We’re always glad to post hymns requested or suggested by readers; and this one is from Nancy: It Is Well With My Soul, sung in beautiful harmony by the Ruppe Sisters at the rotunda of the American Musical Theater in Lancaster, PA.
The hymn shop’s open to everybody, so if there’s a favorite hymn you’d like to share, just leave a comment to let me know.
Sometimes I think dogs and cats and birds appreciate the blessings of civilization a lot more than we humans do. They seem to enjoy it more, at least.
Note the cat bringing in a rose to her mommy. Cats love to bestow gifts on people. If not a rose, then half a mouse, part of a bird, whatever…
We interrupt our coverage of Hillary Clinton’s fainting tour to bring you good advice concerning katydids.
They bite.
Hi, Mr. Nature here–and if you must handle these strikingly beautiful green bugs, be aware they’re quite capable of giving you a nasty nip if they don’t like the cut of your jib. Forsooth, the ones in the Amazon rain forest can really, really bite you.
The man in this video would have been munched on if the katydid hadn’t been in a good mood.
I think I’m gonna stick with bugs for a while, though, and not go back to the political arena: except to say I would vote for an insect over Clinton, any day.
Check out this link: a pair of drug-using lost souls conk out from heroin at a traffic stop in East Liverpool, Ohio–with their four-year-old son stuck helplessly in the back seat of their car ( http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37320535 ). It tells you all you need to know about the way our country, and the whole fallen world, is headed.
Yeah, well, happily we’ve got all sorts of socialist safety-nets to soften the consequences of pissing your life into a fan. So you can keep on doing it.
On this day 15 years ago our country was attacked on her own soil, for the first time since the War of 1812, by a barbaric enemy that doesn’t even have a state to call its own. Unless you’re counting ISIS.
Since then, the Christ-rejecting rulers of the Western world have learned nothing. Not a thing. Oh, they try every trick they know of, to appease this ruthless enemy. “Embrace Islam,” the head honcho of France counsels his people. Sort of like the way Germany’s doing it. Sort of like the way our own country’s leaders want to do it. And in the meantime, do everything in their power to alienate their nations from their God.
Yes, we had drug addicts before 9/11. We have more of them now. Our rulers think they can solve the world’s problems by erasing national borders and wiping out morality. Their own voters have encouraged them to think so. “Just give us more power! Just pay us higher taxes! You’ll see–it’ll work out just fine!”
No. It won’t.
A nation that is not a nation under God is a nation going under.
It’s getting to be that what I’ve stated in the headline is almost as controversial a claim today as it was in the First Century. I don’t think the rulers and big shots of our world like to hear it any more than the Roman Caesars did.
So let’s pump up the volume and say it again! Jesus Christ is Lord of all!
From time to time we have all encountered empty barrels making a loud noise about this being “a post-Christian age, you might as well get used to it” and learn to love pseudomarriage, abortion, transgenderism, and all the rest of it.
But actually we have yet to have our Christian Age. That can only come when Christ reigns in Heaven and on Earth; and it will last forever. So this can’t really be a post-Christian age. It’s just a lousy one.
Why does the Bible, especially in the Book of Revelation, depict Christ as it were joining in marriage to His church? Why do we speak of the marriage supper of the Lamb?
Because the world–and His church will eventually embrace the whole world, and the world His church–is not complete without Him! Creation, all Creation, will not be its true self until Christ Himself reigns over it!
That’s why God’s word speaks of it as marriage. Because in marriage two are joined into one flesh, one spirit: and each becomes more than it ever would have been, if left alone. Not that Christ needs anything from the world: except that we know God loves the world, loves us: otherwise the Father would not have sent the Son into the world, and the Son would not have spent His precious blood, His very life, for us.
These are high and holy things, difficult to grasp. So we keep trying.
In the meantime, we proclaim the Lordship of Christ and the truth of Christ: that He shall come again, He shall conquer, and He shall reign forever and ever.
If you ask me, the Western world–which once was known as Christendom–needs a great revival of the spirit expressed in this hymn. Words by John Bunyan. Music by Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band. Message by the Holy Spirit.
Rise up, O men of God–rise up. And women and children, too.
Our fuzzy friends are hunters at heart, and when they don’t have anything truly worth hunting–like a shadow, their own tails, a flicker of light, a jingly toy–they’ll hunt each other.
There is a few seconds in here of a cat catching a bird. Well, we all know cats like to do that. Happily, the camera didn’t pick up the gory details. But if you don’t want your cats to catch birds, mice, or harmless little snakes, don’t let ’em outside.
Yes, I know I’ve already said it was only a hundred and change to go, but that was because I mis-read the stats. Sorry about that.
There are fewer than 200 comments to go, and whoever posts Comment No. 9,000 will win an autographed copy of one of my books. I’m hopeful that Bell Mountain No. 9, The Throne, will be available in time for Christmas. So if that’s the one you want, go for it.
Anyone can play–just leave a comment under any post on this blog.
Ineligible will be comments abusive to me or to another reader, those containing the f-bomb or other profanity, blasphemy, commercials thinly disguised as comments–really, how does anyone expect to get away with that?–or comments simply too inane to bother with.
Here’s a statistic that’s devilish hard to find: How much, per year, does America spend on college education? That would be not only the cost of tuition, but also state and federal aid paid out to universities, the cost of room and board and other services, insurance, etc.
I was able to get a little information on tuition. In the year 2007-08, average tuition per year (I’ve rounded down the figures) was $4,500 for a two-year-community college, $17,000 for a state university, and $35,000 for a private university ( http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2008/04/10/how-much-does-college-cost ). Obviously, these figures are eight years old and have surely gone up since then.
But let’s take the $17,000 annual tuition at a state university as an average figure–and then multiply it by the 17 million students enrolled in our colleges a year or two ago. That comes out to… $289 billion paid out in college tuitions per year. And again, I am working with old figures.
And again, that’s just tuition. Doubtless the amounts of money doled out in state and federal aid are, shall we say, considerable. And then there are the costs of textbooks, assorted student fees, housing, food, and this and that. So now I suspect we’re talking anywhere from half a trillion to a round trillion smackers a year.
For degrees in Social Justice, Gender Studies, Post-Modern Interpretative Luau Studies, and what have you.
Imagine if that money were put to some constructive purpose. Just imagine.
People use their cell phones for all sorts of things–taking pictures, watching movies, playing video games, pretending to be secret agents, and so on. Some folks just can’t live without their phones.
Except if you have a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phone. Then it might blow up. ( http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/samsung-galaxy-note7-users-urged-turn-off-phones/story?id=41983208 )
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has urged people to “stop charging or using them” and, whatever you do, don’t bring one of these phones on board a plane with you! See, sometimes the battery overheats, and next thing you know, ka-boom. See the poor guy who left his Galaxy Note 7 in his SUV, and it torched his car.
Several hundred thousand of these units have been sold. The feds say 35 of them have gone bang-bang for no apparent reason. The Samsung Co. has initiated a “product exchange program” which lets you turn in your blammo for a phone that won’t blow up: this in advance of an anticipated recall. We ought to applaud Samsung for not trying to pretend there’s nothing wrong.
But what do I know? I don’t have a cell phone. Never had one. I have no desire to own one. It’s not like trying to get by without air conditioning, or a refrigerator.
Not to make too big a deal of it: but doesn’t it make you wonder whether anybody really needs some of these hot new trendy hi-tech baubles?