“If we wish to find a scapegoat on whose shoulders we may lay the miseries which Germany has brought upon the world — I am more and more convinced that the worst evil genius of that country is not Hitler or Bismarck or Frederick the Great, but Martin Luther.” Reverend William Ralph Inge,

1944.http://www.jpost.com/Blogs/The-Jewish-Problem—From-anti-Judaism-to-anti-Semitism/Foundations-of-the-Holocaust-Martin-Luther-Theologian-of-Hate-365321

Did Luther Suffer from Recurring Depression?

“1) Martin Luther: the Christian Between God and Death, Richard Marius (Harvard University Press, 1999, 576 pages):

[H]e was perhaps like many others at the time prone to melancholy — we would say say depression, even (as modern psychological jargon has it) “clinical” depression of a sort that might require treatment by a good paternal figure.

(p. 54)

She [his wife] was a consolation to him in his bouts with tristitia, a word meaning “sadness” that I think is here best translated by “depression,” attacks that he said in 1533 were greater afflictions than all his enemies and labors . . . He had these attacks often, he said . . .

(p. 439)

2) Martin Luther, Michael A. Mullett (Routledge, 2004, 240 pages), mentions Luther’s “recurrent bouts of depression” (p. 256).

3) True Faith in the True God: An Introduction to Luther’s Life and Thought, Hans Schwarz, translated by Mark Williams Worthing (Augsburg Books, 1996),

[H]e was frequently plagued by sickness during the remaining decade of his life, especially from pain caused by stones but also by severe headaches and depression.

(p. 33)

4) The Cambridge Companion to Martin Luther, by Donald K. MacKim (Cambridge University Press, 2003, 338 pages), cites “occasional bouts with what may tentatively be identified as clinical depression” (p. 266).
5) Martin Luther: His Road to Reformation, 1483-1521, by Martin Brecht, translated by James F. Schaaf (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993; at least 529 pages):

When we survey Luther’s illnesses after 1527, it is obvious that in the meantime he had become an unstable man. Again and again can be seen the connection between his circulatory problems and an emotional depression, combined with his spiritual Anfechtungen, . . .

(p. 210)

6) Martin Luther: A Penguin Life (Penguin Lives), by Martin E. Marty (Viking Adult, 2004, 224 pages): “. . . the decade [1535-1545] of his disease and depression . . .” (p. 182).

7) The Revolt of Martin Luther, by Robert Herndon Fife (Columbia University Press, 1957, 713 pages):

[T]he friar was assailed by hours of restlessness and agonizing doubts. It is quite probable that this began to be the case early in his cloister life. “When I was first inducted into the monastery, it happened that I would always go about sad and depressed and could not shake off this melancholy,” This is one of the recollections from his early middle age. There is reason to think, as we have seen, that fits of depression beset him before his entry into the cloister . . . Nevertheless, though physical causes may have accentuated the attacks of depression, their source lay in his psychical personality and therefore far below the reach of the investigator’s plummet. They play a large role in his reminiscences and undoubtedly began early in life, for they recur throughout the middle years. It was a part of the mythology implanted in childhood that he should have regarded these visitations as temptations of the devil. “It seems to me,” he declares in 1521, “that from childhood Satan foresaw in me something of what he is now suffering from me. That is the reason he has raged against me with unbelievable tricks to hamper and destroy me, so that I have often wondered whether I was not the only one among mortals in whom he was laying his traps.” 62 The attacks followed him through life, but with advancing age he worked out a system, based largely on the Scriptures, by which he gave himself successful treatment. The strife against mental depression, he concluded, is a struggle with the devil 63 God is happiness and hates melancholy; the devil is melancholy, 64 and the Christian who fights off its attacks is resisting the devil. 65 . . . He himself seems to have escaped any real mental difficulty, but the tension of life showed itself in pronounced hysterical symptoms which may be noted from time to time in the monastic years and tended to present themselves also, though less acutely, at middle age and even on the threshold of old age. These “temptations,” as he calls them, brought him occasionally to the verge of despair. We have read the story of the fit in the cloister choir as reported to Johann Cochlaeus by certain Augustinian brothers. It bears marks of probability, for Luther himself records another instance of strikingly similar character which happened some years later, probably in 1515. Then, as he tells a scribe at table sixteen years after the event, he was struck with terror at sight of the sacrament borne by the vicar general, Dr. Staupitz, in the Corpus Christi procession. 69 His sensitivity to powerful attacks of depression is shown by several experiences recorded later but evidently belonging to the days when he was still in the Augustinian order. A vivid recollection of this kind comes down from the period of the struggle over indulgences and is found in the Explanations on the Power of Indulgences in 1518. Here, in a remarkable passage on the tortures of purgatory, he describes pangs of conscience which he had endured. “They lasted, to be sure, only a short while, but they were so hard and infernal that no tongue can express their power, no pen describe it, nor can anyone believe it who has never had the experience. If they should remain at their most extreme point for an hour, yes, even six minutes, the victim must quite perish and all his bones be turned to ashes.” 70 About the same time at which these words were written, possibly two or three years later, he seems to have suffered severe attacks of despair, especially the feeling that he was hated of God. “I was beset by the most extreme temptations [fear of the wrath of God]; they devoured my body as with fire so that I scarcely remained alive.” 71 Respecting a similar onset at the same period of life, he declares that no one could console him, so that he was obliged to ask: “Am I the only one to suffer the spirit of sadness? I saw so many apparitions. But ten years ago when I was alone, God comforted me with his angels to go on struggling and writing.” 72

