God's Hooks

The Iron Crown of Lombardy, traditionally believed to incorporate nails of the True Cross, "God's Hooks" —in the seventeenth-century English exclamation, "Gadzooks!"

All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.—Julian of Norwich (14th century)

The Office of the Dead's been said.

Sealed in her cell, Julian prays.

What with all the books I've read,

I must pay their due God's hooks,

Which dissembles puzzled looks.

Stuck without a fair conclusion,

undeceived, and full of years,

I dream up crops of random fears.

“Certain, since impossible,” Tertullian*

taught (if not to someone, perhaps

for naught). Credo quia absurdum [est].

So to say, could that be best?

All manner of things might well be well.

But if they’re aren't, how would we tell?

* Who he? Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus (ca. 155–220 CE), the North African Punic “father of Latin Christianity,” who supposedly said, "I believe because it is absurd."

Sunday, November 30, 2025