O-Dark-Thirty

I have a lot of discussions about religion with a lot of different people, some Christian (as I am) and some not. Both Catholic and Protestant Christian Bibles teach that Jesus Christ is the only path to God the Father. Though I believe that, I will never pressure someone to believe as I believe - belief is an intensely personal choice. The Bible also says that if you truly seek you will find, and I stand on that one. In recent posts I raise questions that seem to dismay people: Can Salvation, once accepted, be lost? (I don't know, and all arguments, for either side, seem circular to me.) Why would a benevolent God allow such suffering? (I don't know. I think this world is under the control of Satan, though, and that the non-suffering is God's grace to us.) Which do you believe: Pre-Trib, Mid-Trib or Post-Trib Rapture? (I don't know. I tend to lean toward No Rapture, but that is an upcoming book, so I'll leave it at that.) What is the natu...

Gutenberg press woodcut from Wikipedia A friend of mine was sweet enough to proofread part of my upcoming book, tentatively titled Zombie Apocalypse, Vampire Raiders of Las Vegas. Don't worry, I'm sure that won't be the final title (almost sure). She had some issues with words I used and I had to do some investigation. I thought I'd share. BLONDE vs BLOND BLOND is an adjective describing something, man or woman. BLONDE is a noun meaning a female with fair hair (and not a male with fair hair). "The blonde picked a blond puppy from the litter." FURTHER vs FARTHER FURTHER is a conceptual distance. FARTHER is a physical one. That usually works, but when in doubt you're safe using further . "As he went farther into the jungle his mind retreated further from reality." AVERSE vs ADVERSE My eldest son asked me a question about where I wrote the word averse - that maybe it should have been adverse . ADVERSE is something harmfu...

I have followed Charlie Sorrel and his articles for years. Before Cult of Mac , Charlie wrote for Wired . He's witty, insightful, and slightly irreverent. He has one of the keenest minds for reviewing things that I've ever followed - and that not only includes the software he reviews, but the hardware. A few months ago Charlie reviewed knives. He doesn't usually do that. Reviews written by Charlie almost always have something to do with computers or cycling. This one didn't. This was just about some of the best knives ever made - Opinel knives. Now, to be frank (hi Frank!), I am a nut for knives. I have to keep myself from buying one almost every time I go to a store. I don't know what it is, but knives attract me. I even have a book on making knives and fully intend to do so in the next few years after I retire. So an article on knives? By Charlie? Oh, yeah. I can't describe the knives better than Charlie can. Here's his article from...

The 100-Foot Journey I liked it. When movies show scenery of France my heart almost stops, as if a great hand wraps around it and tugs it from my chest. (If I believed in reincarnation, I'd think I came from France.) The cinematography of this movie had that hand squeezing my heart - there was so much beauty that I think I actually gasped a few times (but I won't admit it if I did). The plot is good, though I won't say it is superb. I will say the acting was superb. The story fleshed each character out, but the actors brought them to life perfectly. I won't even pick out a favorite actor/actress (but I will say I have a hard time believing that Dame Helen Mirren is English and not French now!). Oh, and there was food. I do love food. I owed Darling a movie that wasn't all explosions and superheroes. For once, I chose wisely. I can give it an easy eight of ten stars. (I don't buy these kind of movies, but if I did, this would be one I'd buy...

At New Hope, Pastor Chris titled today's message "The Call to Bold Leadership." The principle point of the message was that God is calling us to bold leadership (see what I did there?) . The next natural question is "what defines bold leadership?" 1. Bold leaders are "idiots" that have been with Jesus. Acts 4:13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus. The original Greek word for ordinary men is "idiotes" from which we get our English word for idiot. What a sad commentary on the evolution of language, but I digress from the point. The key point to note is that these ordinary men had been with Jesus . We've heard it dozens of times in hundreds of sermons: God doesn't call the prepared; He prepares the called. We've all been called. 2. Bold leaders stand up. Acts 1:15 And...

I used to love email. That was back in the 1980s, of course, when it simplified necessary communications, usually in a work setting. Personal email addresses? Only the elite geeks had those. Next came a period where email exploded across the virtual landscape. Getting a personal email address was simple. Sending a note to Aunt Ida was easy - except she never seemed to receive it, so I finally resorted to snail mail…the one with envelopes and stamps. * Yeah, I don't know if that's a good use of the word, but it's an appropriate visual. Now we're in an era where email is a virtual sharknado* of crap from unknown people. I mark most of mine as SPAM. I have elaborate folder systems and rules to capture emails I care about. EMAIL IS DEAD . This is the Era of TEXTING. I have to send a text to let people know I sent them email. FACEBOOK replaced email, too. There's some sort of Facebook messaging that I have to ignore. When email first came o...

This is a religious story, a story tragedy and of personal choices. How would you react? Ignite your imagination for a second. Let's take a trip down a rabbit hole and see if terror lurks there. Imagine you're a teenage boy, probably about fifteen or sixteen - just coming into your prime. Your family is well-off, so you've never had any money worries. You move in the upper elite of the social circles of your society and have three excellent cousins you spend time with. On top of that, you're intelligent and handsome. Every morning when you look in the mirror you think how wonderful life is. And it is. Then tragedy strikes. A powerful enemy attacks. Your parents are killed in front of you. You are taken captive and force-marched three hundred miles to a new city. Because you are handsome and seem intelligent, you are not killed. You are castrated and become a slave in the enemy's household. (Every guy reading this just crossed his legs…) ...