#autobiography — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #autobiography, aggregated by home.social.
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Still reeling from Dolly Parton, we're mourning another great loss: Tim Curry who gave his face & voice to so many great roles
If you want to honour his life by learning more about his achievements, check out his #memoir "Vagabond" here: https://opac.sub.uni-goettingen.de/DB=1/XMLPRS=N/PPN?PPN=1939735882 -
If you want to know where I'm coming from musically—this is the article to read. #music #autobiography
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Listened to Geddy Lee's autobiagraphy, "My Effin' Life" this weekend
It was great to hear it in his ( and sometime Alex' ) voice
Everybody should listen to Chapter 3 about what the Nazis did to his family and the families of many others
As Geddy's mom used to always say, "It could happen again"
Both of Ged's parents were holocaust survivors
https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9780063159433-my-effin-life
1/x
#GeddyLee #Rush #RushIsABand #MyEffinLife #autobiography #AlexLifeson #NeilPeart #RushFans
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Debut memoir deals with dating-app fatigue, fertility anxiety and egg-freezing
By Ying-Di YinSheree Joseph always wanted to write the Great Australian Novel. Instead, her first book is a memoir about what happens when life doesn't live up to expectations.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-11/sheree-joseph-memoir-juicy-interview/107002892
#Books #Author #ArtsCultureandEntertainment #Autobiography #NonFiction #YingDiYin
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#writingprompt ~ #ActuallyTheyDidMeAFavour
#fiction #nonfiction #autobiography. Short or long. Whatever you like.
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📖 Looking at Women Looking at War by Victoria Amelina (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️) #biography #autobiography #nonfiction
When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Victoria Amelina was busy writing a novel, taking part in the country's literary scene, and parenting her son. Now she became someone new: a war crimes researcher and the chronicler of extraordinary women like herself who joined the resistance. These...
https://www.coryd.dev/reading/books/9780008727536/looking-at-women-looking-at-war
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Rewriting My Books
I’m rewriting my books-in-progress because they’re mainly a learning process. That has been working because I learned that some things I got wrong and I learned to improve my writing style. The three books are interconnected.
1. Making a Better World: Understanding and Fixing our Broken Social Systems
2. An autobiography
3. Philosophical noteworksAll on ericlawton.org
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Robert Graves -- Good-Bye To All That
This 1929 autobiographical work is indispensable for an understanding of how many British dealt with the memory of the Great War in the years that followed.
The accounts of the chaos and confusion of military operations were vividly narrated, but did not come as a great surprise to me. I was more taken aback by the stories of allied mistreatment of German prisoners, with Graves picking out Canadian and Australian soldiers as especially notable for this behaviour.
"Good-Bye To All That" is rich with memorable anecdote and imagery, such as tommies using machine gun cooling water to make tea, and incidents of the wartime absurd, like the story of Graves mistakenly being reported as dead, then receiving a communication from his commanding officer: “I cannot tell you how pleased I am you are alive.”
Nevertheless the horror of the war is never forgotten: “The first dead body I came upon was Samson’s. I found that he had forced his knuckles into his mouth to stop himself crying out and attracting any more men to their death. He had been hit in 17 places.”
#Books #RobertGraves #GoodByeToAllThat #Autobiography #BritishLiterature #LiteratureInEnglish #FirstWorldWar #WW1 #History
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‘Part Fable, Part Porridge’: Jackie Kay & Dame Hermione Lee on Writing the Self
For many theorists of autobiography, the form assumes a self that can be known & a life that can be accounted for. But how do you write an autobiography when your origin & identity are unknown, uncertain, or multiple?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBRPfyW2Vjk
#Scottish #literature #writing #autobiography #lifewriting #identity #ScottishIdentity #adoption
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Finished this last evening. There are parts I enjoyed, but not much, per se, as it’s more ‘informative’ than ‘fun.’
The #CIA assessed the content as mildly self-inflated, as well as some passages being wrong. Don’t read this for the final word on anything.
Mostly it’s a man obsessed with finding a mole in #MI5 who he cannot prove to be one particular person.
The good parts are near the front, with explanations of radio waves used for microphones.
★★★☆☆
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📖 Down with the System by Serj Tankian (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️) #biography #autobiography #music #nonfiction #biographyautobiography
An exhilarating, thoughtful, and beautifully written debut memoir by musician, songwriter, and lead singer-lyricist of Grammy award-winning metal band, System of a Down , Serj Tankian Serj Tankian will be the first to admit that his band, System of a Down, was “unlikely a chart-topper as had ever...
https://www.coryd.dev/reading/books/9780306831928/down-with-the-system
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Quote of the day, 13 July: St. Teresa of the Andes
I was born in 1900 on the 13th day of July. My mother is Lucía Solar de Fernández, and my father is Michael Fernández Jaraquemada.
