1.  “I Can’t Hear You Praying!”

Have you ever been at one of those ‘powerful’ prayer meetings where the leader calls out passionately, “I can’t hear you praying!” urging everyone to be louder?  I have, many times.  The call is sometimes made as if the prayers were meant for them, or as if it were in their power to answer the petitions.  The impression is also given that the louder the voices, the more impressed God is, and the more effective the prayer.  In other words, apparently, God doesn’t hear or is not impressed with whispered prayers.  Such orientations tend to induce the notion that noise means anointing, and manual intensity means spiritual force.

There is certainly a place for the thunderous voices and joyful sounds, loud as they can get, but the tradition that diminishes the place of whispered fellowship misses much; the tradition that insists on the amplification of our religious sounds even when God bids holy silence is hollow.  How satisfied we get with the volume of our ‘powerful’ sounds is not the measure of how effective the prayer has been.

2.  Voluble Thoughts

God hears words (James 5:16); He also hears thoughts (Ephesians 3:20), and He answers both, just as He judges evil words spoken aloud and evil thoughts left unspoken.  In Psalm 14:1 and 53:1, God publicly reports what the fool had secretly said “in his heart.”  God could report it because He heard it, even though it was never spoken aloud.  The fool didn’t want to be heard saying it, because he probably feared reprisals from those who might hear it, but God heard it – from his heart.

In the New Testament also, an “evil servant” is so judged for the audible evil “in his heart” – not in his hand (Matthew 24:48).  Does God hear hearts also, or does He hear lips only?  Does He respond to thoughts also, or to words only?

Satan’s manifesto of rebellion against God was first ‘published’ in the heart, where God caught it and promptly acted, before anyone had heard it from his lips.  The initial charge against Lucifer was not what he had done with his hands or said with his mouth, but what he “said” in his heart: “For thou hast SAID in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne … I will sit also …” (Isaiah 14:13-15).  He got cast out of heaven.  Can God go to such drastic lengths for a thought, even when the lips said nothing?  Are thoughts so tangible and audible that God should take them so seriously?

Psalm 10 is classic for its several reports on the fact that God hears the heart, even when no words are spoken.  Verse 6 reports the boast of the wicked, who had “said in his heart” that nothing was going to move him.  Verses 11 and 13 give further reports of what was “said in his heart,” which mortal ears did not hear.  Other verses further report on the loud voices from the silent heart.  In other words, God hears not only words but also thoughts. He hears not only our lips but also our hearts.

3.  Soul Talks and Thought Transfers

In the spirit realm, thoughts are as loud as words.  Something need not be spoken before it is heard and judged as spoken from the lips.  Even the occult world knows a thing or two about telepathy, when soul talks to soul, when spirit communes with spirit – without the lips moving or the pen writing.

Beyond soul talks, the occult world also knows how to project or transmit thoughts into a human soul, making someone think thoughts they think are their thoughts.  Sometimes the projected thoughts are so strange, so unlike the ‘thinker,’ that they are surprised they could be thinking such thoughts.  The more discerning would usually reject them, forcing those invading thoughts to bounce off.  The undiscerning receive them as their thoughts; then they become their own; then they do such stupid things as they otherwise would not have done, such as suicide, rape, stealing, killing, and so on.

Thought transfer was how Satan got Judas to betray Jesus.  He “put” the thought “into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him” (John 13:2).  First, Judas received the devil’s thoughts; then next, the devil himself moved in: “Then entered Satan into Judas” (Luke 22:3).  First, he “put”; then, he “entered.” So, invading evil thoughts often prepare the ground for (and open the door to) resident evil spirits.  Wrong thoughts ‘furnish’ the house for the devil to move in later.  In other words, as you can tell from the story I shall narrate next, sustained or entertained wrong thinking can lead to demon possession, which is also why the Wise Man warns, “guide thine heart” (Proverbs 23:19).

