I am having a hard time thinking of anything to write to you this morning. Two cups of French roast have not helped, nor has the angsty teenage bluejay shrieking in the thicket behind the house. I did wake up suddenly at four o'clock with the impression that the rooster had been crowing the first few bars of Bach's "Toccata and Fugue." And I did spend far too much dreamtime castigating myself for now-forgotten sins of daily incompetence. Mostly they involved money, but some may have also involved bad hair, bad poems, and murder. The anxiety-mind is a shameless composer of medleys.

Sinne

George Herbert (1593-1633)

Lord, with what care hast Thou begirt us round!

Parents first season us; then schoolmasters

Deliver us to laws; they send us bound

To rules of reason, holy messengers,

Pulpits and Sundayes, sorrow dogging sinne,

Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes,

Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in.

Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,

Blessings beforehand, tyes of gratefulnesse,

The sound of glorie ringing in our eares:

Without, our shame; within, our consciences;

Angels and grace, eternall hopes and fears.

Yet all these fences and their whole array

One cunning bosome-sin blows quite away.