Wednesday, 2 December 2015

Nation (December)


Why? The cruel contests of the Middle East leave us asking, why do the nations so furiously rage together, and the people imagine a vain thing? We gaze from afar at deliberate provocation and destruction. Handel’s Psalm 2, heard each December, seems inclusive, for assuredly we belong to a nation, whether we like it or not. Is a nation defined more by what divides or unites? Most modern versions chime with Handel, but the Authorised Version asks, why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The meaning alters into us and them, the heathen without frontiers.

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