Read more at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2016/04/did-luther-suffer-from-recurring-depression.html#dFDmp10voGF5sM47.99″

http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/writing-saved-life

“If you don’t know where to start, here are a few recommendations:

• Use fast, stream-of-consciousness writing. Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, etc. After all, in a conversation about something important, words just flow with hardly a breath in between.
• Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks. Your writing can remain private if you so desire. You can jot down your deepest feelings and then immediately shred them, which is therapeutic in itself.
• If you want to take this to the next level, challenge someone you trust to do the same thing and then exchange what you produced.

These days, my writing is meant to inspire others and to provide an antidote to the negativity and sensationalism we see in the news and on social media. In my third and fourth books—the first instalments of the (Extra)Ordinary series—I looked for people who are lighthouses for the rest of us, and they were not hard to find. Extraordinary people are all around us!

I’m thankful to know that and to know them. And I’m thankful for the life-saving gift of writing.

Writing has taken me out of myself and connected me to people in new ways. I’ve discovered more about who I was, who I am and who I want to be, all while learning about others in the process. Writing gave my life a renewed purpose. Writing saved me. “

Mary was sitting at her desk trying to decide whether to throw out a book called Schrodinger ‘s equation for Idiots.That title had more than one meaning, she thought to herself.
I think that is for the recycling bin, she told her cat, Emile.What a pity you can’t read.You could have read it.
I don’t want to read stuff like that.I only like Dad’s cartoon books.
Where are they, Mary asked him, her eyes shining like melting Danish butter on a hot croissant?
They are in that plastic box in the kitchen, Emile told her.I read them at night.
How can you read if there is no light?Please don’t start sinning as I don’t want you to have to become a Catholic and go to Confession
I can’t become a Catholic, said Emile.I am Jewish.
Well, St Paul was Jewish, Mary told him.Until he had an epileptic fit .
So having a fit can make you a Christian.That is very strange, the black cat told her with a twinkle in his eyes
Well, it’s not automatic, Mary replied.You have to pay.
What, pay to become a Christian, I don’t believe Jesus would like that.
Well, he may be quite indulgent, sometimes Mary giggled.However, the Vatican and its wealth might not be quite what he was thinking of when he gave the Sermon on the Mount.
What sort of mount was it, Emile enquired.Was it a horse?
No, it was  more likely to  have been a donkey  as he was quite poor, you know
But he had things money can’t buy, the cat said philosophically.
Like women who poured oil over his feet.What sort was it,?Was it like that stuff Stan put in the car engine sometimes?
Don’t be so ridiculous.It was olive oil, Mary told him sternly.
Can we prove that Emile murmured? His feet were no salad iin need of dressing
No, I am using inductive reasoningMary stated logically.Olive trees are grown in that part of the world even now.
What is inductive reasoning, Emile mewed
Why it’s the opposite of deductive reasoning, of course, Mary stated wildly
I am glad I can’t read, Emile said.It’s bad for you to have to learn all of that.It was ok for the ancient Greeks.They had no televisions.I’d rather watch Andrea Bocelli and Hayley Westenra singing Vivo per lei.Whatever that means.She is from New Zealand by the way.
What difference does that make Mary teased him?
No need to be rude, Emile cried.I was only passing a remark
That was what Stan’s mother used to say when he told her off for saying my maple mousse was like something out of a tin.
Where was it from?
The Joy of Cookery. a big American cookbook or maybe Jewish Cookery by Florence Greenberg or I bought it in Marks and Spencers
Did you get that book because I am Jewish, Emile purred?
No, I didn’t even know you were.How did it happen?
My mother was living with a Rabbi in Liverpool and he told her she could not miaow on the Sabbath so she kind of assumed she was Jewish.As for my father.. nobody knows.
Emile, don’t start saying you are the Messiah.I have enough trouble already.I don’t want you to be  walking on water and helping women taken in adultery
I was not me who took them, said Emile.I don’t even know where Adultery is.
I think I’ll ring 999.We need help before we go mad.
Sometimes going mad seems the better option, Mary said sadly.A few  voices telling me what to do might be helpful
As long as they are not Michael Gove and Boris Johnson, Emile replied courteously. As for Freezer May…… we’ve suffered enough from seeing her in miniskirts holding DT’s hand!
And so say all of us.For he’s a jolly good  yeller! Emile  loves every cat

