Alas! --Abbigayle Ebling

"Alas! In what abyss his mind

Is plunged, how wildly tossed!

Still, still towards the outer night

She sinks, her true light lost."

- Song II, Book I

Go ahead and throw the bone at me if you want to because hahhhh I am about to probably take this completely out of context but it's my think and that's what these posts are here for.... So, forgive me, please, but here goes my mood.

....Also, if my translation doesn't quite match yours. I sincerely apologize. I was more broke than the floor in Lyon Chapel until my paycheck came in and so I ordered my book with some of the spending money I had ((which is very little... bills stink. Growing up is a trap.)) and I found out it won't be here until AFTER I LEAVE on Tuesday. Yes, I was super elated by that news... Hah. So, I did what desperate people do, I went looking. I found a version of it available on the internet for free and I decided I would make that work because I really didn't have much of a choice. 😭

Okay... So maybe I am just a little bit of a romantic, because I read that first song as kind of a sad love story type thing. I mean, he goes to put romanticism emphasis on certain aspects that he was talking about. I mean, would you honestly think he was talking about Philosophy if all you read was the excerpt, "Does not the very aspect of this place move thee? Is this the library, the room which thou hadst chosen as thy constant resort in my home, the place where we so often sat together...." *From Book I, IV.*

......................I know I wouldn't, didn't, and had to remind myself he was, in fact, talking about Philosophy. Instead of imagining someone there with a book as he is most likely referring, I imagined a couple sitting there with, like, a nice fire surrounded by books but not reading them. 😂 

In Song VI, he says, "For to each thing God hath given its appointed time; no perplexing change permits He in His plan sublime. So who quits the order due shall a luckless issue rue." Which can be drawn to that same point on romance, different aspect. I honestly believe that we as humans can be so lost in God's plan that it starts to happen and then we try to take control once the blessings start coming and mess the perfect plan up. I believe this is ESPECIALLY true in the area of romantics... hence why there are teenage pregnancies and lots of single moms. God gave everything an appropriate time, and I honestly love how in the book of Song of Solomon how when addressing the love they have for each other before marriage they are more discreet and vague but after marriage they are more explicit and open about how their love for each other... Which, in my opinion, leaned far too heavily on the physical side of love. As I like to say, "Looks fade, personality doesn't." So I honestly wonder what their love story would've looked like later on when they were old and no longer had young bodies... because I honestly believe the divorce count is so high in America because people forgot the difference between lust and love, and there are a lot of people who never make it out of the lust side so they have no idea about the freeing and totally open side that love has to offer because they are so focused on physical desires and the desires of the body that they are completely blind to the beauty of a soul. 

Which I could make this whole blog post on that rant but if I remember correctly that is what my first one was a rant on so I will move along...

Book II. Fortune. Okay... Gotta keep these straight. I love how right in the beginning it says, "If thou likest her, take her as she is, and do not complain." Because, like, preach? That be a mood. Now don't go reading the rest of that paragraph because I know he is totally dissing Fortune, but, like, I really like that line and it goes along with my out-of-context-thought. So... I am using it. Hah. 

Part IV of Book II is sooo good, I'd quote the whole thing here but it isn't all relative to the point I am trying to make. I love how there is almost like a sadness in the exclaiming of how stupid it is that people go about life as unhappy as ever because of circumstances outside of their control. I love the sentence in there, "So petty are the trifles which rob the most fortunate of perfect happiness." Which I am also going to use in my think going on here... I really think a lot of relationships and marriages fail because people do not tend to believe that love is a choice, and that sometimes you want to strangle the other person but you can't. In those moments you need to remember that they are who they are and you need to love them for it and make it through whatever is going on... be it "just a little bit" or "a whole hecking lot." Which, yes, also implies to when they are making stupid noises and you really want them to stop but they think they are funny.... *cough cough* In the moments where someone is harder to love, instead of letting the petty things take away your happiness with them, change it around and love on them more than you typically would. Because, quite simply, that's what you're supposed to do. Strap your boots on tighter and keep walking... and please, for Pete's sake ((whoever Pete is, why do we do things for your sake? I am so confused.)), do not believe that a rough patch means a rough relationship. If you have ever been on a back road before, you know they can be pretty bumpy and horrible, but they lead to pretty destinations. 

At this point, though we are making two different points, Boethius gets my mood... "Strange is the thing I am trying to express, and for this cause I can scarce find words to make clear my thought." (Book II, VIII.) I feel like I'm a troll straight from Frozen, a "love expert." Hah.... Just kidding. The only thing I know about love is what I learned in Disney movies and the Bible along with my devos. I love my time with God... it's great. Disney over there giving me quotes like no tomorrow to work with.. among my favorites is a quote from Pocahontas, “I'd rather die tomorrow than live a hundred years without knowing you.” Yeet. Gotta love it. Okay. Back to actually making sense... I hope.

Book III, II.... "For the desire of the true good is naturally implanted in the minds of men, only error leads them aside out of the way in pursuit of the false." OOF. Okay, okay, okay so I know once again this isn't what he meant, but, that could be used towards the idea of impure thoughts leading to impure actions which ultimately destroy relationships and sometimes marriages. If good is naturally in the minds of men, though, what tempts them to go astray? How could that distraction even work? That's what perplexes me about people who cheat on their significant other, like, how did that person distract you to begin with? ((("Should've Said No" by Taylor Swift starts playing)) I mean, if you hadn't given the sin a chance, you would never have fallen victim to it.... To form a habitual sin, you need to be a lot like a drug user. To lie, you need to decide to do it the first time.. and from there, like with drugs, it spirals out of control.To cheat on your person, you need to decide to let someone entice you... You have the choice to run from them, to turn away. 

Okay... it's 11:13 at night and I was up this morning at 6 to get ready for work, so this is where I will end my blog post.... But before I go, remember that with love comes "an end to thy peace of mind." Hah.... Okay.... Goodnight. 😴

Always Yours,

Abbigayle Ebling 💛

P.S. I commented on the posts of Owen "The Heretic" and Will Brady.