I copied and inserted, just below, the first two verses of George MacDonald's poem, Diary of an Old Soul. The particular words I wanted to find again were "though my brain should reel," and I wanted to see the context. (The poem's quite good and relevant, I think, to the way I can feel a lot of the time--how God's had to knock the stuffing out of me, whack me around with his tong and hammer, plunge me into steaming water, beat the living daylights out of me, and any number of other mixed-up metaphors and images...)

ANYHOW, I thought of "brain doth reel" with respect to just the whole pace of life, both personal and global, these days. My life, our life, has been crazy, nutty, wacky in the number and intensity of changes lately. But so has been the big, outer world: the stock market plunge, having Democrats soon to be in control of both the legislative and executive branches in the U.S.--and so forth.

My brain doth reel.

But right now, I need to get ready for work...

Here's the first two verses of that poem, by the way:

REMEMBER, Lord, thou hast not not made me good.
Or if thou didst, it was so long ago
I have forgotten--and never understood,
I humbly think. At best it was a crude,
A rough-hewn goodness, that did need this woe,
This sin, these harms of all kinds fierce and rude,
To shape it out, making it live and grow.

But thou art making me, I thank thee, sire.
What thou hast done and doest thou know'st well,
And I will help thee:--gently in thy fire
I will lie burning; on thy potter's-wheel
I will whirl patient, though my brain should reel;
Thy grace shall be enough the grief to quell,
And growing strength perfect through weakness dire.