Newt Gingrich

I think Mr. Gingrich stands a strong chance of being the next President of the United States.

We watched/listened to his speech a couple of nights ago, and his oratorical skills match or perhaps exceed Mr. Obama's. (Plus, he's more of a thinker.) He knows how to give a feel-good speech. He invokes Lincoln, Franklin, Jefferson, tells you heartwarming stories about them. He invites us to join him in "rebuilding that America".

Fat chance. That America was two centuries ago; we need a new America that lives up to those ideals. We need to look forward even more than backward.

How to get there? Mr. Gingrich didn't say. There was not a single mention of any of the issues that concern most Americans today. Nothing about the economy or the banking system or Wall Street or the crisis in Europe or jobs or home forclosures or ... well, you name it, he didn't mention it.

I'm all in awe and admiration at such consummate skill in sounding wonderful and saying nothing. He does it even better than Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton and that's saying a lot.

It will be interesting to see if he improves over the course of the campaign.

Of Men and Angels

We are not going to turn into angels in the next life. We have a much higher destiny than that, for angels, although glorious beings, are still inferior to a glorified human being.

The first glory God bestowed upon mankind was to create us, and only us, in His own Image. No angel has that honor.

Again, God bestowed the highest honor upon humanity by becoming one of us. When have we ever heard He became an angel?

The God-Man laid down his own life to conquer death for us. For which angel did He ever die?

When the God-Man ascended into heaven, it was in His flesh, in His full humanity, to “sit at the right hand of the Father”. With which angel did the Father ever share His throne? In the Person of Jesus Christ, our humanity is perfectly united with the Godhead, without compromise to either. No angelic being has that honor.

We become, even in this life, members of Christ, grafted into His Being by Holy Baptism. Are angels baptized? We take God’s own flesh and blood into ours and mingle them together; do angels receive Holy Communion? We share the Body and indeed, the whole Being, of Christ, who is “so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.” (Hebrews 1:4)

Our destiny is to become deified and to share forever in the inner life of the Holy Trinity. We are sons and daughters of God’s; angels are and forever remain God’s servants – and ours.

For to which of the angels did He ever say:

“You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You” ?

And again:

“I will be to Him a Father,
And He shall be to Me a Son” ?

But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says:

“Let all the angels of God worship Him.”

And of the angels He says:

“Who makes His angels spirits
And His ministers a flame of fire.”

But to the Son He says:

“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever;
A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom.
You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness;
Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You
With the oil of gladness more than Your companions.”

Hebrews 1:5-9

One-Word Summaries

A Catholic friend of ours here attended a several-sessions-long seminar on Judaism. In the last session, the Rabbi asked people how they would summarize, in one word, what it meant to be a Jew. The rabbi's answer: "Covenant." Jews, he explained, are the People of the Covenant. They have this contract with God that nobody else has, in other words, I suppose he meant.

He summarized Islam in the word, "Obedience", which I suppose is fair, as the very word "Islam" means, "submission". I might have said, "Koran".

And then, asked to summarize Christianity, the rabbi said, "Sin".

!

Thanksgiving: Gratitude for So Much

Oh, stuff and bother! I’m not minded to bore you with all the details of our wonderful Thanksgiving. I’ll just say it somehow all came together at last but I was grateful, once we had all been seated at table, to accept Daniel’s offer to take charge from then on. (He’s my brother-in-law, Barbara’s husband.) He organized the transfer of various dishes to everybody’s plates.

Next day, Friday, I drove down to North Carolina with my daughter and her family to visit my son and his family. They’d also had a big crowd, mostly Katherine’s wonderful family, and had celebrated Thanksgiving with – are you ready? – a whipped cream fight! Yup. They chased each other around the house wielding squirt cans of whipped cream, and when they had thoroughly covered some family members with it, those people chased the others around and gave them big hugs.

