Today's Scripture Reading (November 6, 2025): 2 Samuel 17
Samuel Bowles was the editor
and publisher of the "Springfield Republican," a newspaper in
Springfield, Massachusetts, from 1844 until his death at the age of 51 on
January 15, 1878. Bowles was a talented publisher, but he was not a healthy man,
and would often spend time in the South searching for warmer weather in which
to convalesce. However, he also liked to spend some of his sick time in
Amherst, Massachusetts, living next door to Austin and Susan Dickinson; Austin
was the older brother of author Emily Dickinson.
Emily Dickinson met Samuel
Bowles and his wife, Mary, at the home of her brother and immediately developed
a strong social relationship with the couple. In particular, her politics and
views on slavery matched well with Samuel Bowles's. So, Emily began writing
letters to the couple, sending fifty letters and more than forty poems to
Samuel and Mary Bowles.
Samuel Bowles was sick again
in 1862, and the couple took a tour of the South to allow Samuel to recover.
During this period, Emily Dickinson wrote several letters to the couple. One
letter, written in the spring of 1862, seems to refer to the illness of Samuel
and the disappointments of life. The letter starts like this:
Dear Mary
When the Best is gone – I know that other things are
not of consequence – The Heart wants what it wants – or else it does not care
(Letter written by Emily Dickinson to Mary Bowles during the Spring of 1862).
What is significant about the
letter is that it is one of the earliest instances of the phrase "The
heart wants what it wants" being used. As Emily writes, "The Heart
wants what it wants;" it doesn't matter if the desires of the heart are
illogical or ill-conceived, the heart just wants it.
There have been several times
in my life when I knew that the desires of my heart had overcome the logic of my
mind. And you could echo Emily's words to me, and I would agree, but it would
not change anything. Even if we point out the weakness of the desires of the
heart, the heart still wants it, and unless we possess extraordinary
discipline, we will still bend to the wishes of our hearts.
Absalom is presented with two
alternatives. The first, presented by his advisor, Ahithophel, is to gather together his forces and press David now.
Absalom may not have all the soldiers he would like, but the forces of his
father, King David, were also in disarray. Absalom was never going to have a
better chance of defeating his father and taking the throne.
Hushai disagrees. What the reader
needs to remember is that Hushai is actually a spy of King David. And he
appeals to Absalom's heart. Stop, enjoy being King for a while; gather Israel
and all of the armies available to you, and then, after you have experienced
being King for a while, take the full force available to you after David. To a
tired Absalom who wanted nothing more than to be King, it was tempting advice,
and it was what his heart wanted. And so, that was precisely what Absalom did.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading:
Psalm 41
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