HEAVEN #4587 Whose Life Is This, Anyway?
Dear Gloria,
in http://www.heavenletters.org/whose-life-is-this-anyway.html
(1) parag. 5
"We come back again to your feeling at odds with the world. This is a very basic level we come down to. You don’t like to think that you are at odds with the word. You haven’t realized that you felt the world was out to get you. You may have even given lip service to the idea of a benevolent world, even as you, wrangle with it."
I wonder if this coma is there intentionally.
(2) parag. 8 : "Or, perhaps, you like to think you have been hornswoggled, once again, an innocent victim. Nope, My dear ones, you are the offender who puts the responsibility somewhere else."
I don't understand this construction: you have been hornswoggled an innocent victim. Do you mean "you have been hornswoggled as/like an innocent victim?
(3) parag. 11 "There is no hiding, beloveds. Your thoughts cast their net. Bread upon the waters and all that." What does "bread upon the waters" mean.
The only expression I could find is "cast your bread upon the waters"
Thanks
http://idioms.thefreedictiona
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/cast+bread+upon+the+waters
Cast one's bread upon the waters.
Prov. Act generous because you feel it is right and not because you expect a reward. (Biblical.) Joseph is casting his bread upon the waters, supporting Bob while he works on his novel Cast your bread upon the waters; make a generous contribution to our cause.
horn·swog·gle (hôrnswgl)
tr.v. horn·swog·gled, horn·swog·gling, horn·swog·gles Chiefly Northern & Western U.S.
To bamboozle; deceive.
wrangle [ˈræŋgəl]
vb
1. (intr) to argue, esp noisily or angrily
2. (tr) to encourage, persuade, or obtain by argument
3. (Life Sciences & Allied Applications / Agriculture) (tr) Western US and Canadian to herd (cattle or horses)
n
a noisy or angry argument
[from Low German wrangeln; related to Norwegian vrangla]
Normand, you don't miss a
Normand, you don't miss a trick! And Luus comes to the rescue for both of us!
Oui, that comma does not belong there. Will you kindly remove it, mon ami, inasmuch as I am wrangling with internet difficulties!!! Merci bien!
God bless you both!
Dear Luus and dear
Dear Luus and dear Gloria,
the text is not "your thoughts cast bread upon the waters". It is "Your thoughts cast their net. Bread upon the waters and all that." There is no verb in the last sentence. So how is it connected to the first one? Can you paraphrase? Would it be: Your thoughts cast their net like they cast bread upon the waters and all that"?
Normand, although I still
Normand, although I still have three previous Heavenletters to translate, I had a look at the phrase "Bread upon the waters and all that." It is not simple! Now I also wonder how to translate it. Should we say: Do good without expecting anything in return and all that? or should we say: Doing good without expecting anything in return and all that?
So we need you, Gloria, to tell us what is really meant here.
Yes Gloria, we need you're
Yes Gloria, we need you're feed back on that. We're stuck.
"Your thoughts cast their
"Your thoughts cast their net. Bread upon the waters and all that."
Dear Ones, "Bread upon the waters and all that" is a sentence fragment.
I have to go to the original Heavenletter. I'll come right back.
You may also say you are an
You may also say you are an innocent victim of measles or a mosquito bite or an upset stomach. Be that as it may, you are responsible now. You are responsible for how you react. In fact, beloveds, forswear reacting. Act instead, and act with good feeling.
There is no hiding, beloveds. Your thoughts cast their net. Bread upon the waters and all that.
If you drop the pot of soup, you dropped it. You didn’t mean to, yet no one else dropped it but you. And it’s you who has to clean up the mess on the floor.
Even when your fingernail breaks, it is your fingernail that is broken. You can blame your broken fingernail on anything you like, yet, here you are. It is your broken fingernail. You may say that you don’t get enough calcium, yet I say to you: “Who is it who doesn’t get enough calcium?”
It’s not in your best interest, or anyone’s best interest for you to get mired in innocence. Let’s say you are perfectly innocent by anyone’s standards, yet, I repeat, even when you are innocent, who has to run the race now?
If you are drowning, and you don’t choose to drown, what are you going to do? Are you just going to say: “I didn’t ask to drown.” Or are you going to swim and save yourself from drowning?
When someone gives you advice you don’t want to hear, you may mutter: “Whose life is this anyway?”
And this is what I am saying to you. “Whose life is this anyway?”
Getting back to the sentence fragment, if instead of "Bread upon the waters and all that" it had simply said: ""Your thoughts cast their net, etc." would the sentence then be a stumbling block?
I kind of look at the phrase (which could be reduced to etc.) as kind of a wave of God's hand! In so many ways, I too like sentences to be exact and the ambivalence of being "left up in the air" can disconcert me, yet I can also see how sometimes I am comfortable with what must seem intolerably vague.to translators.
It is not like I, Gloria, have studied the Bible and have conscious knowledge. Somewhere I heard these phrases -- probably when I was in public school and, at the time, the teachers read from the Bible out loud every morning. I wasn't concentrating when the teachers read, not at all, yet, somehow, some phrases stuck with me. Or, perhaps, some familiarity I have may come from literature or just fiction in which an author makes reference to a Biblical phrase. In addition to not being a scholar, when I listen to God and write down what I hear Him say, my left brain, my reasoning brain, is quite turned off and is not trying to understand, just to get the words down.
I tend to understand in terms of the Heavenletter as a whole. The theme is that we are responsible for our actions and inactions and thoughts. From ignorance, accident or whatever, we are responsible. No matter how innocent we may be, we are nevertheless responsible, even though God has also said that there is no cause and effect. Just the same, we are responsible from here on in.
I also think it's important that translators are not in the dark. So, if you require more, please press me further, and I will try to be more precise and we can come to am answer that is more satisfying to your keen minds. Please don't hesitate.
Oops, I just caught something else that either you or Luus said, and it's just sinking in. I'll go find it and come right back.
Continuing my reply
Continuing my reply above:
This is what Luus found:
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/cast+bread+upon+the+waters
Cast one's bread upon the waters.
Prov. Act generous because you feel it is right and not because you expect a reward. (Biblical.) Joseph is casting his bread upon the waters, supporting Bob while he works on his novel Cast your bread upon the waters; make a generous contribution to our cause.
I never had this understanding. I took the expression of "cast your bread upon the waters" as more like. as "ye sow, so shall ye reap." I took the expression to mean "the bread I cast upon the waters comes back to me."
And then comes the question: What does my understanding have to do with God's intended meaning, if anything? I simply don't know.
What I know is good is how much we seek to understand God and come closer to Him.
Well, I made my choice, dear
Well, I made my choice, dear Gloria and Luus. I will use Gloria's suggestion: "The bread I cast upon the waters comes back to me."
I followed your example,
I followed your example, Normand, and translated it accordingly.