A moth ate words; it seemed to me
a strange event when I heard of that wonder,
that a worm, a thief in darkness, should devour
the songs of men, glorious utterance,
and a place of strong being. The thievish visitor
was no whit the wiser for swallowing the words.
----
Leave your answeres in the comments. Don't read the comments until you've made a guess at the riddle. Its from the Exter Book (circa 8th century) 43 [45]. If you want to see the original Old English, its in the extended entry.)
Moððe word fræt; me þæt þuhte
wraetlice wyrd þaic þæt wundor gefrægn,
þæt se wyrm forswealg wera gied sumes,
þeof in þystro, þrymfæstne cwide,
ond þæs strangan staþol. Stælgiest ne wæs
wihte þy gleawra, þe he þam wordum swealg.
----
I don't know Old English, but am fascinated to see how much the language has changed, and to try and find similarities to modern English. For example, the word above for "thievish visitor" is "Stælgiest" which looks perhaps like older forms of "steal" and "ghost" or "spirit" ("spirit" from the German "Geist"). I don't know--but it sure is fun to guess.
As far as the different letters, I'm pretty sure þ = th, but I'm not sure how to pronounce ð. Anybody know?
I found a scrap of paper the other day with notes from a seminar at General Assembly, and I figured I'd share them here, and then ask you a question.
Re-emerging Europe & Missions (21 June 2006 - seminar at General Assembly)
Craig Sheppard
Four legs of ministry in Europe:
1. Church planting
2. Theological education
3. Evangelism and discipleship
4. Literature in native languages
In the post-communist countries, the old guard passed on the church, but there are no middle-age folks in the church. How do you pass the church across this generation gap? The young generation never knew communism - they're more optimistic. How do you disciple young believers who've never seen pastoral ministry?
A trend developing has been converts in the charismatic church gradually moving to Reformed churches; they've built relationships with charismatic believers and some of those pastors are moving toward Reformed theology.
Tom Courtney
Do you hear Europe calling? Craig gave a good summary of eastern Europe, but not of western Europe.
Its a post-everything society, and the church is very small; in Scotland church buildings are now mosques, bars, and disctheques.
Europe needs missionaries who will look at, study, understand attitudes in the society, and then confront them with the gospel.
Apathy - "Do you get paid more if I say yes to the gospel?"
Alienation - particularly among young people, and in their acceptance of deviant lifestyles. There is no 'north' - no sense of bearing.
Anger - for not being able to belong to something. Nothing out there has any meaning, and even family doesn't provide meaning since disintegrating.
Four principles:
1. Pleasure principle: hedonism, consumerism--even consuming people
2. Power principle: it gives them meaning - its seen in relationships, and in the church.
3. Peace principle: people search everywhere for it and don't find it (e.g. they drink Coke mixed with wine in city parks in search of it).
4. Pain principle: anything to avoid pain. Drink to cover it, cocoon yourself to avoid it; hide pain- telling the gospel is hard with pain avoidance.
To what extend is American culture becoming like (or already like) the description of Europe given above? What are some ways we can communicate the gospel of Jesus to our contemporaries?
Arrdy, arr, arr...
Me hopes yer each havin' a splendin swashbucklin' talk like a pirate day. Shiver me timbers, either I'm a landlubber or its time to head to the galley for a late plate o' fried fish 'n chips.
avast ye, maties!
There's so much beauty in this world to be eked out and put on display, and this evening here in Chattanooga a bunch of local visual artists opened their studios and galleries to the public, for free, and the general consumption of beauty increased. The Association of Visual Artists sponsored a Gallery Hop with a bunch of locations showing local artists' work.
I met a few friends at Ray Alfonso's studio (509 E. Market St.) where a friend of mine, Peter DeLong Vaughn, had some of his work on display. His "John 1:1 and John 1:5" were on display there, but the other two have been sold. Alfonso's studio definitely had the coolest ambiance for seeing art and hanging out with friends: it was a very open, urban space, the music jived, and the snacks included Niedlov's bread, cheese, humus, wine, and beer.
Ray Alfonso's work is fascinating, because its painted on metal, and fired in some sort of kiln or something like that. The colors were really vivid, especially the deep reds and blues. His largest painting made me think of Shostakovich's "Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Minor". I think that non-representation or abstract art is the closest visual art comes to music, since music is pretty much an abstract art.
One of the other galleries I visited with some friends had beautiful watercolors by Piotr Timofeyevich Felin (I think that's the guy's name), who apparently received awards from the Soviet state for some of his work. The village scene was beautiful, but I wondered to what extent he had to compromise his artistic freedom to paint in the U.S.S.R.
In a studio there was a long canvas (perhaps 5' long by 18" high?) of the Markest Street Bridge with the crane barges and construction equipment being used to rehabilitate the bridge. I saw for the first time the symmetry of the bridge piers and the crane towers and booms at angles to the bridge surface. Its fascinating how art can shed new light on everyday construction site.
"íecan" is Old English for "to increase", and is the etymological root for "eke".
"glǽm" is Old English for "a brilliant light; gleam, brilliance, brightness, splendor, beauty."
New York City. At New York's Kennedy International Airport today, an individual later discovered to be a public school teacher was arrested as he was trying to board a flight while in possession of ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule, and a calculator.
At a morning press conference, the attorney general said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al g'Ebra movement. He is being charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.
"Al g'Ebra is a fearsome cult," a Justice Department spokesman said. "They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves as 'unknowns', but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philosopher Isosceles used to say, 'there are 3 sides to every triangle'."
When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes".
source: one of my co-workers