Roland Milk

 

Col took this beautiful shot of the moon rising above the rusty hulk some weeks ago.  So I thought I would remember Beachcomber's floppy-collared poet Roland Milk, and his ode to the moon in this blog:

The moon and I 

met face to face

in a sequestered country place

I thought the moon was heavenly

I wonder what it thought of me.

I doubt we will ever know.  But it probably found Roland rather fey.

We had an interesting study with the Lady of the Flowers on Wednesday morning. She was very welcoming as usual.  We were doing Lesson 32, God's Kingdom Now Rules, in the Enjoy Life Forever Book.  You can look up book and chapter on JW.org, under Library and under books, if you want to.

If you do you will see it contains an examination of Bible prophecy in Daniel and Revelation which tells us that the Kingdom of God began its rule from heaven in 1914.

Now, given that, why have things on the earth gone so spectacularly badly since then?  The Book of Revelation explains what happened in heaven at that time.

And I found this interesting quote from an American newspaper, in 1914:

  “The terrific war outbreak in Europe has fulfilled an extraordinary prophecy. For a quarter of a century past, through preachers and through press, the ‘International Bible Students,’ best known as ‘Millennial Dawners,’ have been proclaiming to the world that the Day of Wrath prophesied in the Bible would dawn in 1914. ‘Look out for 1914!’ has been the cry of the hundreds of traveling evangelists.”​—The World, a New York newspaper, August 30, 1914.

We, Jehovah's Witnesses, were known as International Bible Students back then, or sometimes Millennial Dawners. But how busy my brothers and sisters had been before 1914 even though there were not so many of us back then!

The warning was sounded and now millions are listening. And while, yes, it is a warning, we are trying to tell you that this is the darkest hour before the dawn and things are soon to get wonderfully better. The present wicked system of things on the earth is soon coming to its end. That really is good news.

And given these fearsome floods that have swept away whole villages in Nepal in an instant - caused apparently by the partial collapse of a large glacier - how much we need a government that can perfectly control the natural forces, the heavenly one.

We woke to clouds and rain on Thursday morning - precious clouds and precious rain. And we are having friends to lunch today - just a sandwich lunch in the lounge - with ice-cream to follow. My cooking and entertaining days seem to be effectively over - this side of Armageddon. But we did a lot of entertaining in our time, including the early years of our retirement.

And with my back aching simply from making the egg mayo filling for the sandwiches I need to remind myself to thank Jehovah that I have actually had a long enough retirement to speak of its "early years".

We had a lovely lunch with Steve and Angela - and it was a shock to realise how long it was since they came round for a meal - back in the days when we had a dining table, not a computer desk. The years race by, faster and faster.