Eight days a week/Is not enough to...do all I care to do.

Eight days, it has been eight days since I last posted here. That's eight days I virtually disappeared online. I barely Tweeted, seldom Status Stated, didn't Blog.  I owe all my fellow writers I follow an apology because I even fell way behind on keeping up my reading.

I did continue to take my wife out to dinner several times a week and say hello to my kids occasional and call my mother so I wasn't a complete hermit.

In fact, we even got out this Saturday for a little jaunt now that all the snow has melted and the rain stayed away a bit (it came back in torrents Sunday and Monday -- the rain, not the snow).

Our jaunt does make a bit of a sad commentary on the times, though. We have always been big journers to Philadelphia often to just walk around. It isn't all that far away, a half hour to 45 minutes depending on the curse of I-95 and the traffic terror. Of course, I worked in Philly for 20 years in my early careers and we lived there during the Hippie era. My wife was born in the city and lived in it as a child. It is hardly a strange place to us. Maybe it is now.

When my wife awoke I asked if she wanted to go up to philly, and usually she jumps at any chance, but she hesitated. Why?  Because of these flash mobs that have infested it like some rampant, rabid, random swarm of locust recently. I  never feared the city, but I have to agree with her now. They are unpredictable, can sweep in anywhere at anytime and can be nasty.

Yes, some of it is simply the ways of the young, a kind of rush, a kick, a giggle. Some appear just as a pack looking for a connection and a laugh and cause little harm. But too many come pushing and shoving and knocking down others or with vandalism and theft in mind.  I don't know where it will go. It is an invitation to violence and mayhem and it may spread.

So we skipped the city (and I find we are not alone in this. I spoke with others on Sunday who have also stopped going to the City of Brotherly Love because it is becoming the City of Unbrotherly Shove.

It was a nice day, so what to do, where to go. The first place to go is the Internet. If technology can bring trouble, it can also solve quandaries.

We discovered a delightful, interesting museum that day called the Bigg's Museum of American Art. It is located in a historic section of our state capital, Dover, about an hour drive away down Route 1. I nor my wife had ever heard of it, which is a shame on us. It has about 14 Galleries each representing a period in United States History. In these galleries are paintings and some statuary, but mostly furniture and other everyday objects from each of these periods. It is very interesting to see these style changes this way and to learn what some of the terms mean.

The place was not crowded on that late Saturday afternoon, in fact, we seemed to be the only ones there. The curators were very friendly. If you are in that area stop in and spend an hour or so. And one of the best features is it is free.

We were out of the place just after 4:00 a bit too early for dinner and since my wife's leg was bothering her, we didn't take a long walk about the buildings in the area to kill an hour. Instead we headed north until we came to what is know here-abouts as the 13-40 split. There we made a U-turn down Route 40 to McGwynn's Irish Pub for some good comfort food. They have my favorite assorted cheese and fruit appetizer plate there.

Anyway, a bit of a getting away from my getting dug in to accomplish something last week.

As I have noted elsewhere, in older Blogs and on Facebook, a year ago I made a pledge to myself to do my own harmony of the Gospels. It was to be more than the usual harmony. I would weave the four Gospels into a single narrative and then comment on the passages as I went, so it became a harmonized Commentary on the Gospels.

I did it for myself, for my own spiritual enlightenment and my own better knowledge of whom I believe in, Jesus Christ, his life and his teachings. Thus I called it "Nitewrit's Own Harmony". I decided to do it as a Blog, however. Putting it in front of others makes it a commitment with accountability.  I have begun too many things in my life where I started well out of the blocks only to sit down on the sideline far from the finish line. Having someone else seeing it, reading it, even if only one other, would keep me focused on the goal.

It has been slow but steady going. There is no rush. I want to study as a go, not just go.

Then I realized a mistake at the beginning. I had chosen to use for the Scripture texts of the NIV Bible. Even though I am not quoting that text straight out, but interweaving the verses together, it is still too close to be considered permissible under their copyright. I knew I could not continue using it. I decided to change the Scripture text to that from the King James Bible, which is in the Public Domain.

I had to go back and replace all the NIV with the KJV. And as I did I began to correct any typos or misspellings I found. Then I found myself adding new material to my commentary. That is where I have been these last eight days, absorbed in the Word of God my every spare moment. Not that there is anything wrong with that!

Last night I finally finished converting all I had done so far. Now I can get back to Blogging, to reading other people, to communicating with friends. I can also now continue to add to the Harmony from where I last stopped, which was where John the Baptist was imprisoned by Herod the Great.  In other words, I still have a long way to go having only reached the third or fourth chapters in the Four Gospels.

That much of the Bible text might typically take 32 pages. My Harmony-Commentary has reached 168 pages and 40,000 words at this point. I'm am very serious about my studying.

Although this is an act of love I started for myself, I hope some of you will occasionally visit www.nitewrit.info and read it. Perhaps there will be something new, perhaps it will lead you to your own deeper study. I believe even someone who is not a Christian could learn from it and get a better understanding of why we believe what we believe and some insight into the history and times of Christ.

Anyway, that is what happened to me the last eight days and frankly, I could almost use eight day weeks I seem so busy anymore. I though these were retirement years where we just sat about mouldering?















Illustration: "Juggler at the Pennsylvania Renaissance faire" by nitewrit, 2004