On this day:
1191Third Crusade: Saladin’s garrison surrenders to Conrad of Montferrat, ending the two-year siege of Acre.
1562
Fray Diego de Landa, acting Bishop of Yucatan, burns the sacred books of the Maya.
1690
Battle of the Boyne (Julian calendar) – The armies of William III defeat those of the former James II.
1691
Battle of Aughrim (Julian calendar) – The decisive victory of William III of England’s forces in Ireland.
1789
French revolutionary and radical journalist Camille Desmoulins gave a speech, following hearing the news that France’s financial minister Jacques Necker has been dismissed. The speech called the citizens to arms, which lead to the falling of the Bastille two days later.
1948
Arab–Israeli War: Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion orders the explusion of Palestinians from the towns of Lod and Ramla.
Socialists do not want to defund the police; they want to defund your police.
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Senator Lindsey Graham died on Saturday evening following a "brief and sudden illness."
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China is expected to lose more than 780 million people, more than half its population, by 2100.
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Why is the State Department not involved in the Iran negotiations?
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Sunday/The Sower
Today's gospel is the gospel of the sower. These rural parables have a georgic quality, the practical set on a larger and natural law.
Georgic is defined as a poem dealing with practical aspects of agriculture and rural affairs. The model for such verse in postclassical literature was Virgil’s Georgica, itself modeled on a now-lost Geōrgika (Greek: “agricultural things”) by the 2nd-century BC Greek poet Nicander of Colophon.
Olivia Butler has two novels, The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents, in which she offers a Darwinian religion based upon the foundation of the universe: Change.
The last several Gospels are filled with parables, so many that the Apostles finally ask Christ why he speaks in parables. He replies,
"Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand."
"Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand."
So is Christ saying that the human brain ruminates on concepts and works through them with more positive results than simply hearing a didactic lesson or a convincing argument?
Robert Frost - 1874-1963
Putting in the Seed
You come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper's on the table, and we'll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree.
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;)
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.
When supper's on the table, and we'll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree.
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;)
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.
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