We lived with my grandfather, who was already quite old (Juanita was born and lived 7 years in the house of her maternal Grandfather at 1352 Rosas Street in Santiago, Chile. The house has since been demolished).
You can say that he was a saint, since one could see him praying his rosary all day long. His name was Eulogio Solar.
Jesus did not desire me to be born poor like Himself; I was born in the midst of riches, spoiled by all.
I was the fourth child in the family. The first was named Lucía, who was 7 years old; Miguel, the second, was 6 years old and Luís, the third, was 3.
My aunt Juanita Solar lived in my grandfather’s house with her four children. My uncle, Luís Albert Domínguez, had already died. The eldest of my cousins was 13 years old, and the youngest was 5.
My aunt Teresa Vicuña also lived there with her two children. One of her boys died in childhood. Her older child was called Thomas Bernardo (the name of my uncle). And Teresita, her second, was 8 years old.
My uncle Francis (Francisco Solar Armstrong), who was a bachelor, also lived there. He was 23 years old.
A short time later, Rebecca was born, and there was a difference of 1 year and 8 months between us (In 1910, her last brother, Ignacio, came into the world; he died at Santiago, November 2, 1976).
Though quite spoiled, I was very timid. Rebecca was the opposite. We were both very spoiled. We could do whatever we pleased with my Granddaddy, and we used to trick him with our kisses and caresses.
From the time I was small, they used to say that I was the prettiest of my brothers and sisters, but I paid no attention to this. But they kept repeating these same words to me as I grew older, unbeknownst to my mother, since she didn’t like this.
God alone knows what it cost me to overcome this pride or vanity that took possession of my heart as I grew older. My character was timid, my heart sensitive. I used to cry for any reason, but my disposition was extremely gentle; I never used to get mad at anyone.
Saint Teresa of the Andes
Her intimate spiritual diary, 2
Griffin, M D & Teresa of the Andes, S 2021, God, The Joy of My Life: A Biography of Saint Teresa of the Andes With the Saint’s Spiritual Diary, ICS Publications, Washington DC.
Featured image: Saint Teresa of the Andes, not long before she entered the Carmel of Los Andes. Original photograph: Discalced Carmelites (used by permission). Artistic treatment by Carmelite Quotes using Paintt.
#autobiography #childhood #familyLife #pride #StTeresaOfTheAndes -
The Book That Deserves a Sequel
What’s a book you think deserves a sequel? If I had to pick one book that deserves a sequel, it’d be my autobiography. Minor problem. I haven’t written the first one yet. The first book would mostly be me trying to survive while the universe keeps throwing random garbage at me like it’s running
#autobiography #Blog #book #dailyprompt #Dailyprompt2817 #sequelRead The Whole Post By Clicking The Link Below:
https://ericfoltin.com/2026/07/09/the-book-that-deserves-a-sequel/ -
Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!
"Global icon Liza Minnelli shares her inspiring story "
Sale: $36 to $4.99
by Liza Minnelli
Rating: 4.5/5 (1,431 Reviews)
#memoir #biography #actors #actresses #hollywood #entertainment #books #booksky #addiction #autobiography
Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! -
Cliff Potts: Time in the Frequency of a Nation
By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News
Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — July 4, 2026 —
Introduction
Two hundred and fifty years ago, a small group of men signed a document declaring independence from empire. Today, from Baybay City in the Philippines, I write as one American citizen who has lived through a slice of what that declaration became.
This is not the story of a public figure. It is the story of a participant. A boy shaped by California lift, a teenager formed in Chicago bleachers, a man who watched systems rise, harden, and strain.
History is not only written in marble halls. It is carried in memory.
California Lift
I was born into early-1960s California. You did not need to hear the word “Gemini” to feel the rockets. Aerospace optimism was atmospheric. Highways grew. Suburbs spread. The future felt engineered.
Songs on AM radio carried that lift. “Up, Up and Away” floated everywhere in 1967, just as we returned from Peru. It was sunlight set to melody. It was motion upward, literal and cultural.
“California Dreamin’” had already framed longing and geography in song. Even before the counterculture defined itself, there was a sense that the West Coast was a place where something was beginning.
In 1966, we left. In 1967, we landed in Chicago. The contrast was immediate. California was horizon and expansion. Chicago was density, machine politics, industry, and winter. The country revealed its internal weather systems.
Prosser and the Rowdies
I attended Prosser Vocational High School on Chicago’s Northwest Side. When I arrived, it was an all-boys school. No cheer squad. Barely a football team. So we built our own energy in the bleachers. We became the Prosser Rowdies.
It was not rebellion for its own sake. It was tribe.
Across the street sat Nicky’s. During study hall, I sometimes signed myself in as office help and crossed over for donuts and coffee. The jukebox became a timestamp.
