1) Parlor coffee and devotional. Mother’s Lamsa Bible opened to I Timothy, chapter 2, which begins: “I beseech you, therefore, first of all, to offer to God, petitions, prayers, supplications, and thanksgiving for all men,//For kings and for all in authority; that we may live a quiet and peaceable life, in all purity and Godliness,//For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour//Who desires all men to be saved and to return to the knowledge of the truth.”
1a) Mother had underlined “we may live a quiet and peaceable life,” whereas today, almost 24 hours before the inauguration, I’d emphasize “return to the knowledge of the truth.” But it was very comforting to read this today, to begin the day.
2) Then in Baltasar Gracián’s The Art of Worldly Wisdom, #183 spoke immediately to the actions of the outgoing President and his wife: “Don’t hold on to anything too firmly. Fools are stubborn, and the stubborn are fools, and the more erroneous their judgment is, the more they hold on to it. Even when you are right, it is good to make concessions; people will recognize you were right but admire your courtesy. More is lost through holding on than can be won by defeating others.”
2a) With the benefit of hindsight, sadly, I see how I myself have used stubbornness to disadvantage . . .
3) I feel like after the nation gets through tomorrrow, I’ll be able to exhale and really throw myself into planning and activity for the rest of the year. But since the insurrection January 6 I’ve felt like I’m milling around in the theatre lobby during intermission of a play that’s not being produced very well, but that no one feels they can walk out on.