“Praise to the Holiest in the height,

and in the depth be praised;

in all His words most wonderful,

most sure in all His ways!”

John Henry Newman

Gold and silver moved back to about where they had started things out this week.  The wash and rinse reached the end of at least one cycle, and a particularly blatant one.

I particularly enjoyed the trade today, because I barely looked at it, as was its due.

I spent most of the day listening to lectures on some subjects of particular interest to me, the lives of a few historical figures, including More and Newman, and an interesting fellow from the 4th century called Athanasius of Alexandria. I had read extensively in the ‘ante-Nicene fathers and doctors' at a younger, more ambitious, age.  Now I have to take things in a more measured pace. 

One of the advantages of living for a while is that you can often revisit territory over which you may have tramped, and even extensively so, in your younger days, and while many of the landmarks are familiar, it is like you are doing it with a freshness and a better attention to nuance and details than you were capable at the first. 

You know the general lay of the ground, the feel of the paths, and while walking back over them you can see so many new things, because you are bringing ‘more to the party' so to speak. You mind is a slower, but better, instrument.

Facts that you have heard before suddenly mean something, and convey an understanding that even a first rate mind, but lacking a depth of experience, might not have obtained. It is certainly true in my own situation. There is knowing, which is an achievement, and then there is understanding, which is a joy.

It was certainly more enjoyable for me, and quite likely more instructive, than all the nonsense from all the day on the financial news networks, or from every tick of every trade on the markets this day.