Which Reminds Me

Everyone in our family knows that the Butterfields are well known to blither blather endlessly on fad topics such as angels. However, nobody really understands why they are so obsessed with the topic of angels, when obviously we as Christians cannot base our theology on angels. You would have to ask them yourselves whether they were aware of Boddy and his Angels of Mons pamphlet because we were never enough aware of those events to even be able to ask that question ourselves. I only became aware of the Angels of Mons topic maybe a year ago. Before that I just did not have any idea I was supposed to ask questions about that because I just didn't know. We just thought they were nuts.

Which Reminds Me

It seems strange to me that the Sawords would be attacking us just because basically they are British-Canadian and we are not. That is about all that it amounts to because otherwise there was really nothing else to say about them. It was not like we were planning to attack them later or anything like that. We have other things on our minds and we know that they belong to a very exclusivist tiny like sect called Plymouth Brethren which has its own rules. We already knew that their particular rules would make us seem worldly by contrast to their extremely strict and retro lifestyle so there would be nothing constructive to be gained in discussing that point any further. At their church the women do not cut their hair ever, etc., etc. We would feel very uncomfortable if required to be judged by their rules because, basically, our church denomination sees that somewhat differently, not that Dawn would have stopped talking long enough to allow me to explain my point of view on that. We have other ideas about certain things. Not to go around attacking them because we understand about the invisible church and they are doing what they believe is right, but we also have freedom to do as we believe is right. That is what freedom of religion is all about, is it not?

Which Reminds Me

That was nice of someone in high school, one of my high school classmates, to explain to me something about the "Mata Hari" joke, not that I would necessarily have to ask questions. They are not descended from Mata Hari herself but from someone else in her family, possibly one of her brothers. I don't remember the exact details but it was something like that. So this means that it would be hard for them to aspire to Empire of the Universe perhaps with that dark secret in their family. Oh, that was interesting, but did not really seem like a secret or big deal. Almost everyone in our high school class seems to be already aware of this fact about their family, those people already knowing each other's business in great detail anyway, many of them being related by family or in-law ties. So I really did not give much further thought to that point of history. Lots of people have strange family attachments I would imagine. So?

Which Reminds Me

My sister spent her junior and senior years of high school studying at a public high school in North Miami Beach. I only vaguely remember once or twice meeting her Jewish friend from high school, I think her name was Lori although I am not sure, who was in choir and classes with my sister. This girl Lori converted to Christianity near the end of her senior year which seemed good to us at the time but then shortly after that she converted to Mormonism and moved away to Salt Lake City I imagine to attend Mormon college there, which seems rather appalling in retrospect. How could that happen? We think of Mormonism as a cult because of its refusal to accept the centrality of Jesus, God incarnate in human form, born of a virgin and risen from the dead, in Christian theology. Whether or not my sister has kept in touch with her high school friend I really would not know. I would not recommend it under those circumstances but not to be mean. It is just that cult people are so brainwashed and we don't want waste time having to listen to that. We know better.

Which Reminds Me

There are those who wonder why the Book of Susan is not included in the Bible canon. I don't know why and am not qualified to say. Protestant Bible scholars with doctoral degrees in Greek and Hebrew make those decisions. I have no clue but we commoners have to trust the authorities who tell us we don't really need that Apocryphal trivia cluttering our brains. The KJV Bible has everything that we need for life and liberty. And yet late at night, deep in the silence, one hears the thunderous pounding of demon fists trying to break down the door that keeps Susan's story out of this debate. And what if Susan were standing with a myrtle tree on her right and a Lentiske tree on her left so that both men correctly named a tree in the garden? Still she would be innocent of guile and the two lecherous men guilty of evil and treacherous schemes, according to the facts presented. Thus we see that Susan's story produces no repentance in the men who plotted against her. The two men are not led to a recognition of their own sinfulness and folly, which is the prelude to salvation and forgiveness from sin. The two men are put to death by law enforcement based on the fact that their arboreal alibis do not exactly match, but the legal burden of proving false witness is not fully met. The fact that the two would-be thieves cannot read each other's minds only proves that they are not omniscient deities. Thus, would-be thieves of the future are notified that in order to get away with murder they must be of one mind. The reader is left asking whether the two men would have ben excused of their wicked schemes, the slaughtering of Susan's innocence, if, under another scenario, they had chanced to name the same tree. With the honor of the vineyard's owner slaughtered, the two men might feel some pangs of sadness at the loss of beauty but barriers to assuming ownership would be demolished. Thus we see that Susan's story produces a race of thieves. Mankind falls far short of the standard of righteousness that God demands from us. God says that we are to be holy as He is holy. God is perfect. If mankind had not sinned in Adam and Eve there would be no need for a Messiah, no reason for the prophecy that the woman's seed would crush the serpent's head. So anyway, I don't understand anything but these are just some thoughts produced by Susan's story.

Which Reminds Me

Perhaps I really should have asked someone how my name got mingled in there with the divorce of Cindy Santiago (MK-Ecuador) from Mr. Howell so many years ago. They met and married during college but I did not know them well enough to know very much about that. I just remember seeing Cindy and her husband walking around the college but a few years later they were divorced so the marriage perhaps did not last very long. I would only be guessing. We might have talked two or three times but that was back in school days. There are those who would classify Cindy as one of the most flaky, nutty fruitcakes at our college so anyway Mr. Howell would not be receiving a lot of sympathy for having married her in the first place one way or another. No need to drag me into their mess, thanks anyway.

Yes, and Sandy Santiago was reminding me that she was on the staff of the Wine Press, the college newspaper, while I was not. So true and yet where are Sandy's bestselling books now? We would all be interested to know more about the makings of these Ecuadoran sonnets from the Portuguese.

Which Reminds Me

I actually never saw that movie starring Dick Van Dyke, "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" so all these clues pointing in that direction would not mean anything to me. I am not every interested in exploring someone else's creepy nightmare, which is what a movie often is, thanks anyway. I might have seen pictures of that "flying" car and movie stars in a magazine but never got around to actually seeing the movie so there is no way that I could write a plausible movie review that I never saw.