Country Ministry

On the Road

I used to think that country ministry meant looking after several near empty Medieval churches and lots of parish "fetes." Perhaps you don't know what a parish fete is. They're mostly like day-long yard sales with little sandwiches, snacks and tea, maybe even some goofy game that the priest is supposed to take part in. 

Bad Craziness

Sometimes they'll have dancers who are like clowns but worse, and if the fete's high-stepping it might have tents, which is a good idea because these things are held outside and chances are it'll rain. That's what I figured rural priesthood was about, all these fetes and ancient churches, maybe even some real ale clowns.  

Rod and Gun

Apparently I was wrong. For me, country ministry seems to involve a lot of guns, horses, fishing and not a Norman church in sight, sadly. It also means plenty of driving to take the Sacrament to the sick.

Mischief

I pulled up at one place today, where a church lady had been knocked down by an animal, a four legged one, fortunately. A big black dog was padding about with a calf's leg in its mouth, right content, unlike the calf's owner, who wasn't. 

And that, my friends, is just the way it is.

God bless,

LSP

Vladimir Putin is the New Constantine

Putin and Patriarch

Vladimir Putin is the only world leader, of any note, to make a public stand for the defense of Christianity. According to Metropolitan Hilarion of Russia, a Christian is killed every 5 minutes for their faith, making this a new age of persecution for the Church.

Putin, Friend of the Church

In the face of this, the Western governments and media are silent. More than silent; in America at least, they appear determined to dismantle all traces of Christianity in the public square and with that to embrace its opposite. No more prayer in schools, no more Christian symbols on war memorials, no "evangelizing" in the Armed Forces, no more "Defense of Marriage Act." That's gone and with it, near enough, what Marx called the "bourgeois claptrap of the family." 

A Christian

Putin stands against that and for Christian morality and values. He doesn't believe, he tells us, that "same gender marriages" are good because they're "infertile" and he's had the temerity to ban New World Order sexual propaganda. No more "Pride" parades in Putin's Russia, much to the outrage of the Christ-hating Western ascendancy. 

Moral Majority

Like a new Constantine, there seems to be a star arising in the East. Pravda, I think, puts it well:

In the East there is someone that causes the western liberal's maniacal laughter to stop. Vladimir Putin. He has real world power, which causes the liberal media to fearfully ignore or warp his image. Like a good Christian King he leads a nation to Christ. Deep down in their evil souls they shriek like devils because they know Christ is true God and true power that they cannot defeat. They thought the Bolshevik revolution destroyed Holy Mother Russia. Christ cannot be defeated and his servant Putin has welcomed Christ and His church.

Putin, New Constantine

That would make Putin, as a champion of Christianity in a sea of secularist, pagan, opposition, a new Constantine. He has, after all, as temporal heir to the Third Rome, a right to that title. 

God bless,

LSP

Good Day Against the Clay

Skeet

Urged on by belligerent open carry posts and a break in the icy blast that is climate change, I span out to the fields for some head-to-head action with our ancient enemy, White Flyer skeet. I shot reasonably well, partly because I remembered to aim, which helps when you're shooting things. Just a lot of shotgun fun, blasting the clays out of the sky.

Tailgating

After that I turned on the next opponent, a circular steel plate, swinging threateningly from a metal trestle. I shot that any number of times with a Beretta PX4 Storm .45, mostly from around 18 or 20 yards. Pure explosive enjoyment and something I need to do more of, especially now that .45 ACP has gone down in price.

Beretta PX 4

For me, shooting is for sport, and it's a good one too. For others it's also a matter of self-defense; I guess they'd be "Chaplain's Assistants."

gunman

Shoot safe and God bless,

LSP

Oklahoma Episcopalians Get Gay(er)

The Dean of St. Pauls Gets Gay

St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, Oklahoma City, and Holy Trinity, Guthrie, have announced plans to hold gay blessing ceremonies, becoming the first two Episcopal churches in the Western half of Oklahoma to offer same sex blessings.

Oklahoma Carry

For Justin Lindstrom,  the newly appointed Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, the blessings are "appropriate" because other sorts of relationships are also blessed. “We ask God to bless all types of relationships, and so for us to formally ask God to bless same gender couples seems very appropriate to this community,” said the deep-thinking Dean.

Make that a Venti

Gay marriage is illegal in Oklahoma, unlike open carry, which is not, unless you go to Starbucks where it's banned. Unlike Oklahoma, Texas does not allow open carry, strangely, even though some some of its Episcopalian dioceses do allow same sex blessings. 

The Diocese of Fort Worth does not permit gay marriage and its clergy cannot open carry, even though we are allowed to shoot pistols. Confusing, eh?

Shoot straight,

LSP

Ice Storm Mayhem. Aftermath.

Just keepin' it real

Day three of Winter Storm 2013 opened in near total, fogbound, silence, broken only by the distant fire of shotguns, as isolated homesteads fought off the few remaining liturgists that had survived yesterday's frenzied onslaught of ice-driven madness.

Rural Ministry

That was over, leaving an eerie scene of rural desolation and now the ice is melting, only, perhaps, to freeze again. 

Left where they fell

We take stock, resolute. When the storm has passed, as one day it surely must, we will rebuild this town.

By the grace of God,

LSP

Ice Storm Mayhem. Day 2

There you go, shoot the ice off the Weber

This town is in the grip of Day Two of Winter Storm 2013, as ice-blind, directionless gangs of migrant farm workers run through the streets, looting, burning, cock fighting and gambling. Just to keep warm.

Just in case

Others are inside, cleaning guns, loading magazines, inventorying food supplies, and throwing last year's broken furniture on the fire.

