Anybody know what "shakh'an'ah" means? It sounds Arabic.

Update: Lileks has the answer:

In any case, it�s obvious tonight this isn�t SHOCK AND AWE, which brings me to the Library of Congress. Years ago ago I was standing in the LoC, looking up at the glorious ceiling, and I saw a curious phrase painted above:

The true shekinah is man.

That quote stuck in my mind, because I had no idea what it meant. Later I looked it up.

A visible manifestation of the divine presence as described in Jewish theology.

Shekinah.

Sound it out.

This is why I thought Operation Swift Sword would have been a better name than "Iraqi Freedom." I have had a feeling since November 2000 that we were seeing a shekinah. God takes the weak things of the world and makes them mighty. He will fight the wars of the righteous. I just hope we're righteous enough to be on His side.

The United States of America is the most powerful military power the earth has seen since Fire and Brimstone rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah. But we should all realize that such power is a stewardship, not a license.

God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine-
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget-lest we forget!


The tumult and the shouting dies;
The captains and the kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrfice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget-lest we forget!

Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre.
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget- lest we forget!

If drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law-
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget-lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In recking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word-
Thy Mercy on thy People, Lord!

Amen.

-Rudyard Kipling

As I compose this, I am aware that some who read this, if anyone does, will be slightly embarrassed or put off by my use of religious terms. I'm not Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, with their patronizing grins. I try to be more like C. S. Lewis, and I believe, not in the simplistic ignorant way that so many Christians profess, but after having thought about things for most of my life and recognizing that the mind and self-awareness of man does not fit the mechanical pattern that atheism posits. Once you take God off the table, it is possible to explain how everything about our existenc can be explained by the operations of blind chance, but to me, that requires far more faith in an unlikely chain of events than belief in Deity. Of course, atheism has the appeal that it imposes no responsibility on the products of evolution beyond surviving long enough procreate. Yet most atheists are quite insistent on their own set of moral values, which have no basis at all in a purely random, mechanistic universe.