It’s amazing how quickly whipped cream turns sour and smelly. And gluey…

Anyway, the weekend was full of fun: contests on the trampoline, cooking s’mores over the grill, going to Tanglewood to see the park’s elaborate Christmas lights display, and a shopping trip in which I bought all my 5 grandchildren belated birthday gifts and all their Christmas gifts as well, except Connor’s because he couldn’t find anything in the whole toy store he liked all that well. That was probably because he wasn’t feeling well, but he was better by time I left.

The grandchildren snuggled and sang and told stories and drew me pictures and allowed themselves to be chased and tickled, and the hole in my heart from grandchildren deprivation closed right up. Although it’s already beginning to open up again, God willing we’ll be back together before it widens enough to hurt very much.

Now it’s back home and back to settling in after our long absence. We finally put in a police report on our stolen DVR and we have composed a letter to the Commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicles requesting justice be done concerning the situation that developed while we were away.

Baby Jackson, 1, needs a Christmas stocking.  My mother used to knit them but doesn't anymore.  Barbara took over some years ago but now that she has reposed, that leaves me.  Okay, yarn all bought.

Everybody in our extended family has some variation of this stocking.  Pattern here.

British Humour

I forgot to tell you earlier about the bus driver we had in London. He was driving the shuttle bus, taking us from our hotel to the airport. As we arrived on the grounds of Heathrow, we heard:

"Ladies and gentlemen, out the windows to the left, you will notice what appears to be an enormous mound of earth. It is not simply a mound of earth; we are building our own volcano. When it is finished we are going to blast it and send all the ash to Iceland. We shall find out how they like it."

Then, when we came to the first stop: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is Terminal 2. For those of you who don't speak English, this is Terminal 2 - por favor."

What do You Want to be When You Grow Up?

Once I told my priest I never had deciphered God’s Plan for My Life - to which, I received his usual who-do-you-think-you-are? kind of answer. Not everybody can be a hero, he pointed out; not everybody can lead an illustrious life brimming with world-shaking accomplishments. Just take care of your home and your husband, he advised. Maybe that’s “all” you are called to do, he said. But if and when God deems you have done this well enough, He may add something else, in small increments.

But Sarah in Indiana has another answer. She left it in my comment box when I urged people to read Chloe’s post, “Jesus Does NOT Have a Wonderful Plan for Your Life”.   Sarah passed along what she had heard in that week's sermon, that Jesus IS God’s wonderful plan for your life.

So, so true! In Romans 8:29, St. Paul writes, “whom He foreknew, He also predestined [to be] conformed to the image of His Son…”

In Ephesians, the Apostle prays, “that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Eph. 3: 16-19)

“To be filled with all the fullness of God;” or in other words, be conformed to the image of the Son; or in Orthodox parlance, to be deified: this is the wonderful plan for each of us. This is our calling, and it is the most glorious imaginable one.

And that’s a blessed comfort for people like me who never did figure out what we wanted to be when we grew up. This is what every single one of us really, most truly, most deeply wants, the vocation for which we were all created. That's what our lives are all about. 

Yes, THAT is what I want to be someday when I grow up.

I'm Alive and Well...

... and very busy with, well, er, um, real life!

Will post more soon as I can, starting with our wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

It's a Scam

Help Needed!!!

Help! I'm sorry to be emailing you like this, but I am in need of some urgent assistance. As you have know, I've been traveling through Europe. But last night in Scotland, my worst fears came true. As we were headed back to the hotel, we were robbed but a crazy man with a GUN. He took our bags, wallets, and phones.

We have no credit cards or cash. Thankfully, we had left our passports in the safe at the hotel. We need to get back home, but we have no way to get to our flight in Germany that leaves for home today.Right now our only option is to fly home from here.

