Of this and of that.....

Katrina and Rita have come and gone. The aftermath will be felt for years. A major part of the U.S. chemical industry is situated on the Gulf coast, and more then a few of those companies have declared force majuere. We are seeing some of that impact at the soap factory in Ada, MI where I work.

Last week I found a treasure at the public library. Among the books on the "for sale" shelf was Safely Home by Randy Alcorn, and it was a steal at the $2 price. I highly recommend Randy Alcorn's fiction. I've read Deadline also, and he is one of the better Christian fiction writers on the scene.

Safely Home is set in the context of the persecuted Christian house churches in China. We as Evangelicals in the relative safety of the USA have very little idea what our persecuted brethren are going through. How much of our "pop Christianity" would stand up under even 10% of what those brethren have to endure. Indeed that is the danger of "pop evangelical theology" or a "pop" approach to anything to do with church, theology, and the Christian life. Those immersed in that "pop Christian" culture are grossly unprepared for the realities that will some day come upon us... Oh yes... It will come... Western Christianity will face those fires too. May God have mercy on us and may real and true grace be planted deep within our hearts.

More items of a different nature. My last several posts were "blog spammed". I checked out my Blogspot options and have the switches set so hopefully that will be stopped.

Michigan State vs. Michigan: Bragging rights for the year are on the line tomorrow. MSU has looked very good the past several weeks while Michigan has fallen out of the top 25 in the polls. But in a rivalry like MSU and U. of M., polls and records don't mean squat. My wife and I are from the MSU class of '71, so it's green and white at our house. GO STATE!!! (Yeah, in another 100 years who will care... but I still enjoy it..)

By His grace alone,

~ The Billy Goat ~

The Changing Season: Another five days and Summer will be officially over. The days are getting shorter, the corn and soybean fields are drying down to their hues of brown and yellow, a few leaves are starting to change color, and some have already dropped.

Did I mention the Football season is in full swing, and the Detroit Tigers hope for a playoff spot have been totally shattered. Ah! But the Lions are on top of the NFL Central division! How long they stay there remains to be seen. Oh yes! My youngest daughter is back at college for her Sophomore year.

All of that to say we are one more season closer to glory...

Glory be to Him,

~ The Billy Goat ~

When The Winds and Waves Crash: Our friend Paulos has written a well balanced and sensitive post on what the Christian's response should be to Hurricane Katrina and the disaster that is facing the Gulf coast of the United States...

In His mercy,

~ The Billy Goat ~

Plan 9 From Lower Space: Scrawlwart and Beeblerot are plotting mischief for XXXXXXXX Community Church. But the intrepid Internet Monk has come into possession of some key correspondence exposing the nefarious plot... Click on the link above for details...

Jesus Reigns!

~ The Billy Goat ~

Nice Arrangments of Familiar Hymns and Songs: Joel Rosenberger is making available at Piano by Joel some of the arrangements he writes and performs on piano. The files are in MP3 format. The selections include some of the older traditional hymns and songs. They make for really nice listening.

For His glory,

~ The Billy Goat ~

The Occult and the Principle of Justice In case you have not noticed, we are about to be assaulted by a wave of occult TV shows and movies. It's already happening, and the hype is already starting for the Fall TV line up.

In the several TV movies I've seen, and in the ads for "The Ghost Whisperer", it would seem there are those spirits of the dead who have unfinished business here on earth. They want to leave a last word of love to a grieving loved one they left behind. More often they are seeking justice for the foul murderers that propelled them from life in this world to the world of the dead.

And the mediums thorough whom they seek that reconciliation or justice are just going about their lives, not seeking to be psychics but finding they are and having to come to grips with what they believe they can not change about their connection to the world of the dead. Oh! Did I mention that if organized religion is mentioned at all, it is in a negative light?

I find it odd that such a connection of the occult and the concept of justice exists. Justice is meaningless unless there is an absolute that can give it definition. The Bible speaks of a day of ultimate justice. That justice is dealt out by an all knowing, omnipresent Creator God. As Paul reminds us in Romans, "Justice is mine says the LORD. I will repay." Perfect justice. Final justice. Appropriate justice.

Odd isn't it? Those who would deny the existence or relevance of the God who is the source of justice, still embrace the principle. The problem is that justice shorn from it's foundation will quickly descend into excessive vengeance which becomes not justice, but injustice.

In the only account of an occultic event in the Bible, the seance did not turn out well at all for the person who sought it. Those who play around with the occult know not what fire they are playing with. It is sad that our culture has degenerated to the point where the occult is becoming common accepted TV fare. It is a time for much earnest prayer.

Jesus reigns!

~ The Billy Goat ~

A Hot and Muggy Summer We've got more work out of our air conditioner this summer then in any other summer since we bought it. However the days are getting shorter, and September will soon be upon us.

I'm still having a few slight withdrawel symptoms from not having a computer at home. (I'm sitting in the local public library as I type.)

What do I do with all that freed up time? I'm back to working my way through Robert Thomas' Exegetical Commentary on Revelation. (I'm in Volume II now.) Someday I'll have to post a review of sorts on that work.

I also exercise my brain cells on the crossword puzzles found in the newspaper. And I manage to get to bed at a more "reasonable" hour then I use to.

There is another "project" of sorts that a friend from church has got me into. I'm not free to give details at this point, but it is a matter that needs much prayer, and it is related to Gospel Kingdom activities.

For His glory,

~The Billy Goat ~

Things are in Place: At the end of this month my current ISP service will cease. I've moved all my ISP pages to Geocities. What I'm really looking forward to is getting away from all the trivial stupid inane spam. Yes, I'm having some withdrawal pains, but am also finding life a lot less stressful. My wife likes having me upstairs more instead of always being down on the 'puter. I have more time to read some good books.