In his book, I Believe in Visions, Kenneth Hagin told how a pastor’s wife got demon possessed and died.  Brother Hagin was troubled why that should happen to a pastor’s wife, then God showed him the vision of how it happened.  A monkey-like demon sat upon her left shoulder and whispered into her ears, “You are a very beautiful woman, too beautiful to be the wife of a pastor.”  She rebuked the thought, and the monkey jumped off, but came back upon the same shoulder.  True devils don’t give up at first attempt.  Ask Jesus in the wilderness (Luke 4:3-13; 11:24).  The money-demon repeated the same seduction, and for the second time, she rebuked the thought, and the monkey jumped off, but came back upon her right shoulder, and told her again that, pretty as she was, she deserved much more than being the wife of a pastor. Then she received the thought, and in the vision, Kenneth Hagin could see the thought, like black ink, flowing down from her head to her heart, staining her soul.  We do not know how long the process lasted; maybe one day, or one week, or six months, but when she agreed with the demon that she was unfortunate to have been married to a pastor, she began sleeping out, then she got demon possessed, and she died.

In the Kingdom of Light also, thought transfers occur.  That was how God got a heathen king to sponsor His second temple, and Ezra reported, “Blessed be the LORD God of our fathers, which hath put such a thing as this in the king’s heart, to beautify the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem” (Ezra 7:27).  (May God put you into the heart of a king that should do you good. Amen.) That was also how Nehemiah got into his ministry of rebuilding, for, according to him, it was “what my God had put in my heart to do” (Nehemiah 2:12).  He further acknowledged that the thought that led to his actions had been “put into mine heart” by a spirit agency he identified as “my God” – the Spirit Entity he served (Nehemiah 7:5).

Thoughts are portals, spiritual highways. They are not abstract ramblings or frail mental rituals less potent than audible supplications or incantations.  Ask the occult masters who engage in psychokinesis, moving physical objects (like chairs and tables) with the ‘power of the mind’; ask modern neurotechnolgists who, with a chip implanted in the brain, enable the translation of intangible thoughts into technical control commands and actual physical actions, in other words, the mental manipulations of material space; ask the mystics who solace in deep meditations – in wordless, soundless transcendental transactions in hours of enraptured hallowed prostrate stillness of soul and body, when even the hand does not dare the profanity of that disruptive move to drive off a trespassing fly or scratch a nagging itch somewhere down the body.

From The Preacher’s diary,

August 10, 2026.

Moreover the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah the second time, while he was yet shut up in the court of the prison, saying,

Jeremiah 33:1.

1.  The Contradictions of God

This passage provokes many questions.  Firstly, the fact that the word of the Lord came to Prophet Jeremiah “the second time” suggests that he often heard God.  Secondly, that he heard God so often suggests that he had a cordial relationship with God.

If those propositions are correct, why did God let such a holy man get into the trouble that landed him in prison, a prison as terrible as that of the king?  If God spoke so often to him, why didn’t He warn the prophet about whatever was going to put him in prison?  If it was the Omnipotent God who spoke so often to him, and not a different spirit, why didn’t He protect that cherished prophet from the crisis?  Why let it happen to Jeremiah, and keep talking to him – in prison?

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GOD NEEDS LEGS

God said to Abraham, “I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees” (Genesis 15:7); yet it was Abraham’s legs that did the long walk for which God appears to have taken the credit. What does that mean? The will of God often needs the legs of men. Hearing that passage, one might think that God had carried Abraham in a special business-class cloud from Ur of the Chaldees and dropped him off at his prophetic destination. Still, it was God in the legs of the man.

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In nurturing a patient’s will to live, the first step is locating and treating past traumas. These poorly healed scars drain a significant portion of energy, and they hamper the body’s capacity for self-defense. – David Servan-Schreiber, MD, AntiCancer

She shrank from words, thinking of the scars they leave, which she would be left to tend when he had gone. – Elizabeth Taylor

What deep wounds ever closed without a scar? – Lord Byron 

Forgiveness does not Erase Scars

Forgiveness might erase a fault, but it does not erase the scars.  Giving or receiving forgiveness does not mean that the past with its pains forever goes away.  If a boy stole his father’s car, went off to sell it, and lost an eye in his prodigal profligacy with the money from the sale, returning to reconcile with his father will not restore the lost eye, neither will it restore to the father the cherished car that was a parting gift from a dear friend.  They will both live forever with the scars.  How they manage it, how they let it determine or not determine the rest of their life, will be a different story for another chapter.