“Rock On.”
“Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me).”
“Play That Funky Music.”
And above all, “Long Tall Glasses (I Can Dance).”That Leo Sayer track seemed to play every time I walked in during 1974. To this day, when it comes on, I bounce in my chair. I could never dance well. I could fake a twist. I once nearly injured someone attempting the bump. But that bass line still moves me.
High school was not defined by grades. It was defined by structure and belonging. I understood what I was supposed to do, even when I did not execute perfectly. College later became the place where I proved to myself that I could perform within academic systems.
I loved school because it made sense.
The Soundtrack of Becoming
The late 1960s and 1970s unfolded in music.
“Kicks” warned.
“White Rabbit” experimented.
“Aquarius” announced an age.
“American Pie” autopsied a decade.“Color My World” meant prom lights and awkward slow dances. “Ballroom Blitz” meant raw energy without ideology. “Barracuda” meant defiance.
And for my tribe in the 1970s, “Dust in the Wind” became a quiet anthem. Even as we gathered to study the Book of Revelation, even as we spoke of prophecy and permanence, we felt the fragility. All we are is dust in the wind. It was not nihilism. It was recognition.
Time moved.
“Fly Like an Eagle” named it. Time keeps on slipping into the future.
“In the Air Tonight” captured the tension that followed. Something unresolved. Something suspended.Music was not my obsession. It was my barometer. It marked the shifts in atmosphere.
Faith, Work, and Institutions
I moved through religious movements, countercultural remnants, and corporate structures. I saw idealism institutionalize. I saw institutions calcify. I saw protest give way to management. I saw corporate systems consume youth and energy.
The lesson was not despair. It was clarity.
Systems require vigilance. Culture requires renewal. No generation escapes responsibility for maintenance.
From Chicago to other states and eventually to the Philippines, I carried that awareness. Distance sharpens contrast. Watching the United States from Southeast Asia is different than watching it from within.
America at 250
In 1976, the bicentennial arrived. My family largely ignored the fireworks. Today, in 2026, the 250th anniversary arrives under strain.
The United States is older now. Heavier. Divided. Questioning itself again.
The language of liberty remains. The practice of it is contested.
From here, it feels like something is still in the air tonight — unresolved, suspended, waiting for a release that has not yet come.
I do not write this as condemnation or nostalgia. I write it as record.
I was there for California lift.
I was there for Chicago grit.
I was there for bleacher chants and jukebox quarters.
I was there for faith and doubt.
I was there for time slipping.At 250 years old, the United States is still asking fundamental questions about power, responsibility, and freedom. I am one ordinary citizen who lived through a fraction of its arc.
I did not shape history in dramatic ways. I participated in it quietly. I studied. I worked. I believed. I questioned. I observed.
That is enough to archive.
For more social commentary, please see Occupy 2.5 at https://Occupy25.com
This essay will be archived as part of the ongoing WPS News Monthly Brief Series available through Amazon.
#250thAnniversary #AmericanHistory #autobiography #California #Chicago #CliffPotts #culturalMemory #WPSNews -
#Suspect on trial for killing of Tupac Shakuur to have #autobiography in which he claimed involvement in case to be used against him in trial
https://apnews.com/article/tupac-shakur-murder-las-vegas-dae886dcf21467d334d308eaff40f0b7 #Tupac #LasVegas #GangstaRap #Legal #CriminalLaw #Books
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#books #readingcommunity #feminist #fiction #autobiography #memoir #nature #scifi #history #literary
I read a whole lot in June! It has been very good. A distraction that is also deeply invasive and utterly important.
I loved:
I Who Have Never Known Men, A Protest History of the United States, and The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Very excellent. And I couldn't get enough of Deborah Levy, particularly her nonfiction. -
Book of da Month #2: Yours Cruelly, Elvira by Cassandra Peterson 💄
This fantastic autobiography is by Cassandra Peterson. She’s best known as portraying horror queen icon Elvira, who here in the UK wasn’t really a thing, but in America has continued cult status.
After hearing a You’re Wrong About podcast episode last year, Peterson’s story piqued our interest. We bought Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of Darkness (2021) for further insights into her life. It’s an often remarkable time of it, with many highs and low, all told with brilliant humour and wit.
Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of Darkness
“Okay. Let me just get this out of the way. I’m seventy years old. There’s no hiding it from Wikipedia. My age is always announced in the first sentence of any interview I do. I’m going to do my absolute best to remember as much of my life as humanly possible even though nowadays I can barely remember what I did last night. I’ll try to recall every gory detail and be as factual as possible because I sure as hell don’t want to end up like that James Frey who got reamed by Oprah after she found out his autobiography was bogus. The bottom line is, this story is the truth. My truth.”
