A Mother and Wisdom 5:8-12

**Image via Wikipedia

The poetry of Thursday's lectionary reading from the Book of Wisdom* along with the photo of Rembrandt's Mother were so beautiful I wanted to share them with you today -

What has our arrogance profited us?
And what good has our boasted wealth brought us?
All those things have vanished like a shadow,
and like a rumor that passes by;
like a ship that sails through the billowy water,
and when it has passed no trace can be found,
no track of its keel in the waves;
or as, when a bird flies through the air,
no evidence of its passage is found;
the light air, lashed by the beat of its pinions
and pierced by the force of its rushing flight,
is traversed by the movement of its wings,
and afterward no sign of its coming is found there;
or as, when an arrow is shot at a target,
the air, thus divided, comes together at once,
so that no one knows its pathway.

*The Book of Wisdom from the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books of the Old Testament NRSV
**Image via Wikipedia/Rembrandt's Mother reading from a lectionary, ca 1630