisted that no, she did not deserve to be raped and murdered, but she did place herself into dangerous situations which she could have avoided if she had chosen to do so.
We sometimes create our own boxes, our own mazes, our own traps, our own prisons. There is an old Southern saying (I've "cleaned it up" for this blog), "If you walk in the sewer, you will get sewage on your shoes."
We all make many choices and each choice we make in a particular direction, good or bad, makes it easier to make the next choice in the same direction. It also makes it less likely that we will turn around and go back the way we came. (Remember our old friend, μετάνοιά/repentance, from the 9 February 2011 post?)
Each bad choice we make can limit our future choices and we can paint ourselves into a corner. This is an American idiom which calls to mind the image of a man with a can of red paint who begins painting the floor as soon as he enters a room. When he reaches the far corner of the room, the only way out is to walk back across the wet red paint.
The foolish mouse in "A Little Fable" made poor choices, increasingly boxing itself into one particular direction. When it finally realized its error, it turned around, and there was the cat.
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