The more things change, the more they stay the same ...

"You mortals do not walk a single way
in your philosophies, but let the thought
of being acclaimed as wise lead you astray.

Yet Heaven bears even this with less offense
than it must feel when it sees Holy Writ
neglected, or perverted of all sense.

They do not count what blood and agony
planted ot in the world, nor Heaven's pleasure
in those who search it in humility.

Each man, to show off, strains at some absurd
invented truth; and it is these the preachers
make sermons of; and the Gospel is not heard.

One says the Moon reversed its course to throw
a shadow on the Sun during Christ's passion
so that it's light might not shine down below;

others say that the Sun itself withdrew
and, therefore, that the Indian and the Spaniard
shared the eclipse in common with the Jew.

These fables pour from pulpits in such torrents,
spewing to right and left, that in a year
they outnumber the Lapi and Bindi in all Florence.

Therefore the ignorant sheep turn home at night
from having fed on wind. Nor does the fact
that the pastor sees no harm done set things right.

Christ did not say to His first congregation:
'Go and preach twaddle to the waiting world.'
He gave them, rather, holy truth's foundation.

That, and that only, was the truth revealed
by those who fought and died to plant the faith.
They made the Gospel both their and shield.

Now preachers make the congregations roar
with quips and quirks, and so it laugh enough,
their [heads] swell, and they ask for nothing more."
________________________________________
The Divine Comedy: The Paradiso, Canto XXIX, 85-117
by Dante Alighieri (translated by John Ciardi)

Just because...

Time is like the wind;
if we were ever young once,
we are older now.