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Steal no More

Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth (Ephesians 4:28).

According to Ephesians 4:28 above, forgiveness frees the trespasser from past deeds, not from future sins, therefore “him that stole” (in the past) is admonished to not fall back into the former ways; he is admonished to “steal no more” in the future.   Note: If the past forgiveness covered also for future sins, that caution would have been unnecessary.  If future trespasses counted nothing at all because of a past forgiveness, then the Apostle had been wasting words by admonishing the forgiven thief to not continue in the old ways.  For those who will hear, Apostle Paul was making the point that grace may forgive the past, but it does not also cover for future faults.

Also note the word “labour” in that exhortation.  Maintaining the state of forgiveness could sometimes be conscious hard labour.  If I used to be a drunk before grace saved me from the alcohol joint, I must not take ‘grace’ for granted but work on myself to not visit such places carelessly, thus opening up to temptation.  If I used to have a weakness with sexual promiscuity, it behoves me to ‘labour’ on myself to not put myself in those tempting paths.  If I have a weakness with temper, which I have often blamed on everybody else, I should acknowledge that weakness and put deliberate deterrents in my way.  In all cases, maintaining the new boundaries could truly be labour.  In summary, sustaining or maintaining forgiveness could involve:

• giving to others the same forgiveness that one has received,
• working on oneself (or labouring) to not repeat the lifestyle that brings or brought about the initial offence(s) and repercussions,
• respecting the mutual ‘terms’ of the forgiveness, even where those ‘terms’ might not have been explicitly read out like a riot act.

Merciless Pharisees

Sometimes, worse sinners are more scrupulous about other people’s ‘unpardonable’ atrocities.  I had to politely intervene at church one day.  A woman I knew very well, was being holily nasty about a girl whom she thought had had an abortion.  It was not just a condemnation of sin, it was an unpleasant attitude that seemed to have been announcing publicly, “O thou filthy sinner, beware of hell fire!” as if she were the gatekeeper of Hell.  Meanwhile, she herself had been a notorious ‘campus girl’ who had had her share of abortions that, luckily for her, not many (if any) in that distant congregation knew about.  How dare she then engage someone else’s present as if she had had no past herself?  If she had been more mindful in her attitude toward that other person, she would not be provoking a reminder of her own ugly past; if she had been more compassionate in addressing other people’s failures, she might have been a more useful high priest, according to Hebrews 5:1-3:

1 Every high priest selected to represent men and women before God and offer sacrifices for their sins 2 should be able to deal gently with their failings, since he knows what it’s like from his own experience. 3 But that also means that he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins as well as the people’s (Hebrews 5:1-2, The Message Bible).

This high priest, whom God highly recommends in spite of his own past failings, is “ABLE to deal gently with” others that he finds in the vices that used to hold him captive.  That is ability gained from own weaknesses.  He is gentle with them not because he condones their vices but because he humbly realises that “he himself is subject to the same weaknesses,” according to the New Living Translation.   In other words, he is able to ‘give’ to others the ‘forgiveness’ that he himself has received.

Unlike this high priest, some are very loud and proud in condemning the battles in other people’s lives, battles that they themselves have never faced or never won.  True high priests are not haughty but humbled by their own trials and triumphs and, sometimes, even their shameful and unspeakable failings.

When people treat other transgressors as if they themselves were never sinners, they invoke the image of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18:23-35.  I had to politely preach to that church woman the message of Simon the leper.  Simon the Pharisee used to be a leprous outcast, whom Jesus had healed and restored.  He invited Jesus to a feast in his house probably to honour the Healer or more probably to celebrate and officially announce, with the benefit of Jesus’ dignified and endorsing presence, his new social status as no-more-a-leper.  It seemed he needed to give as public a notice as possible to friends and foes that he was back from the colony of despicable lepers into the esteemed circle of whole and healthy folks.  Unfortunately, an uninvited woman also showed up at that event; a woman who had come to weep at the feet of Jesus for the cleansing of her own soul.  The self-righteous attitude of Simon the ex-leper, the typical pharisaic attitude, was to berate the woman as an untouchable sinner and silently castigate the Master as a blind prophet for condoning that sinner, “if” He was a prophet at all.

