Irish Monks

In an incredible find, a 1000 year old psalm book has been uncovered in an Irish bog. Catholic monks in Ireland devoted their lives to copying Scripture and are credited with helping to preserve the faith over the centuries through their efforts. The book was reported to be opened to psalm 83. Here is psalm 83, very interesting. Is Someone trying to tell us something...?


Psa 83:1[[Vulgatte 82:1] canticum psalmi Asaph [Vulgate 82:2] Deus ne taceas ne sileas et non quiescas Deus
Psa 83:2[[Vulgatte 82:3] quia ecce inimici tui tumultuati sunt et qui oderunt te levaverunt caput
Psa 83:3[[Vulgatte 82:4] contra populum tuum nequiter tractaverunt et inierunt consilium adversum arcanum tuum
Psa 83:4[[Vulgatte 82:5] dixerunt venite et conteramus eos de gente et non sit memoria nominis Israhel ultra
Psa 83:5[[Vulgatte 82:6] quoniam tractaverunt pariter contra te foedus pepigerunt
Psa 83:6[[Vulgatte 82:7] tabernacula Idumeae et Ismahelitarum Moab et Aggareni
Psa 83:7[[Vulgatte 82:8] Gebal et Ammon et Amalech Palestina cum habitatoribus Tyri
Psa 83:8[[Vulgatte 82:9] sed et Assur venit cum eis facti sunt brachium filiorum Loth semper
Psa 83:9[[Vulgatte 82:10] fac illis sicut Madian et Sisarae sicut Iabin in torrente Cison
Psa 83:10[[Vulgatte 82:11] contriti sunt in Aendor fuerunt quasi sterquilinium terrae
Psa 83:11[[Vulgatte 82:12] pone duces eorum sicut Oreb et Zeb et Zebee et Salmana omnes principes eorum
Psa 83:12[[Vulgatte 82:13] qui dixerunt possideamus nobis pulchritudinem Dei
Psa 83:13[[Vulgatte 82:14] Deus meus pone eos ut rotam quasi stipulam ante faciem venti
Psa 83:14[[Vulgatte 82:15] quomodo ignis conburit silvam et sicut flamma devorat montes
Psa 83:15[[Vulgatte 82:16] sic persequere eos in tempestate tua et in turbine tuo conturba eos
Psa 83:16[[Vulgatte 82:17] imple facies eorum ignominia et quaerent nomen tuum Domine
Psa 83:17[[Vulgatte 82:18] confundantur et conturbentur usque in saeculum et erubescant et pereant
Psa 83:18[[Vulgatte 82:19] et sciant quia nomen tuum est Dominus solus tu Excelsus super omnem terram

That's how it appears in the archeological discovery anyway, here is an English language translation:


Psa 83:1 A Song. A Psalm of Asaph. O God, do not keep silence; do not hold thy peace or be still, O God!
Psa 83:2 For lo, thy enemies are in tumult; those who hate thee have raised their heads.
Psa 83:3 They lay crafty plans against thy people; they consult together against thy protected ones.
Psa 83:4 They say, "Come, let us wipe them out as a nation; let the name of Israel be remembered no more!"
Psa 83:5 Yea, they conspire with one accord; against thee they make a covenant--
Psa 83:6 the tents of Edom and the Ish'maelites, Moab and the Hagrites,
Psa83:7 Gebal and Ammon and Am'alek, Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre;
Psa 83:8 Assyria also has joined them; they are the strong arm of the children of Lot. [Selah]
Psa 83:9 Do to them as thou didst to Mid'ian, as to Sis'era and Jabin at the river Kishon,
Psa 83:10 who were destroyed at En-dor, who became dung for the ground.
Psa 83:11 Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb, all their princes like Zebah and Zalmun'na,
Psa 83:12 who said, "Let us take possession for ourselves of the pastures of God."
Psa 83:13 O my God, make them like whirling dust, like chaff before the wind.
Psa 83:14 As fire consumes the forest, as the flame sets the mountains ablaze,
Psa 83:15 so do thou pursue them with thy tempest and terrify them with thy hurricane!
Psa 83:16 Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek thy name, O LORD.
Psa 83:17 Let them be put to shame and dismayed for ever; let them perish in disgrace.
Psa 83:18 Let them know that thou alone, whose name is the LORD, art the Most High over all the earth.

One question I have however. They said it was opened to Psalm 83 and then described what in the days that manuscript was written, and in the Vulgate, would have been Psalm 82. Was the Psalm number given in referance to the written content of the page, or was the subject of the Psalm reported based on what is currently known as Psalm 83? The 83rd Psalm in those days would have been what we currently know as the 84th Psalm which is about trusting in and following the Lord.

Gay Agenda Defeated

In a narrow decision, the Washington State Supreme Court struck a blow to same sex "marriage" activists and struck down a King County superior court decision which had declared the 1998 Defense of Marriage Act, (DOMA) to be unconstitutional.

It was by no means a strong refutation of gay activists and their attempt to destroy the family by attacking marriage, but it was defeat for the gay lobby non the less. It's funny how the people who cry loudest that "you can't legislate morality" are the ones who try the hardest to legislate immorality. Any way you slice it, their philosophy is devoid of reason.

