This morning I discovered this line in Proverbs, "my kidneys will exult when your lips speak uprightness." I had the following thoughts:
Kidneys? Why kidneys? That's weird. That's like Edith Wharton mentioning bananas weird-- it has to be some kind of cultural signifier that I'm not aware of. I'll try to Google kidney bible or role of kidney in biblical times. (bananas signify wealth)
Then I went to the bathroom and peed out my coffee and thought:
Oh! Kidneys, like the purifiers of the body! Did they know that back then? Is that why the kidneys will be happy when you take in Jesus?
Hmmm.
I confess to reading the bible only when I am in a contentious mood. Which means my husband should live on the roof. (read Proverbs 21:9)
I've also been re-reading The Energy of Delusion by Viktor Shklovsky. I've been going over the chapter called, "Everything in Life can be Montaged." I can't list all the fantastic quotes from his man because I would basically be transcribing the whole book. Here are a few:
"He (Tolstoy) detests people talking about precision as if it were realism."
"Reality is not the depiction of the mundane."
"He (Tolstoy) wants to show the strangeness of the mundane-- through detail."
"In Tolstoy's fiction, details are written as if in a different handwriting; the willful intrusion of the wide-frame shot into the main theme is intentionally emphasized."
And lastly, have you read Adam Kirsch? His book of poems Invasions was released in 2008. He uses traditional forms. He is amazingly good. Here is one of his poems:
The Gothic silhouette and flying spire
Address the campus with a confidence
Inherited from buttresses and choirs
Adapted to the Catholic skies of France.
If at the swinging summons of the bell
The snow-blind distance gradually revealed
A feudal Sunday's lost processional
Of ox-drawn peasants and their mounted lord,
It would be less surprising than the sight
Of so few Christians in these ranks of pews,
Who gather out of homesickness or habit
To hear the echoes of the old good news--
Waiting until the concrete dorms decay
For these stone arches' rediscoverer
To envy or regret the certainty
Of dead parishioners that never were.
Dude, I'm gonna post my word count every Friday at 3. Sound good?
4 comments:
The biblical view of the kidney differs radically from the modern perception. For example, there is no reference in the Bible to the fact that the kidneys make urine. The kidneys were viewed as the seat of conscience and of ethical feelings and yearnings, and the source of morality and ethical activity. The kidneys were believed to be associated with the innermost parts of the personality. There are references to God examining the ethical nature of man through the kidneys or punishing man by injuring the kidneys. The fat around the kidneys was considered to be of special value for sacrifice and may have symbolized luxury or opulence. Much of the biblical understanding of the anatomy of the kidneys and the anatomic relationships between the kidneys, perirenal fat and the liver appears to be derived from observations made in domestic animals.
--American Journal of Nephrology
After the kidneys it was the bowels.
huh? that's weird too.
it was joke and i didn't get it. doh.
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