We need some money so we can purchase tickets to get to JFK, and then fly home from there. As soon as we get back home, I can repay you, I just need to get some cash to get there. If you can help, send me an email back, we have internet access from the lobby in the hotel. I'm sorry to bother you, I just didn't know how else to contact you quickly. Thanks! Rachel

Having seen and spoken to my friend Rachel on Sunday, I knew she wasn't traveling in Europe, nor could afford to, nor could drop her obligations at home. So I called her anyway, and she's right here. Someone has hijacked her e-mail account and she can't get into it. Apparently everyone in her address book has received this e-mail.

She says the same thing happened to Vangie (Evangelia) last week. What Rachel and Vangie have in common is, they go to the same church, the Greek church, where we also go.

So if, in the near future, you should see anything similar to this that purports to be from me (or Demetrios) it isn't. We are not in Europe; we are here in Richmond to stay until further notice. The best thing you can do, should you receive an e-mail like this, is to ignore it. Do not reply, lest you annoy the scammer and s/he attack your account next.

Of course, none of the foregoing means you cannot send us money if you like. Post office box number available upon request.

:-)

Can the non-Orthodox be Saved?

Last year, our dear friend Vasilea, in Greece, raised this question over dinner; for a summary of that discussion, see here.  This year, she did it again, mostly to pre-empt another endless discussion of politics.

The Orthodox Church has never taken a position on this matter.  Therefore, the only correct answer an Orthodox Christian can give is, "We don't know."  We_do_not_know.  Truly.  There is no "official" teaching of the Holy Orthodox Church.   

There is reason to doubt they can be saved; for example, they are not members of the Body of Christ, they do not, so far as we can tell, have truly Life-giving sacraments, etc., etc. 

And there is reason to believe they might nevertheless be saved, if for no other reason than that we have known God, Whose mercy is always endlessly astonishing, His ways, mysterious, His judgments, unsearchable, His Holy Spirit unconfined and unconstrained.

But we do not go by reason; we go according to revelation; and so far, the Holy Spirit has not revealed this to the Church.  So if any Orthodox Christian tells you yes, the non-Orthodox can be saved, or no, they cannot, that person is expressing his own opinion and nothing more.  Nothing more exists on the subject.  We are allowed to hope, but not to proclaim our opinion as Truth.

My own hope, my own belief, my own opinion is a resounding yes.  Yes, it is indeed possible for a non-Orthodox person to be saved.  Extra difficult, but not impossible.  Why do I think this?  Simple:  I have known Carl Harris.  And others like him.  And I think it would be blaspheming the Holy Spirit to suppose Carl did not belong to Christ.

I have known Salmon, too, who is Muslim, and my heart, with wonder and awe and joy, recognizes in him another heart belonging to Christ, even though not conceptually, for fear it would make him a polytheist.  (Yes, I do know my heart can be mistaken.  I just don't think it is, in this case.)

But don't they have their doctrines all wrong?  Sure.  But what are doctrines for?  For guiding our feet into the way of peace, which means into the way of Love.  And Love, be it carefully noted, is what we were created for; in other words, Love is built into our human nature.  Granted our nature has become corrupted.  Granted, correct doctrine and practice are incalculable advantages in overcoming that corruption; but it is not impossible, and indeed appears to me indisputable, that certain people who may not even regard themselves as Christians have nevertheless (not without Grace) found their way back to their true, natural selves, which is to say, back to Love, which is to say, to Christ.  To some extent, that is - just like you and just like me.  And to the extent they have done this, it just doesn't matter about all their mixed-up doctrine.  The purpose for which true doctrine has been revealed has been accomplished in them without it.  (Compare the passage in Romans in which St. Paul mentions that Gentiles who are without the Law [of Moses] can do "by nature" the things that are in the Law.)  At the Last Judgment, we are not going to be given a theology quiz.  We are going to be carefully examined to see how closely we resemble Christ.  It's a tautology to say those who resemble Him are the saved; that's what salvation IS, being made like Him. 

But they haven't been baptized, someone will say.  They aren't members of His Body, aren't incorporated into Him or into His Life, Who alone has immortality.  Well, Christ can baptize whomever He pleases, whenever He pleases, however He pleases.  Who can say He will not admit certain people into His Church, into His Body, on the Last Day, just as He will cut off some of the existing, dead members?