Seahawks

Training Camp Opens in just four days!!!

I feel really good about this season. With the addition of Julian Peterson at outside linebacker and the return of Ken Hamlin at free safety our defense should be improved over last years. Considering that it took the defense about 1/3 of the season before it really came together under the field leadership of Lofa Tatupu it may actually be much better. Who knows, we may be turning some heads this year with our defensive play. We were tied for the league lead in sacks and we have all the main pieces returning.

Offense may be slightly worse at running the ball with the departure of Hutch and with Alexander having a big fat contract all wrapped up. Our passing game could also suffer with the loss of Juravicius. Maybe Nate Burleson will tear it up though... who knows. Our receiver corps was pretty banged up all last year and we did ok though so maybe it will actually be improved this year.

GO HAWKS!!!

A year of storms and darkness

I'd like to take this opportunity to address the reality of suffering, death, hardship, and grief.

So far this year has been filled with more than it's share of those things for me. I founded a fire department honor guard and color guard about 5 years ago, so I get called periodically to to perform at funerals and memorial services for fallen firefighters. The year started with the line of duty death of a firefighter from Ocean Shores. His brother also happens to be a firefighter in my local group so my honor guard was part of his memorial service. I even got to do a reading at the memorial. Then a longtime local firefighter who worked for the Federal Fire Department on the Navy base and used to volunteer at the department where I work, died from a cancer caused by exposure to work related contaminates. My honor guard provided services at his memorial also. And again, I did a reading. Just two weeks ago we provided a color guard for a firefighter in Port Angeles who died in a plane wreck off duty. The first two guys both had young children and the third had just put in his retirement papers.

A former co-worker just died unexpectedly two weeks ago and was found by his teenage son. A family member's Mom is very ill with Cancer and appears to be near her time to pass from this life and enter in to eternal glory with Christ our Savior. And distressingly, my good friend and brother firefighter's 14 month old daughter was just diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer and began aggressive chemotherapy over the weekend.

It gives me pause and causes me to reflect on end of life issues, suffering, the pertinance of faith and so on...

I like this prayer from the book "Arise from Darkness" written by Fr. Benedict Groeschel. Fr. Groeschel is a Dr. of Psychologly as well as being a Fransiscan Monk and was a close colaberater of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and her missionary activities in New York.

The following is the prayer written at the end of Chapter 6: When Death Robs Us

O Holy Spirit, enlighten my mind that death may not be my enemy, that I may not fear it in an unseemly way for a Christian, that I may not run from death, so that when death comes and takes those dear to me, I may welcome their release from this valley of tears although I am myself deeply moved and even deprived by their departure from this world. Let me know that death reminds each of us of the infinite reality of life with you. Let me see all things in the perspective of death and everlasting life. And let me not be filled with grief either at the anticipation of my own death or the experience of the death of those dear to me. Rather, strengthen my faith, that in the midst of this changing world I may always come closer to you, who never change and who await me and those dear to me together with the Father and the Son in life everlasting. Amen.

Long time no blog

I've been real busy lately and haven't made an entry in 7 days. I understand the feds were so concerned they nearly halted all internet information transfers until I could be located. What's that? Oh, the world didn't stop becuase I wasn't polluting it with my "wisdom".

I went up to Anacortes over the weekend to attend a friends wedding. Now, if you've never been to Anacortes you need to schedule a trip. It's a wonderful town with an interesting history. I graduated from Anacortes High School after moving there in the summer between the tenth and eleventh grade. I always remembered that the name Anacortes came from the daughter of Hernando Cortez who was named Anna. Sounds nice but in researching prior to doing this post I discovered that I am an idiot and that the Hernando Cortez angle is an urban legend. For the real history of Anacortes click here.

The Church in Anacortes in my memory was rather modern (this memory is from '85-'87). I can't remember specifics though, probably because we didn't go to Mass every Sunday or Holy Day when I was in High School. But you've all been to those modern looking 70's and 80's churches with no soul. It's almost as if they did everything in their power to make the church as generic as possible. Maybe they were hoping people wouldn't recognize it as a Catholic church and go there by mistake. Those two decades seemed to focus a lot on appearance and emotion and little on substance and faith.

What a glorious surprise when I walked in vestibule at St. Mary's in Anacortes for the wedding. They had just finished a renovation in 2003 and had lots of beautiful statues, icons, paintings and paint schemes. A giant holy water basin right at the entrance to the narthex where Baptism could be done either by emersion or pouring. The Tabernacle and the sanctuary were beautiful. The tabernacle itself was done so as to resemble a Bynzantine triptych.

I applaud the renovation team and hope that all parishes in the Seattle Archdiocese follow suit when they renovate.

I actually got to meet a blogger from another blog that I look at sometimes. I must have come off as some type of stalker when I initially said hi. There was another blogger there who is a seminarian with Seattle's Archdiocese but he left before I could say hi.

I was a beautiful wedding and I will post later on something from the program that I thought was very nice.

Stay Cool

Pyro