Shout Out
I would be remiss if I didn't credit the person from whom I borrowed the title of my blog. Crosswalk.com, a biblical and Christian resource site that I frequent and highly recommend, posted an excerpt from a book by A. J. Kiesling. Kiesling is an author and a gifted writer (yes, it sounds redundant, but one does not necessarily imply the other) who wrote a book called "Jaded: Hope For Believers Who Have Given Up On Church But Not On God." I ordered the book immediately after reading the excerpt, entitled...you guessed it..."The Black Sheep Diaries: Homeward Bound." Definitely check out the excerpt and the book.
posted by Dennis Bourne @ 12:27 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
And i thought i was going to learn about the origins of the term "Black Sheep". I once told my mother that i felt like the black sheep of the family. She said, no, no you aren't. I replied, no, mom, in this family, being the black sheep is actually a good thing. We have a special relationship.
A quick search of the internet turned up the following ( http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mblacksheep.html ).
The definition is pretty clear. A black sheep is a member of the group/family regarded as a disgrace, an embarrassment, a ne'er-do-well, the odd man out. The phrase arose in the late 18th century, probably from an older proverb, "There's a black sheep in every flock."
Black sheep, in those balmy pre-industrial days, were not as valuable as white sheep. None of the sources was explicit, but I presume white wool could be dyed into any color while black wool was more limited. Thus, the black sheep was the unwelcome oddity in the flock.
A similar term is bête noire, which is French for "black beast" and means something disliked or feared.
In European thought, the use of "black" is often associated with the devil, wickedness, and bad things in general: a black cat crossing your path is bad luck, etc. Probably this arises from black as the color of mourning, at least as far back as Rome in the second century AD, which likely borrowed it from the Egyptians. In the early days, it was thought that the body contained four humors/fluids that determined one's physical and mental qualities: one of the four humors was black bile, associated with melancholy, sadness, depression.
The term "black" used to refer to African people and their descendants dates back to the 14th Century, and is an interesting study in its own right.Anyway, i thought you might find that of interest. I also found at least the beginnings of your Death and Dying post to be interesting. But, it is no longer available, apparently. I hope you will consider posting again!
Peace
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