Now when the Pharisee [note his badge, “Pharisee!”] which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, IF he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner (Luke 7:39).

In the self-righteous eyes of that Pharisee, even Jesus had become merely “this man” for fraternizing with someone he saw as an undeserving terrible sinner.  “This Man” – what a title for the Master!  “This MAN” – the lofty Messiah reduced to the commonplace of mundane creatures.  “THIS man” – privileged proximity, closeness, nearness in space and relationship at the dinner table had been abused; it had become a reason to no more respect holy boundaries.  “This man” – Simon probably sat so close to Jesus that he could have poked Him off with his holy pole.

According to that unforgiving Pharisee, even though “this man” might have been a healer, He was not holy, and certainly not prophet enough, otherwise He should have had nothing to do with a sinful woman of that leprous sort.  Evidently, the scourge of leprosy had not succeeded to humble the arrogant Simon.  The sad days or years of leprosy had taught him no lesson on respectful relationship.  He had come back prouder than ever, even against his Maker.  Not only did he demean the woman and the Master, he expressed his public doubts about the authenticity of the ministry and person of Jesus, despite himself being a recent beneficiary. “This man, IF he were a prophet….”  The meaning of ‘if’ here is, “I have my doubts.” I fear the future of such folks.  They often end worse than those they vilify.

How quickly Simon had forgotten that he had been a worse leper than that ‘sinner.’  He, the cleansing of his outer flesh for earthly accolade; she, the more precious cleansing of her inner soul, which had attracted Heaven’s enduring endorsement.  Often, it is Pharisees who have been worse sinners that pick quick holes in other people’s acts to label them ‘unpardonable sinners.’  Proper high priests who have known mercy for their own frailties are more merciful, not because they condone sin, but because they have tasted mercy that they would share with others.

When Simon acted that way, digging up that woman’s past to smear her present, he provoked Jesus to call up his own fresh sins; not sins of commission but sins of omission; not the bad things he had done but the good things he had failed to do, of which Heaven had taken no less notice.  For example, he never offered Jesus water to wash the feet, which the castigated woman had done with her tears; he never welcomed his Guest with a kiss, which the woman had done ceaselessly at His feet; he did not anoint the head of Jesus with oil, which the woman had done to His tear-bathed feet (vv.44-46).  Jesus had to speak up to defend that innocent woman in the unkind courts of the Pharisee, a woman who had shown herself more righteous than her self-righteous judge who stood condemned in the courts of God not for blatant sins committed but for little kindnesses ignored.

That is what happens when you ignore your own faults and focus on those of others.  Then you draw attention to your own failings about which Heaven and mortals might have been silent or unaware.  Frail Pharisees are more prone to harp on the failings of others,  usually as a means of diverting attention from their own worse leprosies.  In the process, they merely announce to discerning ears the leprosies in their soul despite their glowing skins.

From the remarks of Jesus the Great Judge, who of the two would you say was the bigger sinner?  Evidently, Simon the accuser.  That was also the tragedy of the unforgiving servant in Jesus’ parable on forgiveness (Matthew 18:23-35).  What recalled that unmerciful servant’s forgotten huge file was another servant’s old tiny file, which he vehemently called up, and would not let go until he had had him put into the jail from which he himself had been forgiven and freed.

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again (Matthew 7:2).

Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again (Luke 6:38).

Jesus did not call up that ex-leper’s forgiven past as the man had done to the woman.  Those records of past sins no more existed in the accounts of God, but Jesus highlighted the present trespasses of that man who by his unmerciful acts had brought fresh charges into his new file.  By how he treated another, he failed to sustain his own forgiveness; by how he treated another, he merely multiplied trespasses against himself.