Cassandra Peterson is 74 now, born in September of 1951 over in Manhattan, Kansas. She begins her autobiography with a terrifying story of how, at 18 months of age, an accident at home left her with severe burns over 35% of her body.
This happened when boiling water from a kettle fell over her. Peterson believes she must have accidentally pulled it onto herself when her parents were in a different room. The toddler was rushed to hospital and spent years receiving skin grafts.
Experimental penicillin treatment saved her life and, by chance, most of her significant scars can be covered up by clothing and the positioning of her hair. But the scars left a big impact on her childhood and teenage years, leaving her battling self-esteem problems, and she became a shy loner. Not helped by her family setting of a loving but eccentric father with a penchant for engaging in manly fisticuffs.
“Every other word out of his mouth was ‘damn’, ‘goddamn’, ‘son of a bitch’, ‘bastard’, or ‘hell’. And that wasn’t when he was angry; it was just his normal, everyday speech.”
Worse are Peterson’s recollections of her mother, who she acknowledges had undiagnosed narcissistic personality disorder, which led to frequent verbal and physical abuse.
“My childhood might have seemed idyllic to the outside observer, but at home with my mother, it was anything but. She was a tough one, man. She didn’t take crap from anyone, least of all her kids. Mother came from the do-it-because-I-say-so-or-I’ll-give-you-something-to-really-cry-about school of parenting. She wasn’t the kind of person who should have had kids to begin with. She was a nervous, anxious woman of the ’50s who did what you were supposed to do in those days: get married and start a family.”
To deal with this unstable home life, Peterson immersed herself in pop culture and fell in love with cinema. Most notably, she took a big fancy to horror and her favourite actor was Vincent Price.
But she was also obsessed with music. After an Elvis infatuation, she went ballistic for The Beatles once Beatlemania stormed the US.
“I ate, slept, and breathed The Beatles. The downside was that this spelled the end of my long friendship with Nyliram, because she hated them and said they looked like girls. That was it. I was forced to drop her like a hot potato and search out other like-minded Beatlemaniacs. I found them in the form of my new BFFs, Molly, Kathy, and Eileen. We talked in British accents like The Beatles, dressed in Beatle boots and hats, and screamed our heads off whenever one of their songs came on the radio. We went to the Chief Theater to see A Hard Day’s Night at least a half dozen times and shrieked and sobbed our way through it until we lost our voices. When one of The Beatles’ birthdays rolled around, we held a party, complete with candles and a Jiffy cake we whipped up ourselves. We put a lot of energy into hating the guts out of Cynthia Lennon, John’s wife, and Jane Asher, Paul’s girlfriend, because we were so jealous.”
From there she worshipped any bands who visited Kansas and became a groupie, the young women famous for trying to hang out with bands (often getting exploited in the process).
This is one of the darker sides of this autobiography, Peterson’s depictions of sexual assault at the hands of often much older men.
Apologies for the male gaze here, but Peterson is a very attractive women and, as she admits in the book, puberty led to a surge of interest in her. Although still affected by burn scars, she uses (to this day) her long red hair to cover up the scarring on her neck. And often pokes fun at the size of her breasts and how these make men behave like idiots in front of her.
“Suddenly one day I sprouted boobs. Not just boobs. Enormous boobs. When puberty finally struck, I developed faster than a Polaroid. In my mind at least, I remember going to bed flat as a board one night and waking up with ginormous breasts the next morning. It was like, whoa, dude—this is better than the tooth fairy!”
A timely confidence boost for her, but as she soon found out her appearance also brought with it a lot of negative geezer attention.
As a groupie she was meeting famous rock stars already feeling pretty entitled and important, some of whom really do not come across very well at all in this book. Some are straight up sex pests (she dishes the dirt in the book without holding back).
Then you’ve got the ones clearly battling chronic addiction problems. Jimi Hendrix gave Peterson his number (at the Denver Pop Festival, June 1969), but when she rang him later that night he was too drunk/stoned to make any sense (unfortunately, he died just over 12 months later). Then The Who turned up on their first US tour and baffled her by destroying their equipment onstage in a frenzy.
Who does come out of it really well is the lovely sounding Frank Zappa, who gave Peterson fatherly advice about staying safe (i.e. by not being a groupie).
The chaos of these disorderly teenage years are told with charm and great humour. It’s a very funny, if also melancholic, retelling of a difficult childhood turning into a rock ‘n’ roll coming-of-age. In a demonstration of leering behaviour from men that Peterson would have to deal with for decades ahead.
Throughout those formative years, she was intent on making it as an actor. But as she acknowledges, that kind of thing doesn’t work out for 99% of people. She put off trying to get a “normal” career in her efforts to make it. But by the age of 30, her efforts hadn’t gone anywhere and was told by everyone (including her agent) she was now “too old” for Hollywood. She was close to packing in her dreams.
