In Sunday’s Lectionary we read in the alternative Psalm (95), “O come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.” And there’s something very similar in the other Psalm, 100.
“A joyful noise” – now I don’t know Hebrew, so I’m not sure, but from the way it’s translated it looks as if the joyfulness is more important than the accuracy of the music. Anyway, that’s always been my opinion of good worship. However frustrating it may be if you can’t harmonise with someone who’s not singing spot on, just feel the passion. Sometimes, of course, that passion will be manifested in an all-out attempt to get it right – but whatever, it’s the passion that’s key.
Nice walk this morning, only the last twenty minutes or so in drizzle. Just as I got in, the mileage on my app ticked up from 6.07 to 6.08, which was a small disappointment to me as 607 used to be the number of the trolleybus to Shepherd’s Bush (not from here obviously). I like numbers, especially ones with associations. The 607 became the 207 bus, and I actually rode on that once or twice.
188716 was my mother’s Co-op number.
142857 is a magical number, being the bit that repeats when you write 1/7 as a decimal
3.14159 is another piece of magic, as is e, although I can’t remember exactly how much that is.
1.61803 is the golden ratio, which I also had to look up. I thought it was nonsense until I realised when I was processing pictures for the Prayers For Places webpage that quite often (not always) I was intuitively cropping them to roughly that ratio. Maybe it’s nonsense anyway.
Speaking of numbers, I hear rumours that the government intends to have a public sector pay freeze. This makes perfect sense – if you look at the overall redistribution of government money during a pandemic, it’s gone away from the police and others who have helped so much and into such vital services as pubs and the horseracing. Of course people in precarious work need to be supported, but priorities, dear boy.