When the Only Person You Want to Talk to is Your Dog

Recently, I saw a woman wearing a tee shirt which said, "Leave me alone! I'm only talking to my dog today!"  We all feel that way sometimes.  Your dog will love you and listen to you even if you are in a sour mood. Even if you are a bad person.

The next time you are in a mood like this, try taking to God. He will always listen. He is always there, even when you do not talk. He wants you you to talk to Him. He comes to you, even when you do not want Him to.

'Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.  Revelation 3:20

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

"Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible ®,
Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973,
1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation
Used by permission." (www.Lockman.org)

Christians

All of the persons listed in this post lived to be at least 100 years old.

Jose de Jesus Garcia Ayala: (1910, Mexico - 2014) Roman Catholic bishop.

John the Silent: (452, Armenia - 558) Greek Christian saint. John lived as a hermit for 76 years.

Nguyen Khac Ngu: (1906, Vietnam - 2009) Vietnamese Roman Catholic bishop who was ordained as a priest in 1934.

Herbert George Welch: (1862, New York State, USA - 1969) Methodist bishop and university president (Ohio Wesleyan University). Welch served as a Methodist pastor in Korea, China, and Pennsylvania.

Nicholas Kao Se Tseien: (1897, China - 2007) Chinese Roman Catholic priest known especially for his service in Hong Kong. Oldest known person to ever undergo surgery for cataracts. 

Two Roman Catholic Bishops Named Lucifer

The Hebrew phrase helel ben saar in Isaiah 14:12 was translated in the King James Version of the Bible as “Lucifer, son of the morning.” The traditional Jewish interpretation is that this is a reference to Nebuchadnezzar II. This is also the understanding of the Christian preterist interpretation of the Bible.

The Latin word for “morning star” is Lucifer. In later Christian tradition the name came to be seen as referring to the beautiful being Satan before his fall. The idea expressed in the name is “the morning star,” the “shining one.”or “the light bringer.” There seems to be no real Biblical indication that the personal name of the Devil is Lucifer. In fact, the three personal names the Devil is given are all actually insults: Abbadon (destruction), Apollyon (destroyer), and Beelzebub (Lord of the Flies). The Bible calls the Devil many names including liar, deceiver, accuser, adversary, lord of this world, lord of the flies, tempter, and evil one.

The Bible is quite clear that the Devil is a real person who is the embodiment of everything which is vile, evil, and opposed to God. He is not merely a force, or an idea, or a myth. We just do not know his name nor do we need to. It is finished. He is defeated.

In the Middle Ages, Lucifer (“shining one”) was used as a personal name as seen in the names of two Roman Catholic bishops: Saint Lucifer of Cagliari and Lucifer of Sienna.

Lucifer of Cagliari, who died in 371, was a Sardinian and held the office of Bishop of Cagliari in Italy. He was a determined opponent of the Arian heresy and a fierce defender of Bishop Atanasius. In 363, he led a schismatic sect called the Luciferians who opposed the return of Arian bishops into Roman Catholic orthodoxy.

Little is known of Lucifer of Siena other than that he was appointed in 306 as the the first bishop of Siena in Italy.

Film Comment: Sunday Bloody Sunday

The key to this excellent film is the music, the repeated melodies of Cosi fan tutti (1790), an operatic comedy by Wolfgang Mozart. The phrase translates into English as “They are all like that,” or “Thus do they all.” A literal translation of the phrase into English would be “so does all.” The opera is about an older man showing two young men that their girlfriends are unfaithful to them and then telling them that all women are like that.  In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the opera was considered to be highly vulgar and immoral. Some modern viewers would consider it to be misogynistic.

The lovers in Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) are a divorced woman in her thirties (Glenda Jackson), an older Jewish homosexual physician (Peter Finch), and Bob (Murray Head), the handsome, shallow, and totally vapid bisexual young man with whom they both have sex. All three are aware of the others but the physician and the divorcee have never met. They each pretend not to care about the other lover.  Everything is kept on the surface, there is no depth to the relationships. The film critic, Roger Ebert, called the situation “psychic amputation.