But then an unexpected bit of a luck came her way in 1981, which has become her defining act.
The Elvira Years: 1981 to Present
Right, the first time we ever heard about Elvira was in August 2025 with the You’re Wrong About podcast. We don’t know where we went wrong there, but presume it’s mainly a US thing, as we don’t recall ever seeing her on anything in the UK.
How did the character come to be? Well, in the 1970s there was an LA-based TV show called Fright Night that ran as a celebration of dodgy B movie horror films. Producers were looking for a new host, wanted it to be an attractive woman, and went about with auditions.
Peterson didn’t want the role at first and turned down audition offers.
“Finding a woman who was both sexy and funny was a tall order in those days. Women were allowed to be sexy or funny, but not both. If you were the least bit attractive it was impossible to have a sense of humour. If you were funny, you needed to look like Phyllis Diller, Totie Fields, or Joan Rivers (with their original faces). I loved old horror movies and I’d been working in LA’s top comedy improvisational group, the Groundlings, for a little more than four years, so had the timing been better, horror host actually seemed like a bill I could have filled. Damn.”
Eventually, she agreed to an audition and nailed the role in one. The producers then left it up to her to create the Elvira character, so she went for a goth/vampire look similar to The Addams Family type vibes.
What was crucial here is Peterson seized on the role and took it seriously, but not so seriously she couldn’t have an enormous amount of fun with it. Wearing a dress heavily exaggerating her breasts, with a giant and almost absurd beehive black wig, plus the pallid makeup, and the result was a very arresting look.
As a character, she’s confident, open with her sexuality, sassy, and a kickass type feminist. An outsider anti-heroine, but someone oozing in confidence, the creation of that alter-ego seems to be in stark contrast to Peterson’s confidence struggles when she was younger.
Plus, an outsider who doesn’t give a toss about that and is happy in leading her life as she pleases.
Couple that image with the one liners (“I’m the hostess with the mostess!”, “Unpleasant dreams!”, “Bad dreams, darlings!” etc.) and you’ve got an instant camp LGBTQ+ icon.
The character is so popular it led to two films. There was Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988) and then Elvira’s Haunted House (2001). In those, she frequently deals with approaches from randy men, who she thwarts through one liners and/or the likes of stamping on their feet with her high heels. She doesn’t let them get away with it.
The hostess with the mostess feels even more relevant to modern life and progressive attitudes than in the 1980s. This led to the TV concept returning in 2010 for public domain films, before returning to the horror hostess in 2014 with Nights of Elvira (a Hulu exclusive).
Of course, there’s the also official website: Elvira, Mistress of Darkness.
Her story story is rumbling on in fine style. For 2021, alongside this autobiography launching, there was a 40th anniversary special celebrating the character on Shudder (a horror-based streaming service). And there doesn’t seem any end to the character. She’s active on social media and still attends comic cons and the like to meet fans.
View this post on Instagram
Anyway, we’re all sold on this. We feel stupid for having missed out on Peterson’s excellence, but pleased to belatedly get there. Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of Darkness is an excellent book and was a New York Times bestseller after its launch.
It perfectly balances her great sense of humour (she is naturally very funny) alongside her intelligence, but also recalling the psychological battering she faced due to the sexist nature of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s.
There’s a positive and endearing spirit in her every sentence and we can highly recommend the autobiography. Charming, uplifting, and an insight into an impressive mind.
#autobiography #BMovies #Books #camp #CassandraPeterson #Devil #Elvira #ElviraMemoirsOfTheMistressOfDarkness #Feminism #Horror #LGBTQ #Lifestyle #Literature #YoursCruelly -
Going off the beaten path with this week's review
#TheHeirsLair #Review #BookReview #NonFiction #Memoirs #Memoir #Autobiography #MemoirReview #philosophy #PhilosophyTreatise #meditations #PhilosophyReview #AncientPhilosophy #MarcusAurelius
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Queen of Sheba visits Solomon
After or in-between our series on finding a church, we would like to share an exhortation given a few weeks back by brother Simon Peel at the Newbury ecclesia which we could follow thanks to the Google Hangouts.
It referred back to the second part of the two Books of Chronicles (or the Diḇrê Hayyāmîm, “The Matters of the Days” or the Paraleipoménōn) which are the final books of the Hebrew Bible in the order followed by modern Judaism; in that generally followed in Christianity, they follow the two Books of Kings and precede Ezra–Nehemiah, concluding the history-oriented books of the Old Testament. That 2° book of the Solomon Chronicles or 2° Paralipomenon comprises the reign of Solomon (chapters 1-9), and the reigns of the kings of Juda (10-36) and covers the same period as the last three Books of Kings.
The objects of Solomon his interest are the temple and its worship, not to supplement the omissions of Books of Kings but to write the religious history of Juda with the temple as its centre, and, as intimately connected with it, the history of the house of David.Solomon, renowned for his wisdom, describes her journey to Jerusalem to meet with him.
