Church of England No-Talent Management

The Church of England has hit on a radical new way to reverse its declining fortunes. Hire some consultants and create more bureaucracy, of course.

Budget

In a bold new move to turn around the dismal failure of CofE leaders to get people to go to their failing church, a £2-million budget has been approved to implement Talent Management for Future Leaders and Leadership Development for Bishops and Deans: A new approach.

Talent

In keeping with CofE best practice, training will be run by a secular institution or business school, although a "spiritual retreat" is also envisaged. In step two of the career promotion programme, 150 potential top decision makers will have to pass a 5 year course at Archbishop Justin Welby's London palace.

Success

Failure to pass the five year "path to success" will result in career candidates being thrown out of what the report refers to as a "talent pool" and having to make do as ordinary, if failed, clergypersons. According to the Church Times, the "talent pool" will be made up of up to "150 high-potential individuals."

High Potential

You can read Let Nothing You Dismay for some commentary but I have to say, whatever happened to holiness of life being a qualifier for office in the church? And who's making the profit? 

Throw Up In Your Mouth

I'll tell you this, it won't be parishes or the increase of the Body of Christ. And with that in mind, maybe someone should follow the money all the way to the "talent pool."

God bless,

LSP

Tony Blair BritSoc Millionaire!

I hate to ruin your day, but here's a "Season's" card from everyone's favorite multi-millionaire Brit Socialist, Tony Blair.

Grinning 

Maybe BritSoc Tony's grinning because he's being paid so well by PetroSaudi, or because of his lucrative public speaking engagements and "advisory" roles with investment banks, like JP Morgan.

Demon

Then again, perhaps he's just possessed by the spirit of a Margarine Demon.

I'd say that was pretty scary any way you cut it, which in BritSoc Tony's case is all the way to the bank.

LSP

Celebrity Socialists!

Russell Brand is a celebrity limo-lib socialist. He's also a comedian and a multi-millionaire. Maybe he goes off to an island and shoots poor "runners" for sport. With all the other Illuminati rock stars.

Demon

Russell Brand has 9 million Twitter followers, which is a lot. He also has a stylist who straightens his chest hair, which is repellent by anyone's reckoning.

Posessed

The remarkably rich Russell Brand believes in something called "liquid democracy," which is presumably a very rich person's version of socialism.

Millionaire Socialists

And he hangs out with a well-known Illuminati witch, Katy Perry. She's a multi-millionaire too, and a socialist.

Katy & Russell

Is this some kind of plot by a Godless, atheistical, NWO Illuminati elite to enslave us? And if not, why does it look that way?

Last I heard, the revolution frowned on celebrity multi-millionaire "comedians."

You have been warned.

LSP

For God's Sake, Get Out And Hunt.

It started off with a Mexican breakfast; Huevos Rancheros, eggs over-easy, corn tortillas and lots of coffee. "Power up," texted a friend, who understands these things and it was good advice, because one funeral, one Mass and a lot of driving later, I was at a ranch in Teague, spotlighting.

And that was a whole lot of fun; driving about the country in search of pigs, coyotes, rabbits and whatever varmint crossed our path. Sure enough, we shot several rabbits and lit up lots of deer, including several bucks. It was ghostly to see their eyes shine out as they bounded off into cover and this was a good omen, because I wanted to shoot a buck in the morning.

5.30 am rolled around with eschatological suddenness and before you could say 30-06, we were heading down a dirt road to a game-camera-proven buck location. The wind was in our favor and we walked in to the cover of a copse, stealthy, senses heightened. Sure enough, there were large deer on a treeline at around 200 yards. Crosshairs on and... they were does, and there's a county ban on shooting them. So no shot.

Still, it was good to see them in the crisp sunrise of a Texan December morning. A bit like Spring, in Canada.

After checking a few other spots, with no luck, my friend shot a duck. I missed one, but consoled myself with a fresh rabbit, a lot of venison sausage (thank you) and the promise of many more hunts to come.

What a good way to spend a Thursday evening and Friday morning! Clean air, good country, the excitement of a hunt, and fun company. Alright, I didn't get my buck but I did get outside myself, which is no bad thing for anyone, and added a rabbit to the freezer. My wild-eyed dog, Blue Spotlight, had a blast too.

I'd say everything about that is right on.

LSP

Lords of Light

I put a tree up today in Dallas, the very same one I got a week ago. I thought it looked pretty good in its stand. A little small perhaps, but full.

After the tree was up it was time for a few glasses of fortification and then lights. I put on a fair few; I think it's better that way.

Decorations can come later, nearer Christmas, but I did put a fairy on the tree, sorry, angel. There's a difference, trust me.

The angel has a wax head and was made in Germany. My parents bought it in Milwaukee, back in the olden days, when they still made angels out of wax.

I love the smell of a Christmas tree. The lights can be adjusted as the thing settles.

LSP

African Americans Pick Up After Rich White Hippies

Privileged rich white hippies at America's prestigious University of California Berkley have been rioting against racism, leaving African Americans to clean up their mess.

Typical Berkeley Street Scene

For two consecutive nights, roaming gangs of wealthy white hippies have fought running battles with poor mixed race police, trashing the once attractive university town.

In the absence of effective policing, due to rules of engagement which forbid police from using force against their rich white rulers, shop owners have taken to hiring armed private security.

Similar protests have broken out in Chicago, where police have adopted novel psyops tactics against hippy rioters, playing Sweet Home Alabama from unmarked squad cars.

The University of California Berkeley is a well known hippy safe-haven.

