King James Version
Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty.
Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain:
Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind:
Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire:
Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever.
Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains.
At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away.
They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them.
Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.
He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills.
They give drink to every beast of the field: the wild asses quench their thirst.
By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches.
He watereth the hills from his chambers: the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works.
He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;
And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart.
The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted;
Where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir trees are her house.
The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats; and the rocks for the conies.
He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down.
Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth.
The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God.
The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens.
Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening.
O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.
So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.
There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein.
These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season.
That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good.
Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.
Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.
The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in his works.
He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: he toucheth the hills, and they smoke.
I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.
My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the Lord.
Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless thou the Lord, O my soul. Praise ye the Lord.
Catholic Apologetics Bible
Bless the Lord, my soul! Lord, my God, you are great indeed! You are clothed with majesty and glory,
robed in light as with a cloak. You spread out the heavens like a tent;
you raised your palace upon the waters. You make the clouds your chariot; you travel on the wings of the wind.
You make the winds your messengers; flaming fire, your ministers.
You fixed the earth on its foundation, never to be moved.
The ocean covered it like a garment; above the mountains stood the waters.
At your roar they took flight; at the sound of your thunder they fled.
They rushed up the mountains, down the valleys to the place you had fixed for them.
You set a limit they cannot pass; never again will they cover the earth.
You made springs flow into channels that wind among the mountains.
They give drink to every beast of the field; here wild asses quench their thirst.
Beside them the birds of heaven nest; among the branches they sing.
You water the mountains from your palace; by your labor the earth abounds.
You raise grass for the cattle and plants for our beasts of burden. You bring bread from the earth,
and wine to gladden our hearts, Oil to make our faces gleam, food to build our strength.
The trees of the Lord drink their fill, the cedars of Lebanon, which you planted.
There the birds build their nests; junipers are the home of the stork.
The high mountains are for wild goats; the rocky cliffs, a refuge for badgers.
You made the moon to mark the seasons, the sun that knows the hour of its setting.
You bring darkness and night falls, then all the beasts of the forest roam abroad.
Young lions roar for prey; they seek their food from God.
When the sun rises, they steal away and rest in their dens.
People go forth to their work, to their labor till evening falls.
How varied are your works, Lord! In wisdom you have wrought them all; the earth is full of your creatures.
Look at the sea, great and wide! It teems with countless beings, living things both large and small.
Here ships ply their course; here Leviathan, your creature, plays.
All of these look to you to give them food in due time.
When you give to them, they gather; when you open your hand, they are well filled.
When you hide your face, they are lost. When you take away their breath, they perish and return to the dust from which they came.
When you send forth your breath, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.
May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord be glad in these works!
If God glares at the earth, it trembles; if God touches the mountains, they smoke!
I will sing to the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God while I live.
May my theme be pleasing to God; I will rejoice in the Lord.
May sinners vanish from the earth, and the wicked be no more. Bless the Lord, my soul! Hallelujah!
Akhenaten's Hymn to the Sun
How manifold it is, what thou hast made!
They are hidden from the face of man.
O sole god, like whom there is no other!
Thou didst create the world according to thy desire,
Whilst thou wert alone: All men, cattle, and wild beasts,
Whatever is on earth, going upon its feet,
And what is on high, flying with its wings.
The countries of Syria and Nubia, the land of Egypt,
Thou settest every man in his place,
Thou suppliest their necessities:
Everyone has his food, and his time of life is reckoned.
Their tongues are separate in speech,
And their natures as well;
Their skins are distinguished,
As thou distinguishest the foreign peoples.
Thou makest a Nile in the underworld,
Thou bringest forth as thou desirest
To maintain the people of Egypt
According as thou madest them for thyself,
The lord of all of them, wearying himself with them,
The lord of every land, rising for them,
The Aton of the day, great of majesty.
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It's already 11 p.m. and except for watching the Star Trek episode I need to find time to review tomorrow between New Moon with Hufflepants and Gblvr, lunch with the two of them plus another friend, and dinner with my parents, I accomplished none of the things I planned to get done today. In fact, I overslept, having been woken up by a sick cat at 3 a.m., thus causing me to miss getting the rare Superpoke Pet chicken plushies for myself and younger son, and I'm way late on e-mail and comments and stuff because I was playing with AO3.
