We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater
There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead
Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater
The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller
The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller
According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater
Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater
Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger
Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton
I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon
Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII
Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut
Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest
We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater
People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon
Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater
An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater
Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann
Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner
“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”
Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton
The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon
The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul
The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah
If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon
Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson
We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord
Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater
To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement
Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma
It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater
God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater
In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall
Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater
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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater
I’ve mentioned several problems with the King James Version in previous posts. Arguably the most significant set of problems has to do with the text that the translators were translating. The brief reality is that in the early 17th century, Greek editions of the New Testament were based on very few and highly inferior manuscripts. Only after the King James was translated did scholars begin to become aware of the existence of older, and far better, manuscripts.
The manuscripts of the New Testament (and of all books from antiquity) were copied — prior to the invention of printing — almost always by scribes who did their best to make faithful reproductions of the copies they were copying, and many of them did a remarkably good job. Others did a not-so-good job. Since mistakes can get replicated over time, and introduced over time, in general it is a good idea to consult the *earliest* manuscripts for determining what an author of a book wrote. The later manuscripts tend to be worse (that’s not an *absolute* rule, but a relatively good one).
As we saw in the previous post, the first edition of the Greek NT to be published after the invention of printing was by the Rotterdam humanist Erasmus, whose 1516 edition went through several revisions over the years. Other publishers based their own editions on Erasmus, rather than doing a careful study of the surviving manuscripts themselves. Eventually it became such a standard text that it came to be known as the Textus Receptus (the “received text” – that is, the text everyone used). Erasmus’s edition was based just on the few Greek manuscripts at his disposal, which were late medieval and that had the typical kinds of mistakes that one can find in late medieval manuscripts.
As a result, translations into English of the Greek New Testament, based on Erasmus’s editions and those that replicated, more or less, his text, include translations of passages that were almost certainly not originally in the New Testament, but that had come to be added later by scribes. The most famous of all is the so-called “Johannine Comma,” a reference to 1 John 5:7-8, the only passage in the New Testament that explicitly affirms the doctrine of the Trinity.
In the Latin Vulgate – the Bible of Western Christendom for centuries – 1 John 5:7-8 states that “there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. And these three are one.” This then is the doctrine of the trinity: there are three divine beings in heaven and even though there are three of them, they are actually only one. One God, in three persons – the doctrine of the trinity. Nowhere else in the NT is the doctrine explicitly stated (although Father, Son, and Spirit are mentioned in the same breath elsewhere. But not the doctrine itself, which includes the idea that: “these three are one.”)
When Erasmus produced his first edition of the Greek NT, he left that verse out, since it was not in the Greek manuscript he was using. What happened next is a matter of debate. Some scholars have argued that the account of events widely known in the scholarly literature is apocryphal. But the way the story normally is told is as follows:
Church theologians were incensed that Erasmus had left the Trinity out of the Bible and attacked him for it. He explained that he could not find the verse in any of the Greek manuscripts he had consulted, and what he was producing was, after all, a Greek New Testament. He did agree, though, that if someone could show him a Greek manuscript that had the verse, he would include it in his next edition. And so, someone (literally) produced a manuscript – adding the verse by translating it in its proper place from the Latin.
And so Erasmus was true to his word, and included it in his next edition. It was this subsequent edition that was used by other publishers of other editions of the Greek NT, and these were the editions used by the translators of the King James. And so you will find the verse in the King James.
As more and more manuscripts were discovered, it became clear that in fact the verse was not part of the original text of 1 John, and so modern translations do not include it. When these translations started to appear at the end of the 19th century and into the 20th, there was considerable uproar when it was recognized that they did not include the leading proof text for the Trinity, and translators were roundly accused of being anti-Christian, liberal, untrustworthy, and even demonic tools of the Devil. But they were in fact simply translating the text as it had been handed down in the textual tradition. Sometimes readers don’t want the Bible as it was originally written, but only the Bible as they are familiar with it.
That is why those who insist on following the King James version insist that the story of Jesus and the Woman taken in Adultery (John 7:53-8:11) and the final twelve verses of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 16:9-21) were originally in the NT. They weren’t. They are *terrific* stories, but, well, they were added by later scribes.