LSP

Immaculate Conception

It's the Feast of the Immaculate Conception today, so I loaded Blue Aquinas in the rig and drove to Dallas, for Mass with the SSC.

There was lunch afterwards and I enjoyed that, as well as discussion about Aquinas and Duns Scotus. I'd forgotten this, but the Angelic Doctor is thought to have been against the Immaculate Conception. If that's the case, why did he write this:

"Purity is constituted by a recession from impurity, and therefore it is possible to find some creature purer than all the rest, namely one not contaminated by any taint of sin; such was the purity of the Blessed Virgin, who was immune from original and actual sin, yet under God, inasmuch as there was in her the potentiality of sin." Commentary on the Book of Sentences.

A friend reminded me that Duns Scotus, who was in favor of the Immaculate Conception, also believed in the univocity of being, in finite beings as well as God. So, for Scotus, when we say SEAL Team 6 is good and God is good, we're talking about the same goodness, but to a radically different degree. 

You can read about Duns Scotus here. We get the word "Dunce" from Duns Scotus, curiously.

God bless,

LSP

Dwarf Gnome Shill

I hate to ruin your Sunday evening by posting this picture, but I will say this. Don't pretend to be some kind of impartial journalist when all you really are is a Dwarf Gnome Shill for our elite limo-lib, statist overlords.

That is all.

LSP

Make His Paths Straight

Being a Parson, I get to preach every Sunday and I tend to stick to the Gospel, while occasionally lashing out at pansexuaists, Libs, Hippies, Marxists, Hitlerites, Illuminati pagans, big government, Bilderberger NWO shills, and assorted progleft enemies. Sometimes General Lee gets an honorable mention, along with Charles Martel and other heroes. Go figure.

Blue Tours

But there was none of that today. I just stuck to the Gospel, which featured John the Baptist, crying out in the wilderness against wickedness. Like Isaiah, preparing the "way of the Lord," making "his paths straight."

But what are the ways by which a thing makes its "path" to us? I suggested that the basic paths in question were fourfold. Viz. Senses, Affections, Intellect, Actions, and when these are blocked and twisted by evil, God can't reach us. So, we have to hear the Baptizer, and clear and straighten the paths through repentance in order for God to make his home in us.

I used lots of examples to illustrate the theme; I thought it was pretty clear. Nothing deep, or even controversial, although I did blast adultery. Then during the Peace, my MC, who's a former rodeo star (world Bronc Champion several years running), asked, "Padre, was there a point to that sermon?" 

Ride More, LSP

He's a good BS barometer and a great horseman, so I looked him in the eye and said, "I think you need to repent." I rode one of his horses the other year around some barrels only to learn afterwards that the animal was worth... a lot. It was like being on a living Ferrari.

In other exciting church news, the ladies of one of the Missions have taken to feeding Blue Armageddon kolaches at Coffee Hour. I rebuke them but they pay no attention.

Things are obviously spinning out of control.

LSP

Something Nasty This Way Cometh

Nasty, in this case, being the repellent Eric Anderson, Professor of "Sport, Masculinities and Sexualities," at the UK's Winchester University. Leaving aside the viability of Winchester U as a place of higher learning, Anderson is famous for obscene language and advocating underage sex.

Speaking at Oxford University in 2011, Anderson stated, "damage that’s caused by child molestation is socially constructed by the western world".

As one reader put it, "Well, that's one up for the West, I think."

The group Because Children Matter has written Winchester University, asking for Anderson to be removed.

LSP

Pumpkin Shoot.

Exhausted by the seriousness of First Things, I headed off to the range with some rifles, a pistol and some pumpkins. Nothing complicated; set up the pumpkins and shoot them with the guns. That was my plan.

And that's what I did. I was going to name the pumpkins, Old Tory, Little Lib, Rural Dean, etc. very funny. But I didn't.

I just shot them with an AR 15, a .45, a .22 and a 30-06.

The 06, an old Remington 700 ADL, dealt out furious damage, blasting great chunks out of the hapless Halloween ornaments and I was pleased to see my scope was pretty much dead on. The other guns worked fine too, but for sheer drop the pumpkin down power the 30-06 was a stand-out winner.

So I learned something today. If you go up against pumpkins, take a 30-06 to the fight. You'll win.

Shoot straight,

LSP

Why Christians Care About Sex

I know. This blog seems to have become a cheap storefront for shallow blasts, rips and tears against Transgender Warriors, Austin, Katy Perry, and associated mountebanks. So here's some serious thought from First Things, about sex:

"The Bible calls for a sanctified sexuality, a sexual system brought under the authority of God. While there’s some level of disconnect between beliefs about sexuality and the actual practice of sexuality that’s seen in the study, the trend lines in America paint a picture of very divergent beliefs about the purpose of one’s sexuality and how it should be ordered. The implications from this are legion, one of which is the impact on religious liberty. What’s happening in America’s disputes over religious liberty are often at root basic disagreements about sex.

"The Relationships in America study reaffirms a central truth in the Christian narrative: Marriage, the dignity of the body, and sexual telos are meant to drive us to the Gospel, one pictured in the marital imagery of the Christ-Church union. Christianity has always taught that our sexual desires are primal and wild; and something to be used according to the Creator’s purposes. When humanity mistreats the good purposes of sexuality according to both reason and revelation, we neglect the purpose and complementarity of sexual design and all the corresponding realities that issue from it."

You may disagree and feel free to do so, but I'd say that was right on the money. See the rest of the article here for some interesting stats.

Now I'm heading off to the range, to shoot some pumpkins.

LSP