Sorry, couldn’t resist! This gives me a laugh every time I see it. The cat is watching Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho on TV, and you’d better believe he’s following the action closely.
My folks wanted to see Psycho when it first came out, but they couldn’t find a babysitter. So they went to see it at a drive-in, with me in the back seat in pajamas. I was supposed to fall asleep. Wrong! Kind of surprising that I ever slept again…
Y’know something? I have no idea what I meant by that headline.
Anyhow, our dogs and cats and birds, et al, live in a world designed for and dominated by human beings–and look how well they make the best of it. Their adaptability always amazes me. We wouldn’t do half as well in a world designed by and for cats.
I don’t understand Violet Crepuscular’s literary technique. I was expecting to read, in Chapter CLIII, all about the preparations for the party to be held in honor of the Japanese ambassador, Walt Dropo. Instead, she gives us a digression about her sister-in-law’s atrocious table manners. This is most unedifying.
Moving on to Chapter CLIV, we find Lord Jeremy Coldsore trying to recruit geishas to serve at the party. He has to settle for members of the Scurveyshire Ladies’ Garden Club, who agree to do it in return for a zoning variance that would allow them to erect a colossal statue of their founder, Mrs. Elefanta Williams, in a statue-free zone.
“I hope this works,” says Lord Jeremy. “Not one of those women is a day under fifty, and not one of them knows the first thing about being a geisha.”
“Get the ambassador drunk in a hurry, and he’ll never notice,” replies Willis Twombley, the American adventurer.
With the vicar still laid up with conniptions, his gardener, Jock the Crotchety Gardener, takes it upon himself to empty the controversial wading pool and put it away. Jock and all his crotchets is promptly sucked under the wading pool, never to be seen again. Constable Chumley arrests the one eyewitness on the scene, charging her with Not Watching.
“But I saw some octopus kind of thing shoot out and grab him, and pull him under!” she protests. “Ain a fair vymin’ wi’ me hatriff,” counters the constable.
Lord Jeremy has no time for this: he is desperately trying to find half a dozen geisha costumes. Jo-Jo the Carefree Tailor, in complete ignorance of what constitutes a geisha costume, has created six outfits can only be described as rather like cowgirl clothes. This makes Twombley nostalgic for the plains of Texas.
“If we throw a square dance instead of one of those Japanese tea parties, we’re home free,” he assures Lord Jeremy. “Sort of a Japanese square dance, with that funny-soundin’ music that they like.”
There is no time left to pursue alternatives. The party must be held this very night.
As dangerous and as powerful as Satan is, I think some of us give him too much credit.
In the Book of Job we learn that Satan can only do whatever God permits him to do. God forbids him to take Job’s life, so he can’t.
St. James teaches us, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).
Although he is sometimes referred to as “the prince of this world,” I don’t believe that means that Satan is sovereign over God’s created world, but rather, only over those who reject God for the world.
If the world really did lie under Satan’s government, the whole thing would look like certain places in New Jersey.
If God really had ceded the rulership of the world to Satan, we would have, under Satan’s direction, entirely killed ourselves off by now. I cannot see the human race surviving the 20th century without God’s intervention. Not that we would’ve ever made it to the 20th.
God’s provides us with abundant proofs–the beauties of nature, the tenderness of love, the goodness of His word: but this list could go on all day–that He is a faithful Creator who is always close to us, who loves us, and who will see us through our many trials.
So why does God permit Satan to do anything at all?
Because everything Satan does, God will turn to His own use; because we whom God made in His own image have to be endowed with moral freedom, which sadly means we have the freedom to do wrong, and very wrong indeed… And boy, if you can see clear to the bottom of God’s plan, or clear to the ceiling, you don’t need any two cents from me!
R.J. Rushdoony’s ministry, which he has passed on to us at Chalcedon–and to all who wish to take it up–centered on the extension of Christ’s Kingdom: and in this, every Christian can take part. It’s work for all of us.
https://chalcedon.edu/magazine/christ-versus-satan
I think he saved the best quote for last: “Every Christian and his home is a part of this extension of Christ’s Kingdom.”
This was originally written as a Christmas message, but it’ll serve for any time of the year.
https://leeduigon.com/2015/12/18/if-we-were-god/
Think about it! Aren’t you glad God’s not a human being?
Turn up the volume and immerse yourself in the music, and the photographs of God’s handiwork–which tell us, always, “God is nigh.” Sung by the London Philharmonic Choir. Thank you, Dave, for requesting it.
Enough Sturm und Drang already! Here are some dogs and cats with their heads on straight–also, I strongly suspect, a tiny peek into what God intends for us, once He restores and regenerates His creation.
Excuse me, I want to go grab me a cat…
P.S.–Videos of animals sleeping strongly resemble still photos of animals sleeping.
Confession: I like watching TV commercials. Partly because I’m an actor and I do a lot of commercials, and so it’s kinda like homework to see what the commercial “trends” are. Some of these trends include: making dads and men seem like dopes or incompetent, ethnically ambiguous “heroes,” the switching of normal gender roles, and…
via TV Morality — BeautyBeyondBones
Still waiting for The Silver Trumpet to be published, I’m also waiting for the spark of an idea that will start me on my next book. I can’t do anything until God gives me that. And anyway, it’s been too cold for me to sit outside and write.
Between the two projects is The Temptation, Book No. 11 in the Bell Mountain series, all written but still being edited. I purposely left some loose ends in The Temptation to be taken up in the next book–an invasion by a particularly fierce and unpleasant nation from the south, and a project by Lord Orth that could easily get him killed–but I have yet to be given that spark, that scene, that title, or that new character that’ll get the ball rolling.
It’s hard to wait. Once I have a book started, it’ll soothe me, it’ll occupy my mind, and it’s the work that I love best. But there’s no alternative: I just have to wait until the Lord says “Go.” I’ve relied on Him this far: no stopping now.
