"Have you ever read b.d. napier's Come Sweet Death?" she asked.
That was my younger sister querying me; I had been a preacher for some half dozen years or so. She always read religious stuff with far greater frequency than I, and always stepped two moves ahead despite the age difference. I mean, besides hard core things, like readings in Hebrew or Greek, she had read all of the Chronicles of Narnia long before this writer even knew why Narnia might have written her chronicles.
"Never heard of the guy," said I.
"You should," said she.
The duly admonished older brother eventually caught up with the little tome in question, a used, somewhat unimposing paperback. And as he read, he recognized turns of phrase and concepts which he, the erstwhile preacher, himself had used from time to time in the writing of sermons. Finally, the now remembered rhythms imposed full force their truth into his consciousness. Indeed, he had read the epic poem years earlier; it left him so affected not only as to forget the source, but even to appropriate its cadences as though originally his own.
Self-deception stands in wonderful relief against the truth.
That's when I realized things real to the deepest me, are not even mine. So, I don't give attributions to self, and certainly not to forgotten others, all the more especially when the ideas seem most original with me. Truly, all attributions belong only to Somebody not deceived.
So I conclude that there is nothing new under the sun. But somebody else likely already said that.
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