Diary of the Inner Life

THE FIRST DIARY OF THE INNER LIFE
AND PRIVATE CHARACTER

Intimate outpourings of Jeremiah’s heart, written during a period of silence, usually referred to as the Confessions of Jeremiah, are similar to the Confessions of St. Augustine. They are like a diary(ca 600 BC) and are the first of their type in Hebraic literature or, indeed, other religious literature of antiquity. This sensitive and quiet man pours out his inner life to God, his doubt, rebellion, self-pity and despair. In his loneliness, “sitting alone”, even with marriage and children denied to him, forbidden to take part in social gatherings, he was torn all his days by his natural longing for companionship and peace and the reality of his inner conflict. -Ron Price with thanks to Bernhard W. Anderson, The Living World of the Old Testament, second edition, Longman, London, 1967(1958), pp.339-340.

How much did you see of those ‘end times’?
Two-and-a-half millennia ago, did you see
a new community of the Lord of Hosts rising
out of great distress? In a new covenant?
For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will
remember their sin no more.1 For He is
the great Wronged One, patient beyond
measure, Who transmuted His tribulations
into instruments of redemption.2 And the
God will be an indwelling God and thou
will find Me standing within thee: mighty,
powerful and self-subsistent. And some of
your battle, dear Jeremiah, will be our battle;
some of your woe, our woe, your diary, ours.


Ron Price
2 January 1997

1 The Bible, The Book of Jeremiah, 31:34.
2 Universal House of Justice, 28 May 1992, A Tribute to Baha’u’llah, p.2.

I find this interesting, Ron. Not sure exactly what you're getting at, whether you're expressing any religious conviction or just compassion for a lonely writer, which to me is more interesting, but I like the formal oddness of the whole and the sudden breaks in the tone and thoughts expressed, aided by the use of numbers.

After two years of your reply I reply to you--if you still existat this site.-thanks for your considered response.-Ron