Recently, I caught Santa Claus traveling incognito.  I really do believe Christ sometimes travels incognito.

Lead, Kindly Light

In posting this hymn on Saturday, I meant to honor my dear friend, mentor, and teacher, who loved it so well. Carl loved this hymn because his life's burning desire was to follow Christ no matter what. To him, "th'encircling gloom" symbolized life's trials and sorrows, of which he had his share, or more; and his faith was to follow Christ in spite of them; and his hope, that Christ would bring him safely through them.

But I hasten to add that by posting this hymn, I did not mean to endorse its content, although it's a lovely hymn, emotionally appealing, pretty music, devout-sounding words, quoted below. 

The words were written by John Henry Newman. That's John Cardinal Newman, who so famously converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism. That rather puts a new slant to the words, doesn't it?  He's talking about what followers of the pope so often do:  blind obedience.  Just obey, and if you can't see the sense of it, or where you are going, or why,  your submission is all the more virtuous.  Wanting to choose or see your path is viewed as pride in this hymn.  Cardinal Newman is here speaking of his pre-Catholic days.  But now God (through the pope) will tell him where to put his foot next; mustn't inquire further, simply do as you're told.

What's the difference between surrendering all your responsibility, giving it all over to someone else in blind submission versus simply being led by Christ?  Well, it's the difference between night and day.  It's the difference between walking in the darkness and walking in the light, and that's why this hymn is full of "dark", and "night" and "encircling gloom". 

But blind obedience is no Christian virtue; it's just plain irresponsibility; it's ducking adulthood, and Christ never asked for it.  In fact, the opposite:  "I am the light of the world: whoever follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." (John 8:12; see also 12:46)

In Christ, we can indeed see where we are going.  We can see the whole path because He is the path.  "I am the way," says He, "and the life and the truth."  In Him, we can even see "the distant scene", which is why St. John was able to write the Apocalypse, for the distant scene, too, is Christ, the Beginning and the End of everything.  We do not walk blindly, but with clearer sight than ever before.   We understand where we're going and what is required to arrive there and why. We do not simply go by another's say-so; the Truth has been revealed to us first-hand; we can say, with Job, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now my eye sees thee."  (Job 42:5)  We walk by grace and by open-eyed choice (which is to say, by faith).  As St. John declares, "the darkness is past, and the true light now shines."  (I John 2:8)   

Here are a few more wonderful things Holy Scripture has to say of light and darkness.  You can find many more like these.

Isaiah 42:16 And I will bring the blind by a way [that] they knew not [says the Lord]; I will lead them in paths [that] they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do to them, and not forsake them.

Isaiah 9:2 The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them has the light shined.

Luke 3 1:78-79 …the Dayspring from on high has visited us;
To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,
To guide our feet into the way of peace.

2 Cor. 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to [give] the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 5:8  For you were sometimes darkness, but now [are ye] light in the Lord: walk as children of light:

I Thess. 5:5 You are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.

___________

Lead, Kindly Light

Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom, lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home; lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still will lead me on.
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till the night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile, which I
Have loved long since, and lost awhile!

(We won't bother, here, to deal with the curious idea that human beings turn into angels upon entering heaven.)

We Caught Santa Traveling Incognito

Yes, there he was, in the same room with us!  Santa Claus walked right into the little pancake house we frequent after church.  He was obviously trying not to be recognized, wearing jeans and sweatshirt, but there was no mistaking who it was, with his fat belly, his white, curly hair, white beard, sparkling blue eyes, wire-rimmed spectacles...

I waited until after he had ordered and then walked up to his table and said, "Good afternoon, Sir!"  (Probably should've said Your Grace or Your Eminence or something, seeing as he's a bishop...)

He smiled up at me.

"I didn't expect to see you here until just about a month from now," I said, breathlessly.

