Righteousness and peace

"For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham as he was returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham apportioned a tenth part of all the spoils, was first of all, by the translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then also king of Salem, which is king of peace.Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, he remains a priest perpetually." (Hebrews 7.1-3)

"I will hear what God the Lordwill say;

For He will speak peace to His people, to His godly ones;

But let them not turn back to folly.

Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him,

That glory may dwell in our land.

Lovingkindness and truth have met together;

Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.

Truth springs from the earth,

And righteousness looks down from heaven.

Indeed, the Lord will give what is good,

And our land will yield its produce.

Righteousness will go before Him

And will make His footsteps into a way." (Psalm 85.8-13)

Academia

Magdalen College, Oxford

Grad school starts a week from today. Leaving this idealized vision of university life here to settle the butterflies:

"Mornings in Bodley, drowsing among the worn browns and tarnished gilding of Duke Humphrey, snuffing the faint, musty odor of slowly perishing leather, hearing only the discreet tippety-tap of Agag-feet along the padded floor; long afternoons, taking an outrigger up the Cher, feeling the rough kiss of the sculls on unaccustomed palms, listening to the rhythmical and satisfying ker-lunk of the rowlocks, watching the play of muscle on the Bursar's sturdy shoulders at stroke, as the sharp spring wind flattened the thin silk shirt against them; or, if the days were warmer, flicking swiftly in a canoe under Magdalen walls and so by the twisting race at King's Mill by Mesopotamia to Parson's Pleasure; then back, with mind relaxed and body stretched and vigorous, to make toast by the fire; and then, at night, the lit lamp and the drawn curtain, with the flutter of the turned page and soft scrape of pen on paper the only sounds to break the utter silence between quarter and quarter chime." 

(Gaudy Night, 242)