Days Of Our Lives

We're all days, and this is a truth from the beginning. As the temperament of a day goes, so too are there people to go with it; the Bard himself has remarked, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate." (Sonnet 18)

Cultures from all over the world have their counting-rhymes for the days and seasons; it is that tradition which has given us that infamous blight and self-fulfilling prophecy of the day of the week which is said to control the destiny of a child. (For the record, I was born on Vendredi, or Freya's Day.)

There is something which calls to us from the nature of a day - its fresh and dewy beginning is like a baby's innocence, while its parched and richly darkening end is like the complicated diversity of our various and separate drawings-down of blinds. In the noonday of one's life, one might think of Apollo and Mithras, of the Sun in Splendour, or of le Roi Soleil.

In the North of the world, where the days are often far longer or far too short, people are at their sunniest and gloomiest - bright fair people with grim sagas; it reminds me of what the Good Book says - "As your days, so shall your strength be." (This last speaks to my heart in particular because my late grandfather's last words were an exact quotation of verse 27 of that passage.)

The days of our lives are threescore and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore, all their strength is suffering - so says Moses from the elegiaic height of his disappointment, as he contemplates the failing of his sixscore years with no hope in this life of entering the Promised Land. His advice is probably sound; all we can do in the end is to number our days aright, and do our best with what we have.

On a lighter note though, here is a song from that odd and entertaining group, the Bee Gees...

Ooh you’re a holiday, such a holiday
Ooh you’re a holiday, such a holiday

It’s something I think's worthwhile
If the puppet makes you smile
If not then you’re throwing stones
Throwing stones, throwing stones

Ooh it’s a funny game
Don’t believe that it’s all the same
Can’t think what I’ve just said
Put the soft pillow on my head

Millions of eyes can see
Yet why am I so blind
When the someone else is me
It’s unkind, it’s unkind

de de de de de de de de de de de de de
de de de de de de de de de de de de de

Yet millions of eyes can see
Yet why am I so blind
When the someone else is me
It’s unkind, it’s unkind

Ooh you’re a holiday, ev’ry day, such a holiday
Now it’s my turn to say, and I say you’re a holiday
It’s something I think's worthwhile
If the puppet makes you smile
If now then you’re throwing stones
Throwing stones , throwing stones

de de de de de de de de de de de de de de

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Yes, indeed. And just in case he feels left out, I shall dedicate this post to my one student whose name sounds suspiciously like the day on which we have chapel services in school. You (now) know who you are; be at peace with your nature, OK?