Ads:
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Throw it on the ceiling to see how well it sticks.

Go   smirk on an egg

Whack, keep off my leg.

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Buy our special  pads then stick ’em on your bum

Forgot to wash your dirty hair today
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Wash with our carbolic soap and you’ll get eczema there as well

Why not buy a tube of our cortisone cream today?
It cures stuff like red nettle rash and sometimes men turn grey.

Heavy menstruation gives the government much  tax
Take ibuprofen now and you won’t need damn tampax

Home office?

Short of  needed space to store your  paper stacks
Glue them to the ceiling with pre-owned, large tampax.

Running out of printer ink is an evil sin
Sign up with your provider here and meet your evil twin

Empty your inbox, forward all your mail
We can  let you hire a thousand learned snails

OLDER PESTS? Press here. HERE

COLDER PESTS? Emigrate!

http://www.poetry.org/whatis.htm

“What is generally accepted as “great” poetry is debatable in many cases. “Great” poetry usually follows the characteristics listed above, but it is also set apart by its complexity and sophistication. “Great” poetry generally captures images vividly and in an original, refreshing way, while weaving together an intricate combination of elements like theme tension, complex emotion, and profound reflective thought. For examples of what is considered “great” poetry, visit the Pulitzer prize and Nobel prize sections for poetry.

The Greek verb ποιεω [poiéo (= I make or create)], gave rise to three words: ποιητης [poiet?s (= the one who creates)], ποιησις [poíesis (= the act of creation)] and ποιημα [poíema (= the thing created)]. From these we get three English words: poet (the creator), poesy (the creation) and poem (the created). A poet is therefore one who creates and poetry is what the poet creates. The underlying concept of the poet as creator is not uncommon. For example, in Anglo-Saxon a poet is a scop (shaper or maker) and in Scots makar.

Sound in poetry

Perhaps the most vital element of sound in poetry is rhythm. Often the rhythm of each line is arranged in a particular meter. Different types of meter played key roles in Classical, Early European, Eastern and Modern poetry. In the case of free verse, the rhythm of lines is often organized into looser units of cadence.”

I am caught. a wanderer in a maze
Interminable and long my lonesome path
Shall such malign confusion end my days?

Yet worse than this, is work that’s too  low paid
The people making clothes can show no wrath
They too are caught. like wanderers in a maze

Capital has made the East our slaves.
In the stores , grown women  grab and laugh
Shall such malign intrusion fill slaves’ days?

When we shop for clothes, they say we graze
When we buy the clothes who hires the staff?
We are caught. like wanderers in a maze

The only way to make things right is war
The Asians will be coming ,no use Mass.
Shall our malign intrusion end their way?

Wait, wait, they say, the bitterness will pass
But will our exploitation not harass?
I am a lonely wanderer in a maze
Shall my feeble fear not change my ways?

You have to be brave to write because all you have ever felt, experienced or studied can be drawn up into your consciousness whilst you write.A friend of mine who is a writer put it like this.
“It has taken me to places I’d rather not have gone to.”
However she said she manages to live through it.At the time I had only written mathematical works so I didn’t understand what she meant.But I have now had some experiences which give me a hint of what she was trying to say.If you’ve had many fearsome experiences then these feelings may come up when you loosen the grip  of consciousness.
However I have also found a spirit of laughter in me which is new.Step into the darkness without knowing.It’s only by going there that help may come.But the fear is that it won’t.You can’t get an insurance policy beforehand.
Are you stepping into a void or will there be something there?
Also in drawing or painting, it can take courage to draw what you perceive.I found that especially when drawing buildings and studying perspective.I’ll see if I can find a drawing to illustrate it.I have the feeling,
“No, No.It can’t be this steep a gradient.It’s too much”
And in being inside a building like Westminster Abbey or Durham Cathedral trying to assimilate the vision, the huge spaces and the power and size of the shapes can create awe or even terror.One can lose one’s sense of self entirely.But it can also be revivifying when one has returned.The fear is that one will not return.
Maybe it’s the same with relating to people as well?

http://www.potw.org/archive/potw351.html39)

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Should an older woman with a UTI
Buy a pair of trousers which she cannot wash and dry?
Wear three pairs of knickers and a culotte underslip
Don’t run to the lavatory in case you take a trip
Falling off the stairs is not my idea of death
I’d like to be in a bed when I take my final breath.
They say to hang your trousers outside on a tree
The air will cleanse them with a breeze while watched by startled bees
Or buy a handheld steamer as it will kill the germs
But never use it when your habitat is filled with garden worms
In the long run, it’s easier to throw the trousers out
As otherwise, I’ll wonder if I smell of doubt
I  could improve my posture or train assertively
In case the men harass me when I’m on TV.
Stare at those old demons with a sharp bright eye
Tell them they are off to hell as soon as they shall die.
Jesus mixed with sinners but not those powerful apes
He is kindness incarnate to people who’ve been duped.
The fiery angels   coming carry silver swords
Apocalyptic visions can hardly be real words
Women’s boundaries violated  as if we  have no worth
The Beast  is slouching nearer, waiting to give birth.

Stan was a very evil man because he winked at his wife before dying and she had no chance to respond.
That is so typical of Stan , she said to Annie, her best friend.
Well, at least he went peacefully.Annie replied in a kindly tone
And to think I had just bought him 6 new pairs of pyjamas.
You can’t blame him for that.You always buy too much, Annie murmured politely
Well, I suppose I like to be prepared, Mary muttered.I felt so helpless as he went thinner and thinner.
What are you going to do with them all, Annie whispered.
There’s only one solution.I’ll have to find a man to fit the pyjamas and marry him
That’s a strange way of choosing a new husband, Annie said in a shocked voice.
In the end however rational we try to be, life is down to luck.
Yes, didn’t Churchill say, chance favours the prepared mind?
It wasn’t Churchill,it was Blaise Pascal.Mary told her in  of voice rich with wisdom
Well, why not marry him? He sounds intriguing
He’s dead, Mary responded succinctly
Oh, what a pity.He sounded just right for you, Annie said tearfully.Are we going to the funeral?~
I am afraid he died before we were born , Mary said in  an anguished tone.
Well, he’s no use.Anyone else you fancy?How about Dante? Annie screamed
Which Dante do you mean?I thought he was Italian, Mary informed
her.
It’s not far by plane, though Brexit might be a problem, Annie said wisely.
Let’s be realistic.No dead , great genius will be revived by the Lord to marry me.Mary said as if she were lecturing to a big class on differential geometry and its use in economics.No wonder we had the Depression
That might be blasphemy, Annie informed her.After all, if God is omnipotent he can do anything at all.
To me, he sometimes seems incompetent, said Mary wildly.And of all the lonely people in the world, why should he aid me in my grief? Anway male geniuses are very demanding.I think a cook or chef might be more practical.
Oh, look, we’ve missed Mass again.
We’ve not been for 40 years and just when we decided to go we started talking  about these powerful creatures   and a husband for you
Never mind, why don’t we wait till Xmas?
And so say all of us.

There are only two things that pierce the human heart.
One is beauty. The other is affliction.
~Simone Weil

Simone Weil

“The principal value of the collection is simply that anything from Simone Weil’s pen is worth reading. It is perhaps not the book to start one’s acquaintance with this writer—Waiting for God, I think, is the best for that. The originality of her psychological insight, the passion and subtlety of her theological imagination , the fecundity of her exegetical talents are unevenly displayed here. Yet the person of Simone Weil is here as surely as in any of her other books—the person who is excruciatingly identical with her ideas, the person who is rightly regarded as one of the most uncompromising and troubling witnesses to the modern travail of the spirit.”

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/poetry-101-resources-beginners

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/someone-reading-book-sign-order-world

“Is there a right time to read each book? A point of developing consciousness that corresponds with perfect ripeness to a particular poet or novel? And if that is the case, how many times in our lives did we make the match? I heard someone say, at a party, that D. H. Lawrence should be read during one’s late teens and early twenties. Since I was nearing thirty at the time, I made up my mind never to read him. And I never have. Connoisseurs of reading are very silly people. But as Thomas Merton said, one day you wake up and realize religion is ridiculous and that you will stick with it anyway. What love is ever any different?”

At Uni I got an Aegrotat   because I had a sick sense of humour
When I got married my husband didn’t even know my name.Neither did I.
I worked in a male order firm in the summer holidays.Then at Xmas, I  delivered the male myself.We only had one in stock.
I also worked in a care home for older people.One died.But soon we got another.
I have a problem.I sing like a boiling kettle.So people expect to be in hot water.
I got another Aegrotat.I was mentally sick.I didn’t like to pick up books.I was  unable to make distinctions like pens and ink….Freud said it is  copulation, you see.That’s why children have to type on computers.One day they will type on paper and then we’ll see. Meanwhile they have real sex as soon as it’s legal.Is sex legal?
Did Freud really understand the Unconscious?

When I attained puberty I kept drumming my fingers on the sideboard and the table.I couldn’t stop until the Devil came out and asked me for my instructions.
What does he think I am, a Catholic priest?

I’ve been sorting out my books.None are horror stories except Peter Pan.

I never read maths books unless I couldn’t solve the problems.

I love Aegrotats, Thermostats and Acrobats.And cats on mats

Digital art by Katherine

How infinitely good . . . providence is, which has provided in its government of mankind such narrow bounds to his sight and knowledge of things; and though he walks in the midst of so many thousand dangers, the sight of which, if discovered to him, would distract his mind and sink his spirits, he is kept serene and calm, by having the events of things hid from his eyes, and knowing nothing of the dangers which surround him. (Defoe, p. 163)

Q: What happened after an explosion at a French cheese factory? A: All that was left was de brie.

source: http://www.jokes4us.com/miscellaneousjokes/foodjokes/cheesejokes.html

Photo from Mike Flemming’s blog.Will post link later

Personally.I hoard hordes of admirers’ letters by my bed in a big box to read when bored by what I see on the blackboard in my head.That’s the fate of beautiful maths teachers.So many admirers, but so few understood my love of pi.Actually, nobody  did. I think I was abnormal but never mind. 

Usually, I hoarded my pocket money but when Mum said that hordes of barbarians were coming to the football match.I decided to spend it all before they arrived Never did chocolate taste so good.Then I felt sickened by my greed.Then I must have died as I can’t recall anything else.

When hordes of men walked to the town hall, the Mayor took all his hoarded goodies and fled.East I think.

When I am bored I write poems on a  board.

Have you anything to declare? Yes, God is Light
How did you weigh him?
You can’t weigh light waves,
How about particles?
They move so fast!

It says
Barclays Auto reply:This mailbox is not monitored.Press the following link to get to Barclays

It is in Kansas

“Their second full day in Singapore saw the Royal couple meet hoards of admirers in the   nearby covered market of Tiong Bahru, where they surprised morning shoppers buying fruit and vegetables, fish and household goods.”