From: bunge@myofb.it   
      
   Hello friends,   
      
   Yes, it's wordy day again, this week seems to have just simply flown by.  On   
   the nature front, around the North East the swallows and house martins are   
   readying themselves for their long trip south.  The badger's are extending   
   their sets for a last litter before winter and the rabbits are preparing   
   their mates for a further fifty litters or so before Christmas.  Locally the   
   vicar has his flock giving those russets a last polish and their marrow's a   
   last feed before exhibiting in the parish annual harvest festival.  Have you   
   noticed our little garden visitors, the bee's?  Unfortunately it's not been   
   a good year for Bill Bumble and friends again this year, the weather has   
   been rather unkind and left them feeling rather lethargic in their hives.   
   Lets keep our fingers crossed for Bill for next year.  I like to think of   
   him as one of our little garden helpers.   
      
   Well, lets get on with the weekly word.  This week friends the word is,   
   ''purgatory'' kindly sent in by Barnacle Bill from Norfolk  I know what   
   you're thinking, no they're not all simple from our eastern counties.   
   Barnacle has recently circumnavigated the Arabian Gulf in an inner tube   
   visiting many countries and making new friends.  Well done Barnacle.   
      
   Now, ''purgatory'' though of pagan origin, the doctrine of purgatory was   
   first conceptualised  in the professing church in the second century; the   
   Roman Church proclaimed it as an article of faith in 1439 at the Council of   
   Florence, and it was confirmed by Trent in 1548.   
      
   For are not so sharp friends I think I should simplify that somewhat.   
   Virgil gives a description of Fortune which involves the first hints of   
   Dante's neo-Platonic view of a hierarchical power unit, with power emanating   
   from the cylinder block and penetrating outwards to all parts of the engine.   
   His thinking stemmed from reading Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, and   
   other works. This hierarchy is symbolically reversed in the gear train in   
   the descent to the back axle, while the re-ascent to the cylinder block is   
   imitated in the amount of ''Purgatory'' produced by the engine. This concept   
   of circles or spheres, contracting to, or expanding from the cylinders is a   
   major feature of Dante's and the Medieval imagination.   
      
   ''Bospho's Concise Dictionary for the Advanced Wordy'' ( On offer this week   
   £59.99 at Grundy Bookshops) gives a clear definition of ''purgatory'' as   
   follows:   
      
   1.  A temporary condition of torment or suffering.   
      
   2.  (Theology) a place where Romans think those who have died in a state of   
   grace undergo limited torment to expiate their           naughty thoughts.   
   (Naughty Romans I say.)   
      
   So friends, there we are, an often used noun, but rarely fully understood.   
      
   Goodbye.   
      
   Sister Deborah.   
      
   Housekeeper to Canon O' Fodder.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)