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Psalms and Hens and CNN
December 05, 2005 - 11:26 p.m.

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Voting continues at Canadian Blog Awards. No idea how I'm doing, since the post-vote page that gives you the standings doesn't list by name. Probably better that I don't know, eh?

I've again been digging through my old pal, St. Benedict. This time it's for a history paper...I'm tracking the psalmody through the various monastic hours. When is what read, which psalms are repeated over and over, and why might that be?

One minor issue is the fact that Benedict used the Greek system of numbering psalms...all the Bibles I own number them by the Hebrew numbers. There are just enough quirks to make the whole thing a big old mess. I spent the better part of today making a chart of every psalm said at all eight offices (Vigils, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline) over seven days. So...much...grunt...work...

I've also been reading for my class on the Trinity.

But you, too, good Jesus, are you not also a mother?
Are you not a mother who like a hen gathers her chicks beneath her wings?
And you, my soul, dead in yourself,
run under the wings of Jesus your mother
and lament your griefs under his feathers.
Ask that your wounds may be healed
and that, comforted, you may live again.
Christ, my mother, you gather your chicks under your wings;
This dead chick of yours puts himself under those wings...
Warm your chick, give life to your dead one, justify your sinner.

- Anselm of Canterbury

I've always liked that image, of Jesus as a mother hen. (Matthew 23:37) It was the feeling I had when I first took communion, surrounded in love as I walked back to my pew.

I made the mistake of checking CNN.com today...is it just me, or are we humans behaving worse every day?

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