According to the book of Kings in the Bible, the queen arrived in Jerusalem and asked King Solomon a series of difficult questions. He responded wisely to each one. The queen presented Solomon with many gifts and returned to her home.Solomon is the one who gave us some more insight of God (in Proverbs a.o.) and let us know that God loves justice and wants us to work with integrity and refrain from offering or accepting bribes or giving in at worldly matters which are not justifiable for God. He also show the dangers of the rich, which are typically powerful, plus the tendency of the heart to abuse and overindulge.
He might have been a very busy person and therefore got the nickname “ant” or “An-Naml” (The Ant), who was a friend of God, but by his want or his lust for more, got sidetracked. In the Qu’ran it is the ant which looks at him and says things about him, which Solomon could hear and did not mid of. He knew Who he had to ask for teaching him how to do things and how to get more knowledge. He could thank for the great bounties that God had granted him and his parents to be able to use them in the way that He had commanded and was the cause of His pleasure so that he would not deviate from the right path, since being thankful for those abundant favours is not possible save with His succour and aid.
There is so much in this world we can gain, but there are more important things we can loose. The writers of the Book of books did not hide their faults and this way we also come to see how it went with Solomon who could come closer than anyone else in saying that he gained the whole world. We can see that h must have had the best and was articulate and very well-known. all luck seem to come like nothing but in the end, he died a man who had lost it. He got also to know that he lost the nation God had entrusted him with. This should be a good warning for us, even when we do have much less than Solomon.
We should check ourselves and be careful not to be not be over-righteous, neither to be over-wise, bringing ourselves in danger to destroy ourselves.
Solomon tells us not to be fools, but to use discernment. We are to trust in God and follow him, but never once to believe our goodness or our wisdom comes from our own effort.Queen of Sheba visits Solomon
2 Chronicles 9
Steven Gerrard with his explosive new book, My StoryI saw an advert for Steven Gerrard’s autobiography* the other day. It is entitled ‘My Story’.
Do you know how many autobiographies are called ‘My Story’? Gazza – ‘My Story’, Aled Jones – ‘My Story’, Sarah Ferguson – ‘My Story’, Julia Gillard – ‘My Story’, Cheryl Cole – ‘Cheryl, My Story’ (she’s just left her first name to seem more approachable I guess), Ryan Giggs – ‘My Life, My Story’ (he’s stepped it up a gear), and a ton of others.
I don’t read autobiographies, the only one I’ve read is Nelson Mandela’s. They strike me as a last ditch attempts for celebrities to bleed out some cash from us before they fade from our memories.
So why does Steven and all these other’s want to tell us their stories? There are hundreds of pages where they get to paint a picture of themselves so that when you finish that last page you come away thinking the best possible thoughts about that person. They can play up their achievements, they can deal with their mistakes, they can downplay their faults, they can give us perspective on that time they got arrested for the nightclub brawl – you can view that part of their life through their eyes and see that the other guy totally deserved to be hit in the face four times.
I am exactly the same, I spend a large majority of my time trying to make you think that I’m better than I am. My whole life is spent trying to perfect a charade. I spend the majority of my time trying to convince anyone I meet that I am someone slightly different than I am. I am still myself but I don’t show everything. I reign in my temper, I reign in my sarcasm. I play up the niceties, I play up the jokes. I feign interest. I’m not quite the man you might think I am.
My Facebook and my Instagram accounts show a side of me that I want you to see.
I trick myself a lot of the time. It’s only when you have a wife with a very good memory that you realise how often you contradict yourself without realising.
I even did it a few sentences ago when I have tried to make you think that I am more intellectual than I am because I have poured scorn on those Z-list celebrities (there you go I’ve done it again) whilst also casually dropping in that I only read accounts of respectable and influential political figures.
Chronicles paints a very positive picture of Solomon. There is not a bad word said about him. If Solomon was to commission a biography, then this is the text that he would want to be used. From Chapter 1 to Chapter 9 we have a wonderful account of a king who could do no wrong.
King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)The Queen of Sheba** is in awe. There is peace, there is wisdom, there is wealth, there is spirituality and there is this man in the centre of it all who is faultless.
“How happy your men must be! How happy your officials, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom!”
Solomon could put on a show. He has skill and talent and charisma and he can make a queen exclaim how wonderful he is.
We are with the Queen of Sheba. We see everything and we read Chapter 9 and we are wowed by it.
“The palace he had built, the food on his table, the seating of his officials, the attending servants in their robes, the cupbearers in their robes and the burnt offerings he made at the temple of the LORD”
and we are overwhelmed!