I did have opportunity to teach our adult Sunday school class for two weeks while the regular teacher was traveling. We are going through I Peter, and I dealt with the first part of chapter two, verses 1 - 17. It gave me opportunity to dig into some Greek and that was good. I found I have not totally forgotten it all.

So much for now....

Jesus reigns,

~ The Billy Goat ~

An Internet Sabbatical: Ten years ago when I first got on the WWW, the content of the WWW reflected the educational and governmental research roots of the internet. As time passed and more and more people gained access to the internet, that reflection changed, and continues to change to this day. We have now made the WWW a mirror of our culture; the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Not only has culture at large mirrored itself on the WWW, but the Evangelical Christian church has mirrored itself also; the good, the bad, and the ugly. Such is to be expected, but it is unfortunate.

A few weeks ago my hard drive crashed. Like totally... I'm not even able to re-install the OS. For less the $500 I could buy a new PC that would be adequate for what I'd use it for. I've chosen not to. We are using the opportunity to work on simplifying our life. Lord willing, by the end of the month I'll be discontinuing the ISP service that I've been with for the better part of 10 years. I'll still have some minimal access to the WWW from other sources, and will be posting here from time to time. My WWW pages on the ISP servers will be moved to my Yahoo/Geocities site, and I have Yahoo e-mail address.

I'm taking a break of sorts; a sabbatical if you will. There is more to life then the WWW. This is not a put down of the internet. I fully recognize and have personally benefited from the good side of the WWW. But it's time for a break.

By the way, I make no apology for anything I have ever published on this blog or on any of my other WWW pages. Enough said. It may be LORD willing, someday we'll hookup again. And I have no plans to stop writing.

Jesus is King!

~ The Billy Goat ~

The Human Side of a "Forgotten" Battle in an "Ignored" War:
A Billy Goat Review of:

Gallipoli, directed by Peter Weir. Starring Mel Gibson and Mark Lee. Paramount Pictures (1981)

Robert E. Lee is reported to have said, “It is a good thing war is so terrible lest we become overly fond of it.” If the American Civil War was terrible, and it was, the “forgotten” or “ignored” war we call World War I was even more so. And as much as any battle in that “forgotten” and “ignored” war; Gallipoli is probably one of the most ignored and forgotten except in Australia, where this film was made, and New Zealand.

I have read several accounts of Gallipoli including Winston Churchill’s. (He lost his Admiralty job as a result of the Gallipoli debacle.) I did not see Gallipoli when the movie first came out in 1981, but recently bought the DVD out of historical interest and a curiosity regarding the acting skills of a much younger Mel Gibson. Gallipoli is not a “kids” movie, and though rated PG, (rough language & minimal posterior nudity), there is an intense emotional level to the last part of the film that parents should also be aware of.

This movie does an excellent job of showing the human side of war. That human side takes up a good part of the 111 minutes on the DVD version, and at times the pace of the story gets a little slow. You see the Australian “home front”, far from the trenches of Europe. The newspaper gives accounts of the latest news of the ANZAC movements and battles. Two young men, (Mel Gibson and Mark Lee), met and become friends. They try to enlist together but end up in separate units. Other comrades enlist also. Both units end up in Egypt and in the course of training the two friends become reunited. Eventually one is able to transfer to the other’s unit.

The actual battle scenes come into the movie rather abruptly. One moment you’re at a ballroom scene in Egypt, and the next you’re in a boat heading to the shores at Gallipoli. The encampment on the shore is lit up with strings of light bulbs, reminiscent of a crowded carnival midway. Grim “carnival” indeed as occasional enemy shells come screeching into the encampment area, and you see the wounded on litters or shuffling around with their assorted array of bandages. You don’t see the dead, though in one trench scene a soldier shakes the protruding hand of a dead man and says, “Glad to met you.”

I am not so sure that the British and ANZAC troops lost at Gallipoli due to superior Turkish arms and troops. The Turks did have the advantage of the high ground, but Allied failure was due as much to an inept higher command as anything else. The most glaring omission of command illustrated in the movie was the failure to synchronize the watches of the commanding officers responsible for an attack against a fortified Turkish position. The plan, as conceived would have worked, but a several minute discrepancy between the watches of the two officers becomes deadly. There was also the failure of the immediate superior officer to recognize the quickly changing face of the situation and his over riding the inferior officer actually on the scene.

As the decimated troops prepare for one last charge, they know it is to their death. The camera flashes from one man to another as they quickly scrawl that last note home to loved ones, strip off valued personal possessions to leave in the trench with those notes; and we see on their faces the resignation and foreboding realization that this was it. They would go over the top and not return. They were to be fed as cannon fodder to the scourge of war. The commanding officer on the scene swears he will not ask his men to do something he himself would not do, and he makes his preparations to go with them.

I will not tell you the ending. You will have to see it for yourself. It was one of the most abrupt and saddest endings I have ever seen in a lifetime of movies. The emotional shock packed into the way this movie ends brought me to tears.

General William T Sherman, USA, said, “War is hell.”(#) That is a true objective statement that has nothing to do with being “pro” or “anti” war. The truth of Sherman’s observation was glaringly and vividly portrayed in the trenches of WWI, and Gallipoli was a prime example. Peter Weir did an effective job in bringing that to the screen, and a young Mel Gibson turned in one of his best performances ever.

PS: Duh... Where's Gallipoli? For the geographically challenged, look up Gallipoli's location in your atlas. You don't have an atlas? That's your problem, not mine.

(#) In Biblical Theology, war, just and unjust, is in this life the most stark refection of the reality of what Hell will be like. As a reflection it falls far short of Hell's actual reality, but is nonetheless a reflection of the horror of that reality. It is in that sense I am affirming the truth of Sherman's comment on war's nature. ~ The Billy Goat ~