"Well, I got my notice in the mail this week," he replied.  (I've no idea what he was thinking at this juncture.)

I handed him my pen and a clean napkin, which was all I had to write on, and said, "Could I just trouble you for your autograph before you disappear back to the North Pole?"

"To whom shall it be addressed?" he inquired cheerfully.  I hadn't thought of that.  Um, well, okay, youngest grandkid who could appreciate it, Sydney.  So he wrote this note:

Dear Sydney,

Christ Mass is in sight
And I am watching.

Santa

"That should be 'LOVE, Santa'," I protested. 

"That's okay," he reassured me.  "She and I have met before and she knows I love her."

Then I asked whether many people had recognized him in his disguise.  "No," he said, his blue eyes twinkling.  "You're actually the first - this year, anyway."

So I walked back to our table congratulating myself on my astuteness as a detective, but then I re-read the note and began to have some qualms, because as everybody knows, St. Nicholas was/is an Orthodox saint, and, well, does that note sound to you perhaps just a bit Lutheran?

UPDATE, November 28: My qualms about this Santa Claus have proven well founded. Six-year-old Sydney saw through him right away. "He can't even spell!" she said, reading his autograph to her. I hadn't noticed it, but sure enough, he had spelled her name incorrectly.

"And he doesn't know how to spell Christmas, either," said Sydney. And although I assured her "Christ mass" was the original spelling, she didn't buy it. She didn't like the tone of the note, and tossed it aside as a fake.

I thought maybe there was something just a bit seedy about this imposter but I just didn't want to admit it to myself; he did look perhaps in need of a job. Well, maybe my mistaking his identity gave him an idea, at least, for some seasonal employment.

Jesus does NOT Have a Wonderful Plan for Your Life!

Please read this debunking of a persistent contemporary heresy.  I do not know who this Chloe is who wrote it, but it's very well said. 

Thanks to Marsha on Facebook for pointing it out, and also for the warning that the language is just slightly rough.  (Read it anyway!)

Partial List of Things That Happen While You're Gone Six Months

By the time I'd come to the end of typing this, I had to laugh. No comedy script could beat this, I'll wager!

• Your DVR is stolen.
• Your driver’s license is suspended.
• Your vehicle registration is revoked.
• Your fines accumulate compound interest.
• Your so-called right to a hearing or appeal expires.
• Your cars stop working.
• Spiders take over your house.
• Your children and/or grandchildren have birthdays.
• Friends die.
• The Internal Revenue Service discovers an error on your 2009 tax return, and you owe $300, counting all the piled-up penalties for not having replied by sometime in July.
• You are summoned for jury duty and are informed there may be an arrest warrant out for you, as you never appeared. (Suddenly, we seem to have become outlaws in every respect.)
• Your digestive system rebels and you contemplate setting up a cot in the bathroom.

 (Hint from Helen: Next time, you MUST hire some sort of service to go through your mail and notify you of anything that looks important.)

 

These are the issues that have occupied all our time since we came home; we haven’t even had time to begin planning the big family Thanksgiving to be held here. Oh, well, it’ll all come together one way or another, and we’ll still have plenty for which to be most grateful.

P.S.  Although we haven't had time to hook it up yet, our new DVR has arrived.  Things must be looking up, mustn't they?

His Other Favorite Hymn

I think Carl's choice of favorite hymns shows his character so very well. To be led by God truly was his life's aim, and God honored that deep desire and did it.

And of course, Frank Patterson sings it even better than Carl did! Carl would deeply approve of this rendition. Please listen, in his honor.

Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom, lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home; lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still will lead me on.
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till the night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile, which I
Have loved long since, and lost awhile!

