Jeudi, 5 Février, 2015
Verse of the Day: « Car la
parole de l’Eternel est droite et tout Son œuvre s’accomplit avec fidélité! Il
aime la justice et le droit ; la bonté de l’Eternel remplit la terre. »—Psaumes
33:4-5
Quote of the Day: "A created problem cannot be resolved through the same
manner of thinking that created it."—Albert Einstein
« Un
problème créé ne peut être résolu en réfléchissant de la même manière qu'il a
été créé. »—Albert Einstein
Information About
France: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/fr.html
What’s Really
Happening Over Here: http://www.linternaute.com/
A Day In the Life:
Yesterday was my little host brother Nathan’s (pronounced: Nah-tawhn…that’s
the best I can do for you anyways. Definitely doesn’t sound like Nathan)
birthday party. He was turning 7, and he loves pirates, so his parents were
having a pirate-themed birthday party for him and his friends. However, they
thought it best if the only people home were them, and him, and his friends,
just during the party, which I totally understood. So Tom (my host-brother’s
childhood friend who is spending the week here) and I took the bus into the
city to see some museums and the world famous cathedral that’s there as well.
The first museum was mostly closed due to renovations, so the only things open were textiles and fabrics, but there was still some interesting stuff to see!
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| This, is a dress. |
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| She looks like a nice lady! I love the way the surrounding greenery reflects in her eyes. |
The second museum was the Musée Lecoq, a science museum, and
that was amazing. They had everything, from rocks and fossils to original
collections and belongings of some of the famous French scientists dating back
to the 18th century. It’s always so hard for me to walk out of
museums like that without being blown away by the God I serve.
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"The sciences have two extremes that touch: the first is the
pure natural ignorance of all men at birth; the other extreme is where all
great souls end up, who, having sought to know all that men can know, find that
they know nothing, and encounter the same ignorance from which they started.”—Blaise
Pascal
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After that, we went to see the ridiculous cathedral. I mean
what I said, it was ridiculous. From what I hear, it is the only cathedral in
France made out of black volcanic
rock, and so everything is completely black from the outside – including the
stained glass windows. On the inside though the stained glass windows provide
the light – even with little to no sunlight. It was absolutely amazing, and
huge, and ridiculous. Oh, and apparently it took 1000 years to make, because of
the French revolution and wars before and since, they had to continually stop
building and rebuild. But in the end it took 1000 years. (I’ll say it one more
time just for emphasis) It actually took 1000 years. To build. What a wonderful
piece of history!
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| Stained glass window depicting the Fall. Black on the outside, beautiful on the inside! |
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Farewell to the
Old Guard
Napoleon Bonaparte was the greatest general in French
history, and is undisputedly one of the greatest generals in the history of the
world. In a short time he rose from French officer to French Emperor, due to a
lot of ambition on his part and a lot of chaos on the part of the French
government. His army was thought to be invincible.
However, in his quest to conquer the whole of Europe – not unlike
Alexander the Great before him and Adolf Hitler after him, though with arguably
different intentions from both – he made the fatal gamble of undergoing a deep
invasion of Russia. Unfortunately for his cause, there proved to be one too
many variables to account for, and in order to keep his army from starving he
was forced to make the long retreat out of the country. As he neared the
border, his forces were too small, and he was attacked by a conglomerate army
made up of Britain, Prussia, and Austria. He returned home a criminal, and was
exiled to the Island of Elba near the Italian coast. The following were his
final words to his few remaining loyal officers:
Soldiers of my Old Guard: I bid you
farewell. For twenty years I have constantly accompanied you on the road to
honor and glory. In these latter times, as in the days of our prosperity, you
have invariably been models of courage and fidelity. With men such as you our
cause could not be lost; but the war would have been interminable; it would
have been civil war, and that would have entailed deeper misfortunes on France.
I have sacrificed all of my
interests to those of the country.
I go, but you, my friends, will
continue to serve France. Her happiness was my only thought. It will still be
the object of my wishes. Do not regret my fate; if I have consented to survive,
it is to serve your glory. I intend to write the history of the great
achievements we have performed together. Adieu, my friends. Would I could press
you all to my heart.
(Retreived from: http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/napoleon.htm)
What Made It Great
What made this speech great could be attributed almost
entirely to the occasion, and the history behind it. This speech serves as
evidence that sometimes in speech communication (and quite often in
interpersonal communication), what you say does not really matter (to an
extent, of course); what matters is that you say something. From a rhetorical
perspective, this speech is not extraordinary in its word choice or the use of
literary devices. But it can be said that this is a brief glimpse into the very
heart of one of the greatest generals the world has ever known.
“I have sacrificed all of my interests to those of the
country.”
May we do the same for the interests of Christ.
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