How to sustain personal forgiveness is to not focus on the trespasses of others.  True forgiveness is not without conditions, even where those conditions might not have been explicit.  To sin again and again against someone because their ready ocean of forgiveness turns merciful forgivers into unthinkable beasts.  Yesterday’s pardon does not also cover tomorrow’s trespasses.  “Go and sin no more… LEST…”

Culled from the book FORGIVENESS, by The Preacher (2021) pp.173-180

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4.  The Editable Book

Traditionally, once a book is published, it is fixed.  If you wanted to make an amendment, it would be in a subsequent edition, which does not withdraw all previous copies with the old texts.  Similarly, some tapes are designed only to record.  Once done, the information they carry is sealed.  It cannot be edited or erased. The Book of Life is different.  It is constantly being updated, depending on the lifestyle of each one whose name is there, as they overcome or are overcome by abominations that defile garments.

5.  The Books and the Book

There are “books,” and there is “the Book.”  The books keep a record of everyone’s deeds, providing a basis for appraising them.  The Book has the list of names of overcomers.  The dead, after they have ceased to exist on the earth, step into in the next phase where the books are opened, and they are judged “according to their works, by the things which were written in the books” – not the Book.

And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books (Revelation 20:12).

The books record works, the Book records names, specific names. Heaven keeps a record, because “God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love” (Hebrews 6:10). Paul also referenced that Book in connection to his partners on Heaven’s assignment; “true yokefellow” who “laboured with me in the gospel …  whose names are in the book of life” (Philippians 4:3).

6.  The Testimony of Moses

Before Apostle John and Jesus in the New Testament, earlier prophets had referenced the heavenly Book many times. For example, Moses, while interceding for his guilty nation, pleaded thus with God:

31 … Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold.

32 Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin–; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.

 33 And the LORD said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of MY book (Exodus 32:31-33).

Moses was aware that God in Heaven kept a book in which names were written, any of which names could be blotted “out” by the same Hand that wrote the name. God not only confirmed that but announced that the book was His property.  He called it “my book.”  Moses also acknowledged it as “THY BOOK which THOU hast WRITTEN.”

The blotting out of any name from that book is not an action of the divine Writer’s arbitrary discretion; it is determined by the daily lifestyle of each one on the list.  Essentially, sin is what threatens anyone’s name there, for “Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of MY book.” God has blotters.

In Deuteronomy 9:14 and 29:20, it is shown that even earth takes note when Heaven blots out anyone’s name.  The blotting out is apparently published so universally that everywhere “under heaven” notes it and responds to that person accordingly.  That was one thing that even bloody Cain feared (Genesis 4:14).

God blots out sins (Psalm 51:9; Jeremiah 18:23), but He also blots out names from His book.  When a present state of persisting sinfulness contradicts the previous penitence that guaranteed a name in the Book, the blotters in Heaven may be activated (Ezekiel 3:20).

7.  Once Written, Always Written?

When Pilate wrote over the cross of Jesus, “KING OF THE JEWS,” the Jews protested, requesting him to edit what he had done, but Pilate replied that what had been written had been written (John 19:19-22), but not so about the Book of which we speak.  Its contents are constantly being updated, by the same Hand.  There are theologies that argue otherwise, insisting that once a name has entered that blessed Book, no matter what one does thereafter, that name cannot be erased.  For them, the names are written with indelible ink.

In the Old Testament, Moses not only showed awareness of that Book but also noted that names in it could be blotted out if the choices of a listed person should deviate from the values that qualified that name on that list in the first place.   In Luke 10:20, Jesus cautioned His disciples about their misplaced celebration and advised that they should rather rejoice that their names were in Heaven, suggesting that names could as well be removed.  If that were not the worry, then Jesus’ caution makes little sense.

In case that was not clear enough, the Author of the Book repeats in Revelation 3:5: “He that overcometh … I will not blot out his name out of the book of life.”  Clear language.  Blotting out is a possibility, otherwise Jesus was wasting words again.  Jesus was not there speaking to sinners in Babylon; He was speaking to a Church, to people already saved; people in a verifiable church at a verifiable location.

8.  A Lesson from Judas

Jesus called twelve disciples.  Judas was one of them.  Peter remarked, “For he was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry” (Acts 1:17).  In other words, Judas was whatever any of the other disciples was; no less called than any of them.  When Jesus sent out the Twelve and gave them power over devils, Judas was one of them (Matthew 10:1-4).  When they returned with the testimony of triumphs over devils, and Jesus said that their names were written in Heaven, Judas was one of them.  If that were not the case, and Judas’ name was not included on the list then, Jesus would clearly have stated that Judas was an exception in that declaration.  When Jesus washed their feet in later days when Judas had backslidden and Satan had entered him (Luke 22:3), Jesus clearly announced that although they had all been washed, they were not all clean, and Judas was the exception (John 13:10-11).

