The Book of Books

1A HYMN FROM THE BOOK OF SONGS - 2 O Great and Bountiful One who is the fountainhead of glory and the eternal spring of power; who sits enthroned in wisdom; whose counsel is the Law, great are the manifestations of Your wrath when it purges the land, even as it was done in the days of our fathers. Yet we, weak, wayward and wilful men, know in the depth of our hearts that whatever You do is done in justice and to our ultimate benefit.

2With inscrutable wisdom You prepared a compatible place for the spirits of men, a place encompassing the domain of man, a place wherein man rules under the decrees of Your everlasting and unchanging Law. You have set the boundaries and they are held back, neither troubling nor oppressing us beyond our endurance. The spirits of men rule in the mysterious domains governing the sun and the moon, the stars and the nightwatchers, the mistmen and the hidden caves of power. They undertake their appointed tasks there and are wave wanderers of the watery wastes, guardians of the deep.

3You have created man in the likeness of an original conceived in Your mysterious abode, and the manner of his life is fixed according to Your plan. Great and wonderful is the ultimate destiny of man who, as yet, has progressed but a few steps along the road towards the goal of life. Yet You have opened his ear to mysterious and wonderful things.

4You have revealed strange mysteries to his eye, he knows things unbelievable in olden times. .

5This being on whom You have conferred so much is a thing of weakness and frailty. He was shaped from moistened clay and moulded in water, then set upon a mound in the midst of the great chaos. His eyes were shown the glory above but he wearied of looking, for such splendour was beyond his comprehension. Therefore, he sought his pleasures among the things from whence he came, and therein he now finds his delight. So he sits on a pedestal of shame down by the polluted spring. His repast comes from the pot of fornication and he is clad in the garments of wickedness.

6Great One. You who are all wise know the words which come forth from his lips. You know the fruit of his mouth, the pollen of his tongue. Be merciful to man and overlook his weaknesses, for he is as he was made and, perchance, so he was meant to be. Who can question the mystery? May Your will prevail!