Author Topic: powerful phrase  (Read 2105 times)

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Offline franksolich

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powerful phrase
« on: October 04, 2008, 08:21:14 AM »
Yesterday, Friday, the neighbor was over here while I was sorting through old paperwork, and noticed my will, a document a little bit less than a page and a half long.

What caught his eye was the beginning of the document, "In the Name of God, Amen."

Then when he was reading it--there's nothing personal in it; it's just a simple will--he noticed that of the eight paragraphs of it, seven are dedicated to describing the Glory, the Power, the Majesty, of God.

Now, that might seem a rather unusual sort of will, but it of course conforms with all laws, the first paragraph dealing with an executor and disposal of property.

I've had a will since I was 18 years old--this is the third one, little changed from the previous two--because with the death of the parents some time before then, it stuck me as a good idea to have a will.  Little did I foresee (at the age of 18) that I would very soon be having far more experience with wills and estates than one normally expects.

Anyway, the first will was derived from the will of Richard II of England (reigned 1377-1399), written shortly after his young wife died, and shortly before he, also young, died.  That medieval document was enormous, 23 pages or something on very large sheets of parchment.....and Richard II disposed of the whole of England in only a short first paragraph, all that followed being his acknowledgement of God.

That will started off the same way mine does, but in Latin, not English.

The neighbor agreed that my own will sounds, well, medieval Roman Catholic.

"Something Thomas Becket or Roger Bacon would've written."

Well, it's just me; I can't help but to be myself.

I take this phrase, "In the Name of God, Amen," seriously, very seriously, even though I suspect I'm more formally religious than really religious.

About ten years ago, an immigration attorney asked me to swear an affidavit on behalf of a Russian kid seeking asylum in the United States.  I wrote the whole thing--it was 60,000+ words, and I smoked a couple of entire cartons of cigarettes while writing it, so intense the experience was--describing names, dates, and places I had first-hand and up-close observed the treatment of those of Judaic derivation in the Russian and Ukrainian armies.

I gave what was to be the first draft to the attorney, who demanded to use it with no changes, no changes at all, and who expressed that my starting the document with "In the Name of God, Amen" was a "stroke of solemn genius," a stark and straightforward indictment of how people are treated in socialist paradises of the workers and peasants with free medical care for all.

I'm not sure how I came to use the phrase, but I suspect it was after reading a biography of William II of England (reigned 1087-1100)--that would've been about the time I wrote my first will.

There was a story in this biography, about how when William II decided to invade Ireland, he first sent a letter to the miscellany of Irish chieftains, threatening to lay waste to them.  And it was a powerful threat; the king of England was coming over with a modern army, thousands of well-disciplined and well-skilled fighting men, capable of making mincemeat of the semi-barbaric, semi-naked, Irishmen in little or no time.

One of the animal-skinned chieftains, though, noticed something peculiar about the message; the absence of a certain phrase that was in common use when one announced he was about to undertake something.

"He comes to lay waste to us--but what, no 'if it pleases God' to lay waste to us; he comes as merely the king of England, a mere mortal man, without God."

By all logic, strategy, weaponry, skill, and numbers, William II should have laid waste to Ireland and all in it, but that didn't happen.  William II lost, and lost big time, against a few hundred primitive Irishmen.
apres moi, le deluge

Offline franksolich

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Re: powerful phrase
« Reply #1 on: November 05, 2008, 03:26:19 PM »
Did anybody notice if the Big Zero mentioned God in his speech last night?

It might perhaps seem silly, almost medieval, in these days of "reason" and "rationality" and "scientific" and all that where, just because one can't understand or comprehend something, it doesn't exist.

Of course, given that reality is Infinite, and human "reason" and "science" is finite, limited, that's a pretty silly way to be, but some people can't help being silly.

When I was a little lad, I used to spend some summer afternoons with an old guy who for some reason used to load up his pigs--about six or seven of them--into the back of his pick-up truck, and take them for scenic rides alongside the Platte River.  He had this notion it helped the pigs' morale and gave them a sense of well-being.

Anyway, he was the earthy sort, and used language decent and civilized people did not use.  One time I chided him, protesting that while the last four letters of the word were okay for adults, the first three letters of the word were not.

He ventured to explain to me, the best one can with a deaf child, that it was (is) important to acknowledge God in all things.

Even if one Hates God, or is indifferent to God, even if it's just lip service, it's something one had (has) to do.

As I grew older, and since, it has been my observation that those who credit their success to themselves, and to other people, and to God, continue to flourish and prosper and attain higher heights, while those who credit their success only to themselves, and to other people, sooner or later hit a road-block, sometimes a really bad one.

If the Big Zero didn't mention God last night, the Big Zero's going to get in trouble.
apres moi, le deluge

Offline Wineslob

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Re: powerful phrase
« Reply #2 on: November 07, 2008, 12:53:29 PM »
Quote
If the Big Zero didn't mention God last night, the Big Zero's going to get in trouble.





In God I trust.  :-)
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