I am fascinated by the depictions of the account of David and Goliath in art. Here is a smattering of paintings from Reubens, Carvaggio, Michelangelo, and others. The story can be found in I Samuel 17.
I like the ones that accurately depict a young unsuspecting shepherd boy defeating a huge warrior. No Geneva Convention here!
Yes it is true…you can now audit any class offered at MIT online, no charge…also no credit. But if learning is what you want, here you have it. There are over 1800 courses available…wow!
Recently I heard a dear friend preach and he illustrated a point by quoting Vince Lombardi. This lead me to look in to a few of his quotes. Here is the cream that I found:
Fatigue makes cowards of us all.
If you cheat in practice, you’ll cheat in the game. If you cheat in the game, you’ll cheat in life.
If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.
It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up again.
Execution wins it.
Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.
The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must all pay for success.
The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.
The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence, regardless of his chosen field of endeavor.
The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of knowledge, not a lack of strength, but rather, a lack of wills.
If it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, why do they keep score?
I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle — victorious.
The good Lord gave you a body that withstand almost anything, it is your mind you must convince.
I have it from reliable sources that occasionally women will go shopping for clothes and spend several hours at a store, and try on clothes, and go to another store, and try on some more clothes, and then leave the store, and come home with nothing. This is puzzling to me…but the same thing often happens to me when I read my Bible. I read and read and finish, and come away with nothing.
A friend of mine-Mike Mills, also one of the most faithful Bible readers I know- put together this set of questions to make your window shopping in scripture a little more profitable. The idea is to spend time thinking about what you are reading and ask several questions that will help you nourish your soul. Here are the questions, I just put them in mnemonic form. According to my wife I am pathological about that 🙂 The pdf document is below. I am using this as a companion for my own Bible reading.
1. Is there a promise from God?
2. Is there an example to follow?
3. Is there a truth I am called to believe?
4. Is there a sin to confess?
5. Is there a command to obey?
6. Is there a new thought about God?
7. Is there an error to avoid?
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This is a great poem, I always enjoy it…
A Poison Tree
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine.
And he knew that it was mine,
And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
William Blake
This is funny and pure genious. Very funny especially if you are a parent.
Canon in D will never be the same!
Notice that there is a new version of this video which has the ad for his CD. This song is so good that I knew eventually it would be sold.
Dr. Sigmund Freud Discovers the Sea Shell
Science, that simple saint, cannot be bothered
Figuring what anything is for:
Enough for her devotions that things are
And can be contemplated soon as gathered.
She knows how every living thing was fathered,
She calculates the climate of each star,
She counts the fish at sea, but cannot care
Why any one of them exists, fish, fire or feathered.
Why should she? Her religion is to tell
By rote her rosary of perfect answers.
Metaphysics she can leave to man:
She never wakes at night in heaven or hell
Staring at darkness. In her holy cell
There is no darkness ever: the pure candle
Burns, the beads drop briskly from her hand.
Who dares to offer Her the curled sea shell!
She will not touch it!–knows the world she sees
Is all the world there is! Her faith is perfect!
And still he offers the sea shell . . .
What surf
Of what far sea upon what unknown ground
Troubles forever with that asking sound?
What surge is this whose question never ceases?
Archibald MacLeish
This is a poem I wrote last year, while taking an anatomy class. It is probably nothing to be proud of, but it makes me chuckle. It also makes it hard to deny that I sometimes suffer from mental derangement:
Ode to Capillaries
Capillaries deserve great respect,
Great wisdom in design they reflect
Arterioles and venules they connect
The blood comes here after it’s trekked,
To vessels so small we cannot inspect,
Nutrients and oxygen they like to eject,
And gather the waste that tends to collect
And wash out the stuff that tries to infect,
My fav-o-rite vessel if I had to select.
Matt Troupe
5/07
MattTroupe.net 