Memories of Dr. Carl Harris

You loved him, loved him, from the first day of class every semester, when his lecture was always, “Learning for What?” I sat through 4 of them myself, and took notes every time. He spoke without notes, commenting on how education was not a value in itself, but was for improving virtue – or it could worsen evil. He pondered aloud the Socratic question whether virtue was more caught than taught. ("Virtue" was therefore the first Greek word every class learned, to be followed, in the same lecture, by "moderation" and "justice".) He spoke of “the golden thread” that ran through all branches of learning, uniting them, and urged us to search out and understand that thread. And you sat there feeling sort of radiant inside, even if it was the third or fourth or sixth time you’d heard this lecture.

He taught Greek, but his field was patristics, and he especially loved Origen for his allegorical interpretations of Scripture. He now and then remarked aloud how, when he grew up, the Bible had been something to cherish rather than to dissect. It was something you let judge you, instead of you judging it.

He spoon-fed us Greek, sort of one bite at a time, chew it well, digest it thoroughly, take another spoonful. He made us parse every single verb. Once on an exam I labeled a certain verb form “future subjunctive” and afterward said how idiotic I felt, because there is no future subjunctive in Greek. His comment, beaming, was, “But it’s good this happened, because now you’ll never forget it again.”

Once I had a dream in which Dr. Harris’ mother died and he was departing for home from a train station, and I ran up to him and said, “You are not to worry! Remember that whether in life or in death, there is no separation for those who are in Christ.” When I woke up, I had an incredibly strong urge to go and tell him this dream, but of course that was stupid, so I didn’t. The next night I dreamed it again, and then a third time, and each time, the feeling I should tell him about it strengthened, until finally I did. I found him in his office and I blurted out the dream and I said, “I know it’s just dumb, but somehow I had to tell you.”

He said, “You see this band-aid on my cheek? I’ve had a growth removed. That was done Monday (the day I’d first had the dream) and now I’m waiting for the results of the biopsy. I’ll find out on Friday. But meanwhile, I won’t worry. I’ll remember, there is no separation.”

So we both stared at each other with tears in our eyes.

And from that day, there was this mysterious connection between us. I can’t remember all the ways in which this would show up, but I can remember the peskiest one: I could always tell, even before I saw him any given day, whether his arthritic knees were hurting, because my own, non-arthritic knees would hurt when his did, and only when his did. And I was glad to be there, more than a decade later, when he had the surgery to replace both knees.

He had a good singing voice, so I once asked him to sing at a social event, but he declined. I said I was hoping he would sing, “Balm in Gilead,” and he looked startled and said, “That’s my favorite hymn!” I had not known that, but he sang it after all, and beautifully, too. (His other favorite hymn was, “Lead, Kindly Light.”)

Our class, which had been together for two years by the time we finished New Testament Greek, all chipped in at the end of the year to buy Dr. Harris a full set of The Interpreter’s Bible, and each student inscribed one volume of it.

That was mostly just for love, but also partly to make up to him for pranks we had played. In one of them, we all agreed to sit up and look alert and interested whenever his pacing would bring him to the right side of the classroom, and to slump and look bored and sleepy whenever he moved to the left. Before the class was over, he was standing almost exclusively on the right, much to our amusement.

Like very, very many of his students, I kept in touch with him for many years after I had graduated. Our correspondence only tapered off when Demetrios and I began going abroad every year; that made things more difficult.

All the good things said about him in the obituary are gross understatements. He didn’t just have a “genuine concern for the people around him,” he was madly in love with everybody. He didn’t just have good manners; he was the sort who, before you’d sit down, would pull his handkerchief from his pocket and dust off the seat of the chair. He didn’t merely see beauty and love in his life; he saw Christ, and followed Christ, and Christ shone from him to all those around.

He had some heavy crosses to bear, and he bore them with patience, love, gratitude, and unblemished character.

Refrain

There is a balm in Gilead
To make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead
To heal the sin sick soul.

Some times I feel discouraged,
And think my work’s in vain,
But then the Holy Spirit
Revives my soul again.

Refrain

If you cannot sing like angels,
If you cannot preach like Paul,
You can tell the love of Jesus,
And say He died for all.

Refrain

Please excuse me now, while I limp off toward Gilead.