Peace Like A River


It was a wide river, mistakable for a lake or even an ocean unless you'd been wading and knew its current. Somehow I'd crossed it... Now I saw the stream regrouped below, flowing on through what might've been vineyards, pastures, orhards... It flowed between and alongside the rivers of people; from here it was no more than a silver wire winding toward the city. - Leif Enger, Peace Like A River

Tuesday, August 05, 2003

Last night did one of my favorite things, I went shopping for clothes. Actually, got some pretty good deals. Kohls was practically giving stuff away, 80% off on a lot of things. I got 5 or 6 pairs of pants, about 9 shirts and a pair of shorts all for about $110. Some of the pants and shirts were $5, or even $3. It was all summery inventory, so I suppose they were trying to get rid of it to make room for fall stuff. That's one thing about this area though. You'll see sales like this, whereas in Minot I don't remember seeing sales with this much stuff discounted to that extent.

We had dropped John off at Bible School before going to Kohls. The VBS is at the church where he had Bible Academy. However, it must have been a little overwhelming for him. Rhonda said there were something like 15 kids in his group, and he may have been expecting it to be like Bible Academy, but in any case, I guess he started crying after awhile. They took him to the nursery, where he did fine. Rhonda said they tried again, and he was ok for awhile, but then cried again. So, poor little guy. Probably too much strange stimulation. So, don't know if we'll try him again tonight.

history nugget of the day:

A 13th-century religious scholar visiting the abbey church at Kells, Ireland gazed in astonishment at the 680 parchment pages of an intricately decorated manuscript of the four Gospels, declaring, "You might believe it was the work of an angel, not of a man." Over the hundreds of years since its discovery, the Book of Kells has elicited many such expressions of awe.


Long considered a masterpiece of Western art, the Book of Kells contains St. Jerome's Latin text of the Gospels in an exquisite ornamental calligraphy, known as majuscule. It is the supreme representation of the labors of Irish monks to preserve sacred texts, Greek and Roman classics, and other works of the West's religious, literary, and folk heritage.

No one knows for certain when or where the Book of Kells was made, though many scholars believe it was the work of monks at the abbey founded by St. Columba on Iona, an island off Scotland's western coast. If so, it was likely made just before AD 807, when Iona was attacked and destroyed by Vikings. The surviving monks fled back to Ireland, taking refuge in the abbey at Kells. The first reference to the famed manuscript in Ireland comes in 1006 in the Annals of Ulster, which report: "The great Gospel of Columcille (Columba), the chief relic of the Western world was stolen from the abbey church at Kells." The manuscript was eventually found and returned, minus only its cover, which was studded with gold and jewels.

A Swiss facsimile publisher has produced a limited edition of 1,480 copies of the Book of Kells, with perfectly matching wormholes and uneven page cuts. Experts have deemed the copies virtually indistinguishable from the original, which is on display in the University Library of Trinity College, Dublin, where it has resided since 1661.

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