The KJV has lots of other problems like this. Like the later additions to the text, it too is powerful and moving. But that doesn’t mean it is accurate, if what you want is to know what the authors themselves actually wrote.
There was a time when no one could read the Bible in their own language. Now, Wycliffe Global Alliancestatisticsshow that most of the world’s population has a complete Bible available in their native language. The English-speaking world can choose from dozens of translations. With so many out there, it makes me wonder: which ones do people choose?
There are several ways to answer this with data at varying levels of availability and reliability. The most accessible data comes from Wikipedia. Statistics from any online source will be skewed toward younger portions of the population, hampering the accuracy but useful all the same. The visualization below shows Bible translations through time using this list of English Bible translations and view statistics for each detail page.
The rise in the number of translations each decade since the 1950s is interesting. With each new version comes increased difficulty for one to stand out in the crowd. Those that have risen above the rest are the Wycliffe Bible, the King James Version (or Authorized Version), and the New International Version. The English Standard Version also deserves mention due to its rapid climb in popularity since its first publication in 2001.
John Wycliffe is famous for bringing the Bible to laypeople, an action which paved the way for the Protestant Reformation. Therefore, it remains a prominent interest when studying the history of the Bible. The King James Version stands out not only for its history and literary achievement but also for its continued popularity. We should expect that modern readers would gravitate to a version like the NIV with more familiar language, yet the KJV stays high up the charts while its language is from a bygone era.
It’s also important to explore how well this holds up compared to other data sources. One widely accessible source is Google Trends. The chart below examines search rankings for the five most popular versions.
Overall, the rankings match reasonably well with Wikipedia page views, with some interesting exceptions. While the NIV beats the KJV on a decade-long average, they have switched places since 2012 and the KJV continues to gain steam. The ESV continues climbing slowly and steadily. Other differences are likely accounted for in the methods used to track statistics and the time frame differences (90-day Wikipedia views vs. month-to-month search trends).
This only accounts for internet users at large who express some interest in each version through a page click or search term. It says nothing about what people actually buy or read on a regular basis. Bible websites and apps like YouVersion would have data on readership but would still be limited to tech-friendly demographics.
A better source would be the Barna Group, an organization which conducts scientific studies of religious interest. In a2014 study comissioned by the American Bible Society, they found the same overall rankings for the top four versions based on survey responses. In this case, not only did the King James Version come out on top, it did so by a wide margin.
So, which English bible version is most popular? With three ways to answer that question, the King James Version is at or near the top of every list. Finding which one belongs in second, third, or fourth place will depend on where and when you look for data.
I gravitate towards sources which are easily accessible like Wikipedia. As we’ve seen, an easy answer won’t always be the right answer, but at least it’s something. Data concerning translation work worldwide is much harder to compile and analyze.
As the mission spreads throughout the globe, aided by the continued advancements in technology, I hope to see data that shows fewer and fewer people groups and languages without access to the scriptures.
The Elephant is Running: Process and Open and Relational
Theologies and Religious Pluralism,
by Bruce Gordon Epperly (Author)
Book Description
Bruce Epperly believes that God invites us to affirm religious pluralism while remaining faithful to the way of Jesus and the prophetic spirit of Christianity. Unique among texts on religious pluralism, The Elephant is Running integrates theological reflection, encounters with the wisdom world’s spiritual traditions, the author’s personal experience as a spiritual adventurer, and inspirational and innovative spiritual practices.
RE Slater Comment
Here, in Epperly's writing, I find process-based religion to be it's own common denominator. That is, the more religious theologies become affected by process thought in their foundational philosophies the more commonality all religions will find with one another. This also holds true for today's quantum sciences as their cosmological particulars begin to resemble the processual qualities of the cosmos.
One other note I find pertinent is that all religions, whether they know it or not, have processual elements in their theology where they know it or not. Some more than others, such as Buddhism. Process is how the world works; religions' observing this characteristic in creation would inadvertantly practice and teach some form of their observations unconsciously.
Lastly, Whiteheadian Process thought is a more recent development of a processual quantumtative and evolutionary world. One that flows with itself and continually course-corrects to stay in rhythm and synchronicity to itself. This cosmological internaIity one may describ as panrelational, panexperiential, and panpsychic per process philosophy and theology.
