Put up thy sword into thy sheath

Having grown up on the King James Version, I’ve always thought it was the most beautiful, poetic, and lyrical version of the Bible. I still love to read it and savour the rich language and profound expressions. Michael also grew up reading the King James version, which is nice as all the verses we memorised are King James so we can recite the ones we know together. But for many years he has read the New American Standard (or maybe just the American Standard) in his personal reading. We’ve been reading through the New Testament together, and recently came to the end and began again. This time I decided to read it in the New American Standard (or perhaps the American Standard) version too. It’s been very insightful and eye-opening. I still have a tendency to breeze through the parts I know and put the words automatically in place (as I read through the second chapter of Luke I was mentally saying, ‘And it came to pass, in those days, that there went forth a decree from Caesar Augustus…along with Mary, his espoused wife, who was great with child…and she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger…’) but the more I read, the more fascinated I am with how greatly my perspective is altered just by making the words fresh and new. Yesterday I read Luke’s account of the upper room. Now, I’ve read the New Testament however many times before in my life, and I never noticed this: Jesus is talking to His disciples about the times to come, and they say, ‘Look, here are two swords.’ And He said, ‘It is enough.’ How random is that?? They actually had two swords with them in the upper room! And I never noticed it before! (Well, obviously, at least we know Peter had a sword on him later on in the garden.)

We are now reading Johnny Tremaine together. We’ve actually just read the first chapter. But Michael says he likes it. I love that book – it has the best chapter titles: The Pride of Your Power…An Earth of Brass…The Scarlet Deluge…Salt-Water Tea….I love the story of Boston in revolt. I love Mr. Banks’ priceless commentary on it toward the end of Mary Poppins, recounting the history of the last time a loan was defaulted and there was a run on the bank: ‘While it was lying in Boston harbour, several of the Americans, dressed as red Indians, behaved very badly and dumped the tea into the harbour…this made the tea quite undrinkable, sir – even for Americans.’