So I still have not rewatched "The Waters of Mars," and am going to shamelessly pillage things I already said in conversations with my kids and Ethel King, but before I forget, I need to declare my undying love for Adelaide Brooke and express confusion why the Doctor did not simply grab her and abduct her on the TARDIS the minute he laid eyes on her, which is what I would have done. Why did the producers have to cast a 12-year-old companion for the upcoming 16-year-old Eleventh Doctor instead of Lindsay Duncan? Of course they'd probably write her with all the limitations with which they saddle Sarah Jane Smith, since apparently older men can be cool though not older women, but I'd take it: it's no secret that I love Sarah Jane more than I love any of her Doctors, and this latest installment just cements it.
Spoilers: Don't get me wrong: I like the Doctor finally explicitly declaring himself Lord of Time, the winner of the war -- he's granted himself this position and all the power and responsibility that go along with it whenever he's felt like it on and off for years now -- he wasn't just ready to die for Rose, he was ready to risk Earth for her, in fact he was ready to risk it for her father just because it was so important to her. He only plays at noninterference; how can he not know by now that when he visits a critical moment in human history, he'll end up being a critical player? Of course it's Pompeii all over again on Mars! When Adelaide pulled out the gun, I said, "She's going to kill herself," at the same moment that younger son said, "She's going to shoot him." But I knew she'd shoot herself because self-sacrifice is what RTD and his cronies consider truly noble -- hence what Jack has had to do to family members on Torchwood, since he can't die himself, but the Doctor has superhero accoutrements on top of his immortality, which is a very dangerous combinations. Of course power has corrupted him, and we finally see just how far around the bend he's gone.
Sarah Jane says in "School Reunion" that pain and loss define us as much as happiness, but she's thinking like a mortal, someone who knows that death will come for her as surely as everyone and everything she loves. But it's not true for either the Doctor or Jack, and they're both stunted because of it -- it makes it very hard for them to grow instead of letting griefs accumulate upon them. (It's the Buffy musical -- "All the joy life sends, family and friends, all the twists and bends, knowing that it ends, well that depends on if they let you go...") The Doctor told Jack that even the TARDIS ran away from his unnaturalness, but the current Doctor is even creepier to me, and I adored Adelaide blasting his arrogance -- it was obvious to me that she had to shoot herself because even without knowing that he could regenerate, she had figured out that it would hurt him more not to have been able to save her.
I can't pretend to be well-versed in Doctors before Eight, not even Four with whom I have a reasonable acquaintance, but I don't remember this obsessive-compulsive personality and these epic stakes all the time; when the Gadget Gadget robot showed up, I was hoping for a bit more of that older sensibility, a sense of wonder that isn't wedded to a sense of fatality and doom. I mean, when you live a ridiculously long time and can travel through time and space, you ought to be able to bring up pretty much everyone's obituaries from memory if they're important enough. Sure, it's very sad that that delightful Russian woman officer and the doctor with the gay brother and the rocket scientist all die, but I can't even remember their names, just like I can never remember the third guy who was in the lunar capsule while Armstrong and Aldrin were walking around on the moon. They're hardly significant to the Doctor either; they're Adelaide's supporting cast, as she is enraged to discover when he says that saving them or not won't change history.
And what was the Doctor thinking, bringing Adelaide home? If he'd told her the whole story, that she supposedly died on Mars -- obviously bodies were never found -- with the logical assumption being that she could not go home again, that she could only watch her granddaughter grow up from a distance, the obvious thing to do would be to invite her aboard the TARDIS and show her the universe, something for which I have little doubt she'd have forgiven him for interfering and it wouldn't have disrupted the timeline (I'm still confused why the evil creatures that show up whenever the timeline gets screwed up, like in "Father's Day" and "The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith," don't show up here).
I could assume that the Doctor doesn't actually want Adelaide to be his responsibility, that he was only too happy to save her and run away with his conscience clear, but that isn't him -- this is still the same Ten who invited Sarah Jane to travel with him again after ditching her in Aberdeen all those years ago. This is the series writers wanting yet another tragedy dumped on his head, so that the prospect of his transformation actually seems a relief rather than the unhappy event that Nine becoming Ten was, at least for me. That isn't making me look forward to a new Doctor, though...it's making me think the franchise is burning itself out, new writers or no new writers.
I did like tonight's FlashForward despite no Janis; I like the philosophical musing behind the question of whether finding out that someone was going to love you and change your life would make you fall in love with them before you'd even met them, no matter who they were or what they looked like, and I like the way even what looks like a happy vision of the future can lead to a hellish present, particularly for a parent.
Adam petting a donkey in the farm at the Maryland Zoo.
The Chesapeake region also has wood ducks...
...local amphibians like toads...
...owls, birds of prey, and vultures...
...and snakes in the constructed cave.
There are also a lot of ducks, egrets, herons, and other field and waterfowl.
And the farm has a petting zoo with goats...
...where visitors can help groom the animals.
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