healing comes in waves
and maybe today
the wave hits the rock
and that's ok,
that's ok, darling
you are still healing
you are still healing
Nigel Barley: Cameroon youth on what happens when you die
23 September 2022
“What happens to a man’s powers/soul/spirit after he dies?” I tried querulously, like a vicar hoping to get a current affairs discussion going at a youth club. They ignored me. Then one young man turned round and snapped, “How should I know? Am I God?”
—Nigel Barley in The Innocent Anthropologist, describing a conversation with locals in Cameroon
Cited by Stephen Jones
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Photo by Bill Adams
Photo by Bill Adams
On his deathbed, Lope de Vega dares to dislike Dante
18 February 2009
All right, now I 'll say it. Dante makes me sick.
--Lope de Vega (1562-1635), Spanish poet and playwright, on his deathbed
De acuerdo, entonces, lo diré: Dante me hace enfermar.
Negro spiritual: Nobody knows the trouble I see
24 April 2007
Nobody knows the trouble I see,
nobody knows but Jesus.
Nobody knows the trouble I see,
glory hallelujah
Sometimes I’m up,
sometimes I’m down,
oh yes Lord,
sometimes I’m almost to the ground,
oh yes Lord.
Nobody knows the trouble I see,
nobody knows but Jesus.
Nobody knows the trouble I see,
glory hallelujah.
Sometimes I'm up,
sometimes I'm down,
oh yes Lord,
but all the time I'm heavenly bound,
oh yes Lord.
If you get there before I do,
oh yes Lord,
tell all my friends I'm coming too,
oh yes Lord.
--This is a beautiful old spiritual whose slow, sad music conveys the tragedy of slavery. It was sung in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1865. You can hear Paul Robeson singing it here.
Augustine of Hippo: The dead are invisible
24 April 2005
The dead are invisible, not absent.
--Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
[If anyone has the original Latin, please send it to me. Thanks]