Of course, the Queen of Sheba doesn’t know the whole story. If Chronicles is the autobiography, then Kings is the sensationalist scoop. We get a hint of it in Chapter 10 of Chronicles and verse 4,
“Your father (Solomon) put a heavy yoke on us.”
1 Kings 11: 4-6
1 Kings 11:4–6 (ESV): 4 For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. 5 For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. 6 So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done.
Solomon is a man of contradictions. He is wise and yet foolish. His wisdom turned from godly to worldly. It was a talent that Solomon had to choose how to use. He used it to govern well but he also knew all the right words to say and the right things to do to get any woman he wanted. But on the flip side of that he then allowed those women to rule over him and get him to do whatever they wanted. He not only built them their gods and temples but actively worshipped there with them.
Solomon is not quite the man we thought he was. Which means he is more like you and me than maybe we first thought.
For all Solomon’s wisdom and success as a King, the overall account of his life leaves a sour taste in our mouths. There is such high hopes for this man to be a great and godly man and yet he has a major flaw that throws him completely off the godly track.
This sour taste is true for a lot of things in life, whether it’s Rolf Harris or capitalism, we can be easily mislead, disappointed, appalled and disillusioned. I don’t think there has ever been a government in existence which hasn’t lived up to expectation.
You also don’t have to look too hard to find that the food we eat and the clothes we wear are tainted by the blood, sweat and tears of underpaid and exploited workers in the third world. Our wealth exists because other people are poor. Someone goes hungry because I eat too much, someone goes naked because I don’t want to spend the extra money and buy ethical clothing.
If a Chronicles account was written about our country today it would marvel at the technology we use, the fine apparel we wear, the cities we have built, the science we have discovered but if a Kings account were written it would show at what expense and pain and suffering all these things were done.
So what do we do about this? How do we live our lives and think our thoughts knowing this? Do we take the Chronicles approach and forget all about the negatives and focus on just the good things or do we take the Kings approach and acknowledge the evil that is there?
Practically there is very little we can do apart from buy things more ethically but even then that is a lifestyle that is above and beyond what I get paid. Even if I could afford to do it, there is not enough people doing it to make the world sit up and do things differently.
The world and its injustices are too big for our actions to change them, even if you were a leader of a powerful country and you tried to change the way wealth is distributed you’d be booted out at the next election. The only way this can be fixed is for the Kingdom to come. Our very clothes and our very food can be reminder of the unfairness of this world and the real need for Jesus to come and sort it out.
You may think I’m being a bit harsh on Solomon and I’m giving the impression that he was hiding the poor people away and only allowing the Queen of Sheba to see the freshly painted parts of his Kingdom. Scripture makes it clear that the whole Kingdom was unprecedentedly wealthy and that
“all the kings of the earth sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart”.
This is not a charlatan, Solomon genuinely was a very wise man.
King Solomon, Russian icon from first quarter of 18th cen. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)We know that Solomon’s downfall happened at the end of his life so there is good reason to expect that up until that point he was the godly, wise king that Chronicles makes him out to be. When the Queen of Sheba came to visit, Solomon and his Kingdom truly were at their spiritual pinnacle and yet how subtly welcomed was the evil that led the LORD to become angry with Solomon in verse 9 of chapter 11.
1 Chron 28: 9
1 Chronicles 28:9 (ESV): David’s Charge to Solomon
9 “And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.Basically, don’t pretend. Don’t try and fool God because he knows you. The Chronicles account is what human beings would have seen of Solomon whereas Kings is what God would have seen and it ends by saying that ‘Solomon did evil in the eyes of the LORD’. Although we can try to impress others with our autobiography or charade of our life…God is never fooled. He knows our every desire and our every thought.
So what’s our relationship with God? Are we honest with Him? There’s a strange relationship between us isn’t there? He knows everything about us and we know everything about us yet we sometimes still try to hide it. It’s a similar relationship we had with our parents when we were young.
“Simon, did you take the money that was on the table?”
“No”
“Simon, I know you took it. I just want you to apologise.”
“You can’t assume I took it, that’s unfair. What proof do you have?”
“Did you take it?”“Yes, but it’s unfair for you to assume that was true.”
All my parents wanted me to do was to own up, but I was afraid of the punishment and then I was angry at the assumed guilt even though my parents knew me well enough to know I was guilty.
It’s the same with God, maybe we don’t confess our faults or acknowledge the reality because we’re scared of what God will do to us? But all He wants is a confession, an acknowledgement that we need his forgiveness. Our pride should have no place in God’s biography of us.
There is a clue to Solomon’s pride in his prayer of dedication in 2 Chronicles 6. If you scan through from verse 21-40 you will see that Solomon always refers to the people being the one who will be the sinners not himself. Verse 24 as an example
“When your people Israel have been defeated by an enemy because they have sinned against you”.
Verse 26,
“When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you.”