As an aside, the cosmic quality of panpsychicism I use here in i) the scientific sense of a "quasi-sentience-like responsiveness" by cosmic quantum structures to it's own processual quantum elements such as emissions of force and energy. Or ii) of the cosmological whole to its parts and back again from its parts to its whole. A processual universe seeking to be in rhythm to itself however chaotic, however random, it's processually evolving evolution may appear.
We live in conflicted times. Our newsfeeds are filled with inequality, division, and fear. We want to make a difference and see justice restored because Jesus calls us to be a peacemaking and reconciling people. But how do we do this? Based on their work with diverse churches, colleges, and other organizations, Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Graham Hill offer Christian practices that can bring healing and hope to a broken world. They provide ten ways to transform society, from lament and repentance to relinquishing power, reinforcing agency, and more. Embodying these practices enables us to be the new humanity in Jesus Christ, so the church and world can experience reconciliation, justice, unity, peace, and love. With small group activities, discussion questions, and exercises in each chapter, this book is ideal to read together in community. Discover here how to bring real change to a dehumanized world.
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Judicial Courts v LGBTQ+ Civil Rights
by R.E. Slater
What do you get when you cross a judge with a skunk? "Law and Odor." - a common schoolyard quip
The 9'10" mark of the MSNBC video summarizes the argument put before the December 2022 Supreme Court by a conservative defense wishing to protect their client's "white rights" over the presumed "non-rights of minority victims of white majority rule. In this case, the "revoking of the rights of a gay businesses."
The case revolves around a web designer who did not wish to do business with gay clients who live a different lifestyle then their own. In this case, a gay business requiring a website which the web designer refused to create if so asked. Supposedly this was not an actual event but a hypothetical event which the web designer fear might happen.
Since this is a personal column, if I were gay I would choose not to use the bigoted web designer as I would feel such a person would produce an "inferior" product to the one my business may require.
Further, to allay any fears conservative businesses may have I would want them to know that I would chose other businesses which would accept my gay business. I would find businesses which were "color-blind" and will do business with both non-conservative and conservative religious sectors.
In short, there are LGBTQ+ designers and non-LGBTQ+ designers who would be glad to provide their talents and services to clientele like myself thus making use of discriminatory business practices and lawsuits unnecessary.
But here, in this legal presentation before the Supreme Court, we have a reversal of circumstances to which the majority Other - in this case, a religiously-oriented business - is claiming they feel Colorado's nondiscriminatory law is actively discriminating against their own discriminatory practices (which was why Colorado's law was written in the first place). The thinking here being argued by the religious web designer that discriminatory practices should be allowable rather than disallowable, contra Colorado's current laws.
Firstly, any person having experienced discrimination will readily admit all forms of bigotry are neither kind, fair, or fairly treating to those they are actively oppressing another.
Secondly, the bigots of society are not the victims here but the victimizers. They are showing themselves willing to victimize the victim by their unfair treatment of the Other - and by their unwillingness to see their own personal and religious beliefs as offensive and motivated by racism, bigotry and discrimination. Essentially they do not recognize anyone beyond their own kind as people of value.
Thirdly, the conservative judges of the Supreme Court are showing themselves to be working for the racist minorities of white America and not for the true victims of white supremacy and Jim Crow laws. By it's actions it is showing it's callousness towards racism and thus eschewing it's legal profession to stand against racist juris prudence.
Consequently, the Supreme Court is protecting the "rights" of the religionist whose "God" is as racist as they are in their racist interpretation of the bible.
More so, the conservative elements of the Supreme Court are announcing their preference to support laws which will exercise discrimination against the LGBTQ+ populations of America in its current hearing of all such legal cases.
This then is the harm which comes when the "Supreme Court of the Land" does not work to legally expand Constitutional civil law for all citizens when looking only to blindly protect the majority rule's active practice of religious racism.
Fourthly, any person standing behind religion declaring their rights to be racist as God-ordained is, in my opinion, sinful and evil. Religion aside, any actions of racism, bigotry, or practice of oppression upon others is morally wrong. That wrong cannot be protected by a religious group's racist faith. It simply tells us that that church, fellowship, or religion is actively justifying its racism as unloving acts of oppression and bigotry. Too, they are NOT the victims in this story they are telling themselves. No. They are the victimzers.
Contra the "God of the conservative Bible" which most evangelical churches cling to, do not see anti-gay religious sentiment as sinful and evil but biblical and morally right. But this is not true. At no time is it right to practice bigotry and civil injustice.
Conversely, the "God of the Bible" which many historic religious groups are presenting differs from the "God of Wrath and Judgment" conservative Christian churches and denominations are preaching as right and good. From my own perspective I find these kind of faith expressions, doctrines, creeds, and practices by the conservative church and its followers as ungodly and unloving... as I'm sure God does as well. Their model of God is inaccurate and the biblical model followed is based on bigoted religious expressions from the bible which have survived its library. Rather than as an observation of sinful practices by ancient Israel these same bible passages have been assumed to be God ordained. A God of Love does not ordain these sentiments. But a God of wrath and judgment would.
Fifthly, there is a Christianity of love and welcome, embrace and support and then there are Christian faiths which preach love and exclusion with limited forms of welcome, embrace and support. Each faith group interprets the bible to their own view of God.
For myself, I have chosen to rewrite all my conservative evangelical Christian beliefs, teachings, doctrines, creeds, and practices around a God of Love rather than a God who loves sometimes. Which makes me at minimum a post-conservative or traditionalist I believe in teaching a God with no exclusions, no wraths, and no judgments. If for no other reason than its faith outcomes will be healthier for a transformative world given to hate and exclusion. It eliminates at best one more source of wars and friction between human societies.
That the bible I've received in the past I may now read as a library attesting to previous socio-religious reactions to this God of Love who has been misapprehended so very early in human history. A history which continues to unfold even today in its misinterpretations of a loving God based upon ancient ethical and moral constructs which were sadly "set in stone" by religious beliefs... Even as they are today seemingly set in stone now because of the church's current teachings.
Against all these previous religious histories I assert that God is still a God of Love even as God was when first thought of by early religious man. That this Redeemer God is not a God of wrath and judgment nor a God of bigotry or discrimination. No. This religious practice of sin, wrath, and judgment we do quite well on our own against one another. We do not need a God of wrath and judgment to tell us that what we are doing to one another is wrong and evil.
And lastly, one might describe conservative religious beliefs as yet another form of religious legalism... preached by conservative churches against civil democratic societies which are actively attempting to recognize the worth, dignity, and value of all its people.
America's Civil Constitution protects the rights of all its peoples whereas the dominionist beliefs of uncivil religious institutions would divide and destroy such civil unions committed to the liberty and freedom of the common man.
The irony is, the United State's Constitution was written in the name of God by colonial segregationalists, slave owners, church-dominionists, native extermination, and ecctera. All preaching a God of exclusion, judgment and wrath. But in reality, this very same nationalized legal document we know as the Constitution (undergirt by the Bill of Rights) has become a righteous voice for the despised, hated, unwanted, overlooked, and disapproved Other.
These are the ones Jesus would hang with today if he were around. A Jesus whom I somehow hope the Church of "God" might likewise follow in their Savior's practices rather than to overlook its own Pharisaical deeds of hypocrisy and legalism which pronounced anathema upon Jesus, abandoned his vision of atoning unity, and killed and buried Jesus in a life-stealing tomb. Essentially, the God of love became a brutal sacrifice to the unlove of man whose own idol was raised upon the tomb of Jesus. To this we say Anathema! Let us be done with such gods!
(intended to be played when reading all that is set below)
3 hours
Being the last day of 2022 I wish to remember the poems and songs of JRR Tolkien speaking of love and lost, wander and thrall. Within the sad tales of Middle Earth comes bred upon the human breast a wistfulness for better days when fellowship no longer strives with ruin and evil. Where the grand majesties set deep upon the hearts of all beings cannot undo themselves by heavy lost but finds within a deeper courage and longing to aright wrongs done and all be redeemed by torn atoning struggles for peace and justice founded upon the shattered halls of love unremitting its trials and longings.
"Under the fading trees the land was silent." - Elven Lady Arwen
Lady Arwen, upon leaving the side of her Thrane and husband, Aragorn, and the whiten fortresses of Gondolin - where lay his tomb in the Hallows of Minas Tirith - thence journeyed onwards across Middle Earth to Lady Galadriel's remembered forest realms of Lothlorien. Then onwards to her Elven father Elrond's hidden realms founded upon the rocky chasms of Rivendale. And therefrom her father's lands Arwen thence turned westward towards the greensward troves of the misty Grey Havens once abounding it's vast inland and coastal realms under the tendering care of Elvish hands. Yet thereto did Arwen behold the fey wastelands conscripted in deeper losts than its lores and legends. For all she surveyed leaned upon her heavy heart the fast retreats of man's fourth age whose rule and imagination languished before her renown predecessor's gifted domains once wrapped in light and life within the deep and purposeful care of their Elven lord's faded dominions. - R.E. Slater
For Tolkien, as for his magical realms of lore and wisdom, time may be slowed but never stopped. Vast realms and traditions, cherished friendships and places, may for a time be preserved and protected yet all will eventually succumb to death and soulful reprocessing into the unknown realms beyond death's fast holds where new life and purpose may be rebourne, long journeys emended and renewed, and perhaps bound to brighter promises and hopes thought lost to time and eternity at death's hands.
R.E. Slater
December 31, 2022
@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved
The White Towers of Minas Tirith of Gondolin
Faithful Arwen beside beloved Aragorn's side in his State of Rest
Aragon's Tomb in the Hallows before the Citadel of Minas Tirith
Enya - Arwen's Song of Aragorn
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A Tolkien Ensemble - The Song of Beren and Lúthien
Eärendil was a mariner that tarried in Arvernien; he built a boat of timber felled in Nimbrethil to journey in; her sails he wove of silver fair, of silver were her lanterns made, her prow was fashioned like a swan, and light upon her banners laid.
In panoply of ancient kings, in chainéd rings he armoured him; his shining shield was scored with runes to ward all wounds and harm from him; his bow was made of dragon-horn, his arrows shorn of ebony; of silver was his habergeon, his scabbard of chalcedony; his sword of steel was valiant, of adamant his helmet tall, an eagle-plume upon his crest, upon his breast an emerald.
Beneath the Moon and under star he wandered far from northern strands, bewildered on enchanted ways beyond the days of mortal lands. From gnashing of the Narrow Ice where shadow lies on frozen hills, from nether heats and burning waste he turned in haste, and roving still on starless waters far astray at last he came to Night of Naught, and passed, and never sight he saw of shining shore nor light he sought. The winds of wrath came driving him, and blindly in the foam he fled from west to east and errandless, unheralded he homeward sped.
There flying Elwing came to him, and flame was in the darkness lit; more bright than light of diamond the fire upon her carcanet. The Silmaril she bound on him and crowned him with the living light and dauntless then with burning brow he turned his prow; and in the night from Otherworld beyond the Sea there strong and free a storm arose, a wind of power in Tarmenel; by paths that seldom mortal goes his boat it bore with biting breath as might of death across the grey and long forsaken seas distressed; from east to west he passed away.
Through Evernight he back was borne on black and roaring waves that ran o'er leagues unlit and foundered shores that drowned before the Days began, until he heard on strands of pearl where ends the world the music long, where ever-foaming billows roll the yellow gold and jewels wan. He saw the Mountain silent rise where twilight lies upon the knees of Valinor, and Eldamar beheld afar beyond the seas. A wanderer escaped from night to haven white he came at last, to Elvenhome the green and fair where keen the air, where pale as glass beneath the Hill of Ilmarin a-glimmer in a valley sheer the lamplit towers of Tirion are mirrored on the Shadowmere.
He tarried there from errantry, and melodies they taught to him, and sages old him marvels told, and harps of gold they brought to him. They clothed him then in elven-white, and seven lights before him sent, as through the Calacirian to hidden land forlorn he went. He came unto the timeless halls where shining fall the countless years, and endless reigns the Elder King in Ilmarin on Mountain sheer; and words unheard were spoken then of folk of Men and Elven-kin, beyond the world were visions showed forbid to those that dwell therein.
