TGBC, Dorcas et al

The black is good and, a square from a pound plus bar at TJs Tallahassee, the dark has almonds. Outside is clear and cool, good for this morning's walk in The Cove.

See, I'm reading The Great War and Modern Memory (P Fussell 1975), the horror of World War One with its overwhelming sense of desolating senselessness, thousands upon thousands of soldiers, men, human beings in well-finished permanent trenches fighting back and forth across a hundred-yard no-man's-land, their only discernible purpose to kill each other for no moral reason. To add reality to it, last evening I watched a number of newsreels, both German and English, then to Youtube to open All Quiet on the Western Front first 1930 but that was pocked by the bright light mid-screen to discourage freeloaders like me, then to the 1979 film with Ernest Borgnine and Richard Thomas, soul crushing. Not to turn to this morning's news of war that will never end, ants killing ants of the next mound in an infinitely expanding universe. Is evil our nature? Surely we are not live entertainment for the heavenly beings of Job 1:6f? 

On to TGBC reading for this morning - - 


Acts 9:32-43

The Healing of Aeneas

 Now as Peter went here and there among all the believers, he came down also to the saints living in Lydda. There he found a man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden for eight years, for he was paralysed. Peter said to him, ‘Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; get up and make your bed!’ And immediately he got up. And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.

Peter in Lydda and Joppa


 Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, ‘Please come to us without delay.’ So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, ‘Tabitha, get up.’ Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. Meanwhile he stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner.