Saint Vincent Deacon Martyr and Marrakesh Olives

The Feast

Saint Vincent Deacon and Martyr's Feast falls today. The Liturgy Reflection:

dilectione valida potiantur

LH III:1148

make strong our delight..

Marrakesh Olives

On the rural bus, a fortnight ago, a gentleman leant over the bus seat and said to me Three months ago you were reading a book on Morocco. I'm from Morocco. We introduced each other, shook hands and went to a coffee house to enjoy a fascinating conversation.

So opened out my Etudes Marocaines a study journal, so too, my almost being washed away by the collected volumes of Revue Africaine (Société Algériénne) Office des Publications Universitaires (Alger).

Midrash

Today I took the train to the riverside town passing acres of wetlands looking like vast lakes, and, in the January sunshine, water fowl basked and preened, and rested content.

S had obtained for me Midrash Unbound Edited by Professor Fishbane, and Reader in Hebrew Weinberg. The distinguished contributors offer an exciting perspective on this venerable genre.

 

In the same breath, as I took the book, I asked S to get me Sayyid Qutb by James Toth, reviewed by Mr Irwin early December past in the TLS. This text is reading for my Moroccan Studies.

Before setting off to the purveyor of fine food in the riverside town, I also asked S to get me The Gift of Correspondence in Classical Rome by Amanda Wilcox, likewise reviewed in the December TLS by Dean for the Humanities Joy Connolly. This text is a sequel to my study of Professor Kathy Eden's The Renaissance Rediscovery of Intimacy.

Picnic at the River

The choice for lunch was my favourite restaurant, or the fine food purveyor and a picnic at the river. A dazzling noon sun decided the latter.

Choice Cornish pasty, tomato and basil soup, Marrakesh Olives, Catalan Turron, a giant Sussex-grown Bræburn apple, crisp, juicy; water.

And the sun was regal. I stripped to my T-shirt and sat on the stone ruin of the Dominican Friars' Priory with its mediæval bustle at the water's edge of the river that receives the tidal pulse hushed to silent wonder.

My lunch was a splendid repast. I wrote two letters as a charm of cyclists stood and marvelled.

Theologians and A Noble Rum

This rum is seven years aged. It comes from Cuba. At my supper this evening, to enjoy it I used my Boda whisky tumbler: pour a small quantity into the tumbler and swirl to appreciate the aroma; add a very little water, swirl again, savour the new notes, and taste. Accompany with dried fruit and nuts.

Signore Vito Mancuso richly reports the Commissione Teologia Internazionale meeting in Rome last week, the human search for meaning, as Vatican News noted.

la purezza religiosa della fede nell'unico Dio può essere riconosciuta come principio e fonte dell'amore fra gli uomini..

La Repubblica Martedì 21 Gennaio 2014 R2 Cultura p.31Vito Mancuso

dilectione valida potiantur

LH III:1148

make strong our delight..

Grateful Acknowledgement

Liturgia Horarum

Revue Africaine (Société Algériénne) Office des Publications Universitaires (Alger)
The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization
The Times Literary Supplement

La Repubblica
Vatican News

 

Photographs

Taken with my Fuji X-100

Sepia simulation, Monochrome simulation

Both images with macro setting