Gate

A city wall is never simply a structure.

It is a system of walls, towers, Gates, locks, guards, routines, signals and shared expectations.

The people inside must understand when the gates close.

Travellers must understand when they can enter.

A watchman or guard near the gatehouse moves slowly through the torchlight, checking the area around the entrance.

You cannot hear his words from here, but you understand the routine.

Gates are secured, torches are watched, doors and passages are checked.

Anyone arriving after the normal closing time must be treated with caution.

We are on Lawrence Street in Drogheda, and Drogheda Credit Union is in the shadow of St. Lawrence's Gate.

And I did tell you, uh, recently that I had the privilege and pleasure of climbing to the top of Lawrence's Gate.

First time in my lifetime, and I'm of Drogheda through and through.

It was an amazing experience.

It is one of a kind, isn't it, really?

Oh, absolutely.

We're, we, you know, we're sitting here in what was Mr. Clarke's Free School, adjacent to Lord Chief Justice Singleton's house, so it was a very fancy street to live in in the, uh, 17th and 18th century, in the shadow of Lawrence's Gate.

Uh, Avril Thomas, some years ago, wrote a book called The Walled Towns of Ireland, and she said Lawrence Gate was the finest example of medieval architecture, she believed, in the islands, and people don't realize just how much of a, a gem it really is.

086 1800 658 by WhatsApp or text if you want to get in touch with us in the show.

We are on Lawrence Street in Drogheda, and Drogheda Credit Union is in the shadow of St. Lawrence's Gate.

And I did tell you, uh, recently that I had the privilege and pleasure of climbing to the top of Lawrence's Gate.

First time in my lifetime, and I'm of Drogheda through and through.

It was an amazing experience.

Oh, absolutely.

We're, we, you know, we're sitting here in what was Mr. Clark's free school, adjacent to Lord Chief Justice Singleton's house.

So it was a very fancy street to live in in the, uh, 17th and 18th century, in the shadow of Lawrence's Gate.

Pai lai hadu.

Gates of Hades.

Pili.

Gates.

Plural.

Hadu.

Matthew does not say Jesus stood at the cave or pointed to a rock face behind him.

But the detail that overturns the popular reading is the grammar of the image.

Zengi's army was equipped with powerful siege engines and skilled miners who began to dig tunnels, propping them with timber to collapse the foundations of the walls.

On Christmas Eve of 1144, after a siege of just four weeks, a major section of the wall near the Gate of the Hours was brought down.

Zengi's troops poured through the breach.

An initial slaughter was followed by a pragmatic order from Zengi to spare the native Christians, but the city's Frankish population was either killed in the fighting or rounded up to be sold in the slave markets of Aleppo.

Kehine Asharom Heim Shari Hashpa.

What's the purpose of a gate, a gateway? Interesting, gateway is a very contemporary term, like an interface.

What's the purpose? What's the idea of the g- g- gates? So it's not, you know, technically speaking, in architecture, a gateway is a section that a, a, a doorway, so to speak, that allows you to go from one s- from one place to another.

But in spirit, on a spiritual level, what is the significance? So he says, "The Shari Hashpa." These are gateways of transmission, of energy, so to speak.

Laham Shechayes Hamosen L'Elom.

And here too, if you look in the footnotes, he brings from the Maimormet Siddhis.

In other words, the, the, the Shahar is the gate through which the Hamshacha of ch- of chayas, Mosin L'Elom, sustenance or vitality and nourishment is Nimsach into the world.

Now, obviously, it doesn't mean necessarily here gosh music, but it means Beruchnis, the Lacus that flow, flows into the world, flows through these gates.

Shadowfax must bear me now on a swift errand." Turning to Aragorn and Éomer and the men of the king's household, he cried, "Keep well the Lord of the Mark till I return.

Await me at Helm's Gate.

Farewell!" He spoke a word to Shadowfax, and like an arrow from the bow, the great horse sprang away.

Even as they looked, he was gone.

Men of that land called it Helm's Deep, after a hero of old wars who had made his refuge there.

Ever steeper and narrower it wound inward from the north under the shadow of the Thrihyrne, till the crow-haunted cliffs rose like mighty towers on either side, shutting out the light.

At Helm's Gate, before the mouth of the Deep, there was a heel of rock thrust outward by the northern cliff.

There upon its spur stood high walls of ancient stone, and within them was a lofty tower.

The entryway to your house is supposed to be marked by the commandments of God, and specifically the commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart.

And on your gates.

Gates are entryways into cities.

Gates are public places.

Gates are places where judgments take place.

And if Israel took this command literally and inscribed the words of God on the gates of the cities, then the elders of the gate would gather together beneath the words of the Lord that are, thus I love the Lord your God with all your heart.

And they're gathering together and passing public judgments under the rubric of love for Yahweh.