Lord, Open The King's Eyes!

The full expression of William Tyndale's last words today in 1536 before he was strangled and burned at the stake was "Lord, open the King of England's Eyes!" The king in question being Henry the Eighth (I am I am), and the offense being his translation of the Bible from the original Hebrew and Greek into English -- as opposed to the Latin it was translated into from the original Hebrew and Greek by Jerome eleven centuries earlier -- that directly challenged the Church of England. That, and Tyndale produced another work that objected to Henry's first divorce from Catherine (or Aragon) on Scriptural grounds. After Tyndale's death I turn the account to Wikipedia:

"His dying prayer that the King of England's eyes would be opened seemed to find its fulfillment just two years later [1538] with Henry's authorization of the Great Bible for the Church of England—which was largely Tyndale's own work. Hence, the Tyndale Bible, as it was known, continued to play a key role in spreading Reformation ideas across the English-speaking world and, eventually, to the British Empire."


Seventy-three years later we come to the King James Version, but that's another story. Please forgive me, I usually word that a lot better but yesterday I took a fall at my office around one in the afternoon and my left side is a welt of bruises; not sure if I can attribute that to a sudden blood sugar drop or just clumsiness. But this weekend has been a blur, when Martha hasn't been at work or church or I've been purging my Facebook account or been at church (Sunday between services parents and kids were assembling school kits to be sent to Syrian refugee children) but Sunday night we got to assemble together and watch the movie Do You Believe? at Cornerstone Presbyterian here in town


and enjoy a pot luck while we were there! And among the books that I've read and finished this weekend include mental_floss presents: Condensed Knowledge, one of those multilayered fact books on every subject under the rainbow that I'd read and reread and REREAD when I was younger -- but this one (ISBN 0060568062) and J. Gerlach's The Nez Perce Indians (ISBN 9781934620168) about the tribe along the Pacific Northwest that got driven back by expanding American settlements, especially famous for Chief Joseph's surrender: "I will fight no more forever." And one more thing before I close on "Mirror, Mirror Day" -- the titular Star Trek episode appeared today, 1967.


Tonight I get to be my son Jeffrey's den leader for his Cub Scout den for the first time. CO-den leader, actually; at the end of last month the troop met at Christ Lutheran Church across from Longfellow (Jeffrey and Sarah's school) and Jeffrey's troop split off there and the man who's been leading Jeffrey's den for three years now -- he has a son in Scouts too -- has twelve, and soon fifteen there and he admitted in front of several parents needing help. I poked up my hand last Tuesday (and I do have a backup, so it's not so bad) and tonight we're supposed to be learning how to cut with a pocket knife. Nervous and excited at the same time; I expect we all are though.


My eyes, MY EYES!!!


David

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