Thursday, December 4, 2008

The Saga in 50 words

I have been tagged to put a life's saga into 50 words. I suppose it must be mine. The mused examples given here are intriguing.

My example was 52 words as written. I dropped 2 repeats. (The Hebrew is commentary and doesn't count.) I wrote it on the plane from Victoria to London. I type it at my daughter's just prior to a carol service at Selwyn this evening.

I knew you. יְדַעְתִּיךָ
Who dares to claim?
Depart from me
I never knew you.
Is there gospel?
Yes - that's why I continue.
It is not by my many claims or my firm belief בְּכָל־לִבִּי
but by your knowledge of me.
I have no other reason to be
nor reason for speaking.

And now - whom will I tag? Only those who are moved to be so tagged - what have you written recently that encapsulates your thought in 50 words or less in that slightly alkaline 1 and 1/2 pound jellyware computer you have carried between your shoulder blades all your life?

I would almost tag the anonymous but personal Iyov and the equally anonymous but not so well contextualized Wrong. Of the named, Kathy the writer from whom we have not heard for so long, or scott of the little letters, or Duane whose Friday loanwords enrich us each week. But tagging is hard for a lone fellow on the outskirts of the spiral town, (and I would not presume to know these as readers or even the many who might read that I don't know or especially the many that I have not read) so I will let you, any reader, consider yourself tagged.

4 comments:

scott gray said...

torn between sense and non-sense,
between knowing and not-knowing,
between believing and not believing,
between standards and practicalities,
between holding on and letting go,
between paddling and drifting,
between loving with abandon and hating with conditions,
between speaking and listening--
a settled, restless eclesiastes.
hardly a 'narrative of heroic exploits.'

scott

J. K. Gayle said...

Thank you for sharing, yours.

You've profoundly connected (for) us that "οὐδέποτε ἔγνων ὑμᾶς" to your "Yes - that's why I continue." Thank you for your Hebrew, the language which does "count" in very different and always helpful ways! (I'm continuing to read, which is to reread again and again, what you wrote). Thanks again!

Bob MacDonald said...

Thanks to you scott and JK for your comments. I feel I am too obscure. Secundud is working up a related story ... to come

Bob MacDonald said...

I mean Secundus!!!