Lessons from ‘A Christmas Carol’ REPRINT

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From December 21, 2014

There are a few purists among God’s people–who are my brothers and sisters, so don’t think I’m trying to throw brickbats at them–who don’t like Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol or its many incarnations into film. But here we watch our favorite movie versions every Christmastide: and really, I can’t think of any piece of fiction that more faithfully teaches Bible truths concerning Christmas.

We should all watch these more attentively–in addition to always spending time in the Bible text itself. If you’re reading Scripture daily, then Christmas will come more than once a year.

Consider George C. Scott’s Scrooge: could anyone be more cold-heartedly obnoxious? Or Alistair Sim’s Scrooge in the immortal 1950 classic: he is more creatively, exuberantly nasty than the others. And don’t forget, from farther back, Reginald Owen. His Scrooge is just plain flat-out mean.

All are horrible individuals (even though they’re all meant to be the same person). Not only bad, but taking a perverse pride and pleasure in their badness. Anyone can watch these performances and feel superior. “At least I’m not that bad!”

A Christmas Carol is not about Santa Claus and shopping and presents. No, it gets to the heart of the matter, it shows us why the Son of God came down from Heaven, why the Word of God had to be made flesh. For the business at hand, then and now, was the business of Redemption.

God has made Jesus Christ to be for us, because we can attain to none of these ourselves, wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption (I Corinthians 1:30). And what Dickens and his movie-making successors are telling us is that, if God can redeem and regenerate such a rotten, heartless, sinful soul as Scrooge, He can redeem us, too. The Holy Spirit of God can cleanse the human heart. The Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins (Matthew 9:6).

Want to hear some good news? We are not stuck with who we are! Or rather, who we have become, indulging sin and folly in a fallen world. We are not stuck with that at all.

For the Lord hath spoken it.

And this little story of A Christmas Carol has put it into English.

 

Unusual Looking Puppy Choopy Finds A Home

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If you click on Watch On You Tube you can see this video   It’s really work watching.   Patty

The Love of God

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A Much, Much Better Day

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Fortunately, the tornado never materialized last night, but we did have some wild wind.  No thunderstorms, but very high winds.

Today was sunny, bright and still very windy (and a lot colder than it has been).  No problem, however as the sunshine makes all the difference.  Did more neatening(?)  Is that a word?

Took a major side step when I was putting photos in one of  those little mini-albums.  There was a picture taken at Lee’s parents’ house of what I think was the first Thanksgiving after our marriage.  Everybody was there.  Then, of course, you start doing the memories-thing and an hour goes by.  It was good, though.  All those lovely people.

I remembered one Thanksgiving when Lee’s brother, Mark brought some wine–it was the darkest, reddest wine I had ever seen.  Aunt Gertie tipped her wine glass over and it spilled on my mother-in-law’s beautiful white lace tablecloth.  Yikes.  We had to get the tablecloth off the table and out to the kitchen to soak it before it stained.  They were good times.

My hellebore is covered with beautiful, almost black blossoms and the tulips are up.  No buds yet, just leaves.  It is amazing how God’s stuff works .  Faithfully, every year.

That’s about it for today.

Pray for our troops.

God bless everybody.

Patty

 

Beware! Here Come Killer Robots! REPRINT

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From May 29, 2015

A computer science professor at Berkeley has warned that “research” by the Defense Dept. (B. Hussein Obama, proprietor) could create “drones which can track and kill targets even when out of contact with their handlers…. the research could breach the Geneva Convention and leave humanity in the hands of amoral machines” ( http://godfatherpolitics.com/22681/killer-robots-will-destroy-us-scientist-warns/ ).

How much worse is that than being at the mercy of immoral and wicked human beings?

I believe Professor Stuart Russell means well, and that he’s trying to warn us against what he sees as a very real danger. He may even be right. Who knows what the DOD lab-rats get up to, behind closed doors?

Naturally, this conjures up visions of The Terminator and other robot menaces. Oh, dear–another thing to worry about! Aaagh, we’re all gonna die! From Global Warming… or Income Inequality, or Homophobia, or Too Much Red Meat in Our Diet and Not Enough Tofu… or the ocean is going to dry up, or else flood over all our coastal cities.. from overpopulation, underpopulation, or simply not enough Trans People to go around. From whatever.

See what terrors you get into, when you don’t believe in God.

If your god is such a patzer that he can’t protect his own creation from little ants and fleas like us, then your god is not God. If your god sent his only son to earth to redeem the human race, and it didn’t work because the human race totally destroyed itself, then your god is not God and your savior is not Jesus Christ.

Wise up, O men of God.

Dog Appears in Their Yard 2 Weeks After Their Dog Died

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Gentle Dog and his Cats

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Very Angry Kitten Unable to Walk Has Miracle Recovery

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REPRINT ‘Democratic Republic’ Bridge Collapses… During Ribbon-Cutting

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From September 9, 2022

You do know, I hope, that “democratic republic” is a euphemism for an authoritarian socialist regime. Like “people’s republic” means “communist.”

And you’ve surely heard the mantra, “Socialism really works if you only give it a chance!”

The Democratic Republic of Congo built a foot bridge over a stream recently, and regime officials gathered there for the ribbon-cutting ceremony (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/07/drc-officials-bridge-collapses-ceremony).

The bridge collapsed in the middle of the ceremony, as government officials scramble to escape a ducking while “spectators shout in apparent glee.”

This bridge ought to be adopted as a symbol of socialism. It says it all. Imagine the spectators’ joy when they thought the tyrants would be drowned, right before their eyes. Okay, it was hardly the Golden Gate or the Tappan Zee Bridge–but that’s the point. Socialism can’t even give you a footbridge that’ll last a week before collapsing.

I wonder if DR Congo will put this image on a postage stamp.

Deplorable People Have Too Many Babies! REPRINT

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From September 24, 2016

Do you have to be moral, to be a “moral philosophy professor”? Nah.

One of these intellectual ginks at Johns Hopkins University has written a book in which he declares we gotta fight Climate Change by having way fewer babies ( http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-23/want-to-slow-climate-change-stop-having-babies-bioethicist-travis-rieder-says ). Yup: too many people on the Plaaaanet, poor ol’ Gaia, blah-blah-blah.

Government–and interllecturals–he reluctantly concludes, will find it necessary “to pressure families” to stop making babies: because modern people just will not “give up their toys” and scale themselves back to an 11th-century lifestyle. By “toys” he means things like refrigerators and air conditioning.

Yo, sunshine! Which of those toys have you given up?

He does not deal with the colossal amount of evidence that “climate scientists” and government agencies are lying, lying, lying about all this. Instead, he brands his critics, and anyone else who won’t agree with him, as “the far-right hate machine.”

The wisdom of God speaks truly: “All they that hate me love death” (Proverbs 8:36).

P.S.–Yes, I know I complain all the time about the noise and crowding in this part of New Jersey. But not being a liberal, I do not demand that my emotional reactions to my particular circumstances be made the basis of public policy affecting everyone.