Mountain Top

From the earliest days of mankind, people looked upward to identify their god. After all, the sun and moon were moving elements that generated wonder; add to that storms and lightning and wind. The source of power appeared to be in the sky. As long as people thought the earth was flat, they looked up to find their god.

A Hebrew poet had a different idea. He wrote: "I lift my eyes to the hills; but my help doesn't come from there. My help comes from the Lord who made the heavens and the earth."  That was a mind-stretching proposition, and it revolutionized the Hebrew thinking. When a Hebrew king "reformed" their religion, he went about destroying the mountain-top shrines and temples the "pagans" had built.

The revolutionary idea is still waiting to register in our thinking. When a successful surgery is accomplished, the bystanders look up to the sky  and say "Thank God!  The football player makes a touchdown and points up to the sky gratefully. The Druze people in Israel build their cities on mountain tops to be "nearer to God."

Of course it is easier to point to the mountain top than to live in a positive relationship with the Creator. But our real opportunity to live faithfully lies in looking beyond the heavens and the earth to the real Source of our being: the Lord who made the heavens and the earth..

Larry

Song of sixpence "sing a song of sixpence" is reputed to have various sources but first printed in the early 18th century. One thing is certain about it: references to the song are plentiful, extending from Henry VIII and Shakespeare to the Beatles and the Monkees. But in all the references to it, none deals with what I consider the essence of the song. That is Joan of Arc. Joan was the maid, severely criticized for her wearing men's clothing, was threatened with torture if she did not don women's dress. The song has her preoccupied with clothes. Blackbirds were the priests who piously tried and persecuted her. They were responsible for condemning her - cutting off her nose. The dauphin whom Joan crowned king made no move to protect her during the tedious trial - he was busy raising money........ In the "counting-house." The queen was busy socializing in the parlor. As for the pie, this was a kind of code word for sending a secret message, and the blackbirds had the secret duty to see that Joan was to be executed, whatever the trial results would be. The sixpence and the pocket of rye are a bit of singing game fluff that goes with nursery rhymes. The entire song seems to be a kind of eclectic gathering of images, and I suggest that the Maid of Orleans is the cohesive element. Larry Gruman. 2/7/11 Song of sixpence "sing a song of sixpence" is reputed to have various sources but first printed in the early 18th century. One thing is certain about it: references to the song are plentiful, extending from Henry VIII and Shakespeare to the Beatles and the Monkees. But in all the references to it, none deals with what I consider the essence of the song. That is Joan of Arc. Joan was the maid, severely criticized for her wearing men's clothing, was threatened with torture if she did not don women's dress. The song has her preoccupied with clothes. Blackbirds were the priests who piously tried and persecuted her. They were responsible for condemning her - cutting off her nose. The dauphin whom Joan crowned king made no move to protect her during the tedious trial - he was busy raising money........ In the "counting-house." The queen was busy socializing in the parlor. As for the pie, this was a kind of code word for sending a secret message, and the blackbirds had the secret duty to see that Joan was to be executed, whatever the trial results would be. The sixpence and the pocket of rye are a bit of singing game fluff that goes with nursery rhymes. The entire song seems to be a kind of eclectic gathering of images, and I suggest that the Maid of Orleans is the cohesive element. Larry Gruman. 2/7/11

Song of sixpence
 
"sing a song of sixpence" is reputed to have various sources but first printed in the early 18th century. One thing is certain about it: references to the song are plentiful, extending from Henry VIII and Shakespeare to the Beatles and the Monkees. But in all the references to it, none deals with what I consider the essence of the song.  That is Joan of Arc.
 
Joan was the maid, severely criticized for her wearing men's clothing, was threatened with torture if she did not don women's dress.  The song has her preoccupied with clothes. Blackbirds were the priests who piously tried and persecuted her. They were responsible for condemning her - cutting off her nose. The dauphin whom Joan crowned king made no move to protect her during the tedious trial - he was busy raising money........ In the "counting-house." The queen was busy socializing in the parlor.  As for the pie, this was a kind of code word for sending a secret message, and the blackbirds had the secret duty to see that Joan was to be executed, whatever the trial results would be.  The sixpence and the pocket of rye are a bit of singing game fluff that goes with nursery rhymes.
 
The entire song seems to be a kind of eclectic gathering of images, and I suggest that the Maid of Orleans is the cohesive element.
 
   Larry Gruman.     2/7/11  
 
 
 
 

who is elijah

Who was Elijah?

The most fabulous person in the Old Testament was Elijah the Tishbite.
Here are some of his antics:
 He controlled the weather
   He confronted and threatened the king
     He set fire to soaking logs
       He killed over 300 Baal priests
         He saw God
            He raised a dead boy to life
              He provided a woman with an endless supply of food
                He went into heaven alive in a chariot

These eight miraculous feats point to a miracle worker.  He was from Tishbe, a place unknown in all of Middle East.  He neither taught or prophesied. What can we make of him?

I think Elijah was a symbolic figure, like Uncle Sam. He was invented as a teaching element for religious education of the Jews. His name is a giveaway. EL was the name of God in Israel, the north.  JAH was the name for God in Judah, the south. That distinction led to great strife between the two sections of the country.   But putting the two names together gives a symbolic figure representing the whole country.

What purpose did he serve?  My suggestion is that Elijah was fashioned to show the Hebrew people a picture of the miraculous power they might achieve if they united north and south, overcoming the antagonism and power struggle in that divided country.  Whatever the original projection of that unity may have been, it was elaborated through successive generations of story-tellers until it reached the written scroll that became the Book of Kings.

Larry Gruman

Larry Gruman's First Blog Post