Of the fallen Judas, Jesus lamented in dreadful words, in view of the judgment that awaited him: “The Son of Man will die as the Scriptures say he will, but how terrible for that man who will betray the Son of Man! It would have been better for that man if he had never been born!” (Matthew 26:24, Good News Translation).  That is not the kind of statement anyone makes about someone whose name is still in the Book in Heaven; someone entering triumphantly into Paradise.  Judas had fallen into “perdition” (John 17:12).  A name previously in the Book had been blotted out by “transgression” (Acts 1:25), and Jesus was announcing a grief.  Judas got so blotted out that Heaven had to announce a vacancy: “Let another take his office” (Acts 1:20, NKJV), and there were not a few prepared to take his privileged place.

God is never short of replacements. Sometimes the replacements that He finds are despised and apparently inferior candidates, as if to shame their nobler fallen predecessors, like Esther the young orphaned immigrant girl who replaced Vashti the beautiful queen, David the shepherd boy of shameful motherhood who replaced Saul the tall and elegant king, Saul the persecutor and murderer whom God later found in replacement of Peter in the ministry to the gentiles, and a hitherto unheard-of Matthias that took the place of Judas who had cast out devils, whose name on Heaven’s list the Son Himself had announced on earth.

If “whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20;15); if that Book is the only list that admits into Heaven; if to be missing from the Book means eternal damnation, then we may well connect the dots on the implications of Jesus’ lamentation over Judas.  In one of His recorded final reports to God, Jesus said this about Judas: “those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition” (John 17:12).  Nothing is “lost” if it was never had.  You do not lose a key you never had.  Nothing dies that was never alive.  Judas could not have been “lost” if he had always been lost even before Jesus had had him.  Lostness is only a secondary condition.

9.  The Blotters on Earth

Jesus strongly warned of the apocalyptic tragedy that would befall the person whose confession does not match his profession; who repeatedly says with his lips, “Lord, Lord” but his actions, what he “doeth,” is contrary to the will of the Father in Heaven (Matthew 7:21).  According to Jesus, in that group of people the ‘works’ of whose hands contradict the words of their mouth, will be three categories of frontline religious figures:  firstly, those that prophesy; then, those that cast out devils; and finally, those that do wonderful works.  And Jesus said they would be “many’ in that disastrous number.  Many is not few at all.

Jesus acknowledges that their works would have been done verily in His name rather than through some occult powers, yet their names having been erased by the blotters of their persisted works of “iniquity,” the Master will announce to them on the final Day, “I NEVER KNEW YOU: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:23).  Such an awful pronouncement suggests a name so erased by the blotters of iniquity as if it never was written; so blotted out that there isn’t a recollection of them despite their mighty works and repeated loud proclamations of His name and His lordship.  Supposing that elaborate spiritual activity equalled divine approval, they had condoned and ‘worked’ iniquity, thereby activating the blotters on earth.

10.  Epilogue

Anyone may comment about an author’s book, but the right remains with the author to write or edit his book the way he wants.  Many would wish that names in the Book of Life were not erasable.  That wish has been built into elaborate theologies, but the Author insists that He not only can add to but can also blot out from His Book.  It is His book, after all.  We may argue about it but cannot edit it.  Heaven not only has ink that writes – it also has blotters that erase.

From The Preacher’s diary,

June 17, 2026.

1.  Of Blotters and Erasers

Blotters … in those days of the fountain pen, which you first dipped into the ink pot before writing, blotters were classic absorbent papers that every writer or school child had on their desk for soaking up excess ink so that it didn’t smear the page or blur the text.  Somebody reading this must have used them, because that was not a century ago. There were also erasers, and still are.  They wiped out the error.  It is reported by several sources that Heaven has blotters, not for mopping up ink but for wiping out texts that degenerate into stains on the holy page.  We shall return to this.

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