Verse 27,
“Teach them the right way to live.”
It maybe that this is the way the English translation renders it and it maybe that, again, I am being unfair on Solomon especially because I am already viewing him in a negative light but it seems to me that Solomon knows the people are more than capable of sinning and needing redemption but he doesn’t consider the same for himself.
Compare this to his father’s prayer in Psalm 51 after David is confronted by the prophet Nathan:
The Queen of Sheba Kneeling before King Solomon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Verse 3 – “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.”
Verse 7 – “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
Verse 17 – “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise”.
Admittedly, it is a completely different scenario and the mood of the Solomon and David would have been polar opposites but we don’t have anything we can turn to that says that Solomon felt the same about his failings.
Where ever you are at this morning, whether you feel you could entertain the Queen of Sheba and she would be waxing lyrical about your godly wisdom or whether you feel like a prophet has come and exposed your sin there are lessons to be learned.
Whatever our situation we need to echo the words of Psalm 139 and verses 23-24 –
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
I like this because it admits that we probably don’t know ourselves as well as God does. If I knew about an offensive part of me, I would like to think that I would do my utmost to get rid of it, but maybe there are things that I am too blind to see and I want God to remove them if they are a blocker to my entrance to the Kingdom.
If we cannot be completely honest with ourselves and God then we aren’t the sort of people God wants in his Kingdom. We know how vehemently Jesus reacts to the Pharisees, he practically spits his tirade at them.
“Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every impurity. In the same way, on the outside you seem righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
Solomon was human. Like us, he had his strong points and his weak points. He had his ups and his downs. Solomon tried to present his most admirable parts to the Queen of Sheba but only God knew the reality. We all have different aspects we struggle with, for Solomon, it was his wives. There is no point trying to hide it because God knows it all- including the secret/hidden things. At the end of Ecclesiastes, Solomon came to realise this for himself:
Ecclesiastes 12: 13-14
Ecclesiastes 12:13–14 (ESV): 13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.
Romans 7:23-25
Romans 7:23–25 (ESV): 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
There are always going to be two sides to our autobiography. There is no way to hide the fact that we have two sides to us. There will always be this constant war in our bodies. Thanks be to God, that delivers us through Jesus.
Jesus himself understands this temptation to present ourselves in a certain way.
“For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
– Simon Peel
*
Notes
* Steven Gerrard – legendary captain of Liverpool and England – tells the story of the highs and lows of a twenty-year career at the top of English and world football.
** Josephus clearly identifies the queen who visited Solomon as “the woman who ruled Egypt and Ethiopia,” and tells us that her name was Nikaulis.
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Preceding articles:
Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #4 Transitoriness #2 Purity
Believing in the send one and understanding that one does not live by bread alone
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Additional reading
- What should we learn from Solomon’s story?
- Was Solomon saved?
- In 1 Kings 8, how was Solomon’s prayer heard by so large a crowd?
- What is the difference between wisdom, knowledge and understanding?
- What stories in the Bible talk about lust?
- A look at materialism
- Count your blessings
- Capitalism and economic policy and Christian survey
- Is there any scripture that commands me to confess my sin to the person I lied to?
- Set free from any form of mental torment or self-condemnation
- How can I ask God to take away a desire to be rich?
- How can grounding in biblical truths help us to distinguish godly wisdom from worldly wisdom?
- Purify my heart
- How can I restore my faith?
- When can one be considered righteous?
- Two states of existence before God
- God does not change
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Further reading
- Tonight’s thoughts: Solomon’s Books
- Solomon: Whose Glory Was A Shadow
- Solomon Builds the Lord’s Temple
- Queen Of Sheba
- How Solomon Would Choose A Candidate
- The Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom of Christ. Thursday after All Saints’, 2015
- Only What Is Done For God Will Last
- The Inerrancy of Proverbs
- Tafsir Naml
- Would that you had walked the path of Solomon once more
- There Is No Exchange For Peace
- Ecclesiastes 9-10: Discover His heart: His Word provides the wisdom we need to keep sharp!
- Wisdom – do you have it?
- Wisdom Continues To Speak!
- Week 46 Can We Be Too Righteous or Too Wise?
- Challenge #4 – Pride
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Related articles
- The Canaanites and Us: Whom Shall We Worship? (blackchristiannews.com)
- Bible Daily Devotional – The end of the Assyrians: Nahum (ptl2010.com)
- People are not Taking Care of the World (halsmith.wordpress.com)
- A Maskil of David. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. (1956msbess.wordpress.com)
- Reflective Summary of ‘Israel’s Wisdom Tradition: The Place of Local Wisdom in Theological Discourse.’ (roninsjourney.com)
- Here’s the Good News. (shirley-mclain.net)
- King James Bible Study (brakeman1.com)
- Old Testament Christians (lewrockwell.com)
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