Pontius Pilate–Not too many** p**arents call their kids this, anymore.
Queen of Sheba, who went to see King Solomon
Romans, Romans everywhere
Stephen, who got stoned.
Thomas, who was reasonably skeptical of Christ’s resurrection, since extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Uriah, husband of Bathsheba and a heap of fun.
Vaniah: son of Bani. His name either means “Nourishment of God” or “Weapons of God.” Just gets a mention in the Book of Ezra. With a name like that I wish we knew more. Who was Bani? Don’t know. He probably came from overseas. “My Bani lies over the ocean…”
Witch of Endor, who King Saul sought out to raise the spirit of Samuel.
Xanthan, king of the Gums.
(or Xerxes, who’s the king in Esther)
YHWH, the Almighty
Zacchaeus: Reformed tax collector whose name means “pure.” Climbed into a sycamore tree to see Jesus and ended up having him over for dinner.
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain. -T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy! - William Wordsworth, Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
Custard the dragon had big sharp teeth,
And spikes on top of him and scales underneath,
Mouth like a fireplace, chimney for a nose,
And realio, trulio, daggers on his toes.
[BTW, April is National Poetry Month.]
Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
– Stephen Crane
Even in the quietest moments
I wish I knew what I had to do
And even though the sun is shining
Well I feel the rain
Here it comes again, dear
– Supertramp
For love and beauty and delight, there is no death nor change.
- Shelley
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door! - Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
- Emily Dickinson
I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.
- Walt Whitman