It's all fun and games till the grid goes down, my friend.

I stand ready to bury the dead.

Forewarned is Forearmed.

That is all.

Winter Ice Storm Mayhem!

It's hotter now

Well done, Global Warming. You've made everything much colder now and here's why, thanks to GWB:

"Greenhouse gases cause longwave solar radiation to become trapped in the earth's atmosphere, making the earth much warmer. Which is why it's colder."

Carbon Footprint

It's a bit like our financial policy. You know, the more in debt we are the richer we become, but whatever the case, Texas is gripped in the throes of the worst ice storm since anyone can remember. That isn't necessarily too long, still, it's bad. 

Ice Age

The trees are coated with ice which rattles and hisses as it's blown by the wind.

My guns are loaded.

LSP

Never Mind the Pilling Report, Here's Pravda

No-one's fooled, Sharky.

With a sort of blitzkreig suddenness, the Church of England no sooner caves in to women bishops than it finds itself confronted with the Pilling Report, recommending same-sex blessings. Here's an excerpt:

Ole Rascal & Sharky.

"Recommendation 16. We believe that there can be circumstances where a priest, with the agreement of the relevant PCC, should be free to mark the formation of a permanent same sex relationship in a public service but should be under no obligation to do so. Some of us do not believe that this can be extended to same sex marriage (Paragraphs 120, 380–3)."

Excuse me?

What does the Bishop of Birkenhead say?

"I believe in the unity of Christ’s Church and think the Report has not heeded the view of General Synod expressed in February 2007 that ‘efforts to prevent the diversity of opinion about human sexuality creating further division and impaired fellowship within the Church of England and the Anglican Communion... would not be advanced by doing anything that could be perceived as the Church of England qualifying its commitment to the entirety of the relevant Lambeth Conference Resolutions (1978: 10; 1988: 64; 1998: 1.10)’."

Nice.

Well done, Bishop, that'll get 'em quaking in their boots! Then there's Pravda, having a go at the Dutch:

Putin, New Constantine.

"The moral values ​​of civilization were formed over the centuries. If they are not followed, then people get killed in disasters or dye [Sic] out. Today, under the banner of liberalism and tolerance perverts are legalized in the Western society. The Netherlands acts as the flagship. What do you call a society that decriminalizes abortion at late terms, legalizes euthanasia, bestiality, incest, prostitution, and drugs? What do you call the country that is ready to declare a man and a cow a "married couple" and entrust them with raising children? Perhaps it is not an accident that in all the apocalyptic predictions the Netherlands is the first on the list to disappear."

Carry on,

LSP

Cyber Monday Fail

mirror of illusion

It being "Cyber Monday", I tried to buy a North Face coat to send to a friend in the frozen wilds of Canada. I figured it'd be easy; go online, find a neat "Cyber Monday" deal, go to the virtual checkout with my imaginary shopping cart, pay for the goods, get them sent to the icy vastness of Alberta and move on, satisfied, with the day.

cold grey mask of morning

After an hour of broken websites, shattered dreams and mirrors of illusion, I gave up. Some people might have persevered and fought through to the objective. I went lateral onto target by making the purchase and sending it on, in person.

fog of war

All very fog of war. But not to worry, soon we'll have drones to deliver our online purchases and everything will be just fine.

Cheers,

LSP

Black Friday Bombs

Please buy something.

I went to the local Walmart on "Black Friday", looking for action. Maybe some trampling, or a taser fight over cut-price Vizio flatscreens, or whatever. But no luck, you could've fired a canon in that store and not hit a soul. It was like a neutron bomb had gone off, somehow sparing the checkout staff who stood out in the aisles, trying to entice the few lone punters to their silent cash registers.

Solar Space

A sign of things to come? Of course not, because as everyone knows, the more in debt you get the richer you are and one day the Japanese will turn the moon into a gigantic solar array, beaming limitless free energy to the people of earth. No retail dystopia there, my friend.

I bought some milk and bread out of a sense of civic duty.

Buy on,

LSP

The Pope's a Catholic! Breaking!

What, the Pope's A Catholic?

People all over the world are falling down in shocked wonder at the news that the Pope is, in fact, a Catholic.

As leader of 1.1 billion Christians, Pope Francis I, is "passionately concerned for the poor." George Weigel has this to say, in today's Wall Street Journal:

"The pope is passionately concerned about the poor, and he knows that poverty in the 21st century takes many forms. It can be found in the grinding material poverty of his native Buenos Aires, caused by decades of corruption, indifference, and the church's failures to catechize Argentina's economic and political leaders. But poverty can also be found in the soul-withering spiritual desert of those who measure their humanity by what they have rather than who they are, and who judge others by the same materialist yardstick. Then there is the ethical impoverishment of moral relativism, which dumbs down human aspiration, impedes common work for the common good in society, and inevitably leads to social fragmentation and personal unhappiness."

You can read the whole thing here. Prepare to be amazed at the stunning news that the Roman Catholic church elected a catholic to be their Pope.

Random Saddles & Gun

In stunning contradistinction the Church of England's busy getting gay with the Pilling Report. 

Mirabile.

LSP

Happy Thanksgiving

ISON

Out of respect for the person who said "a little Chesterton can go a long way," here's a short bit of GKC:

"The world will never starve for want of wonders, but for want of wonder. We should always endeavor to wonder at the permanent thing, not at the mere exception. We should be startled by the sun, and not by the eclipse. We should wonder less at the earthquake, and wonder more at the earth. What was wonderful about childhood is that anything in it was a wonder. It was not merely a world full of miracles; it was a miraculous world. Somehow one must love the world without being worldly."

I love that.

Have a blessed Thanksgiving,

LSP