A ship then new they built for him of mithril and of elven-glass with shining prow; no shaven oar nor sail she bore on silver mast: the Silmaril as lantern light and banner bright with living flame to gleam thereon by Elbereth herself was set, who thither came and wings immortal made for him, and laid on him undying doom, to sail the shoreless skies and come behind the Sun and light of Moon.
From Evereven's lofty hills where softly silver fountains fall his wings him bore, a wandering light, beyond the mighty Mountain Wall. From World's End there he turned away, and yearned again to find afar his home through shadows journeying, and burning as an island star on high above the mists he came, a distant flame before the Sun, a wonder ere the waking dawn where grey the Norland waters run.
And over Middle-earth he passed and heard at last the weeping sore of women and of elven-maids in Elder Days, in years of yore. But on him mighty doom was laid, till Moon should fade, an orbéd star to pass, and tarry never more on Hither Shores where Mortals are; for ever still a herald on an errand that should never rest to bear his shining lamp afar, the Flammifer of Westernesse.
An Elven-maid there was of old, A shining star by day: Her mantle white was hemmed with gold, Her shoes of silver-grey.
A star was bound upon her brows, A light was on her hair As sun upon the golden boughs In Lórien the fair.
Her hair was long, her limbs were white, And fair she was and free; And in the wind she went as light As leaf of linden-tree.
Beside the falls of Nimrodel, By water clear and cool, Her voice as falling silver fell Into the shining pool.
Where now she wanders none can tell, In sunlight or in shade; For lost of yore was Nimrodel And in the mountains strayed.
The elven-ship in haven grey Beneath the mountain-lee Awaited her for many a day Beside the roaring sea.
A wind by night in Northern lands Arose, and loud it cried, And drove the ship from elven-strands Across the streaming tide.
When dawn came dim the land was lost, The mountains sinking grey Beyond the heaving waves that tossed Their plumes of blinding spray.
Amroth beheld the fading shore Now low beyond the swell, And cursed the faithless ship that bore Him far from Nimrodel.
Of old he was an Elven-king, A lord of tree and glen, When golden were the boughs in spring In fair Lothlórien.
From helm to sea they saw him leap, As arrow from the string, And dive into the water deep, As mew upon the wing.
The wind was in his flowing hair, The foam about him shone; Afar they saw him strong and fair Go riding like a swan.
But from the West has come no word, And on the Hither Shore No tidings Elven-folk have heard Of Amroth evermore.
Galadriel's Song of Eldamar
(Sung by Galadriel to the Fellowship of the Ring)
I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew: Of wind I sang, a wind there came and in the branches blew. Beyond the Sun, beyond the Moon, the foam was on the Sea, And by the strand of Ilmarin there grew a golden Tree. Beneath the stars of Ever-eve in Eldamar it shone, In Eldamar beside the walls of Elven Tirion. There long the golden leaves have grown upon the branching years, While here beyond the Sundering Seas now fall the Elven-tears. O Lórien! The Winter comes, the bare and leafless Day; The leaves are falling in the stream, the river flows away. O Lórien! Too long I have dwelt upon this Hither Shore And in a fading crown have twined the golden elanor. But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me, What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?
Actual Verse *Or there maybe 'tis cloudless night and swaying beeches bear the Elven-stars as jewels white amid their branching hair.
Stephen Oliver - Bilbo's Last Song
(from the BBC Radio Adaptation of the LOTRs)
Bilbo's Last Song
(At the Grey Havens)
Day is ended, dim my eyes, but journey long before me lies. Farewell, friends! I hear the call. The ship's beside the stony wall. Foam is white and waves are grey; beyond the sunset leads my way. Foam is salt, the wind is free; I hear the rising of the Sea.
Farewell, friends! The sails are set, the wind is east, the moorings fret. Shadows long before me lie, beneath the ever-bending sky, but islands lie behind the Sun that I shall raise ere all is done; lands there are to west of West, where night is quiet and sleep is rest.
Guided by the Lonely Star, beyond the utmost harbour-bar I'll find the havens fair and free, and beaches of the Starlit Sea. Ship, my ship! I seek the West, and fields and mountains ever blest. Farewell to Middle-Earth at last.
