Well, after three consecutive days of unending rain, it’s finally stopped. The sun is still not out, but I’ll take slowly clearing sky as a sign of better things to come.
The ground is well beyond being saturated and I expect that we’ll have several trees toppled over from last nights winds. Unless they fall on the road or across a fence they can wait until this spring to be cleared. I put hay out for the cattle yesterday and had to carefully pick my way across the pasture, avoiding low areas, to keep from chewing up he wet fields.
The rain also kept me from putting my garlic into the soil. I really wanted to get the garlic planted yesterday (22nd) to align their planting with an old almanac’s suggestion that it should be planted on the shortest day of the year (winter solstice) and harvested on the longest day of the year (summer solstice). Given that the winter solstice is actually pretty close to three days long (three days of equal length from the 22 through the 24, give or take a minute or two), I guess that I’ll still be doing right by the old wives tale if the soil is dry enough by tomorrow to plant.
Last year I planted the cloves on the end sections of several of the planting boxes; this year I’ll put them all in the same 4 X 12 foot box.
I spend more time contemplating God, His Spirit, and the meaning of Christ during this three day period than I do all year long. I can understand the reason the old timers moved the celebration of Christs birth to the winter solstice (although I believe they missed the mark symbolically).
A few weeks ago I mentioned the 50th Saying. It has a lot to do with light. Closely related to it, and also on the subject of light, is the 83rd Saying in the Gospel of Thomas. It goes:
Blatz:
Jesus said: The images are revealed to man, and the light which is in them is hidden in the image of the light of the Father. He will reveal himself, and his image is hidden by his light.
Layton:
Jesus said, “Images are visible to human beings. And the light within these (images) is hidden by the image of the father’s light; it will be disclosed. And his image is hidden by his light
Doressee:
Jesus says: “Images are visible to man, but the light which is in them is hidden. In the image of the light of the Father, it will be revealed, and his image will be veiled by his light.”
As you can see there are subtle differences between the way the verse is translated. These differences can significantly change what the verse imparts. Given that life is a mystery, I see no reason that these saying, despite being seemingly simple, should be any different!
As with all of the sayings within this gospel, there is a website (here) that lends many ‘expert’ voices to what they saying may mean. The most esoteric on this site was offered by Gerd Ludemann, he says:
“The logion defines the relationship between image, light and Father. Cf. Gospel of Philip 67: ‘The truth did not come naked into the world, but came in types and images. It (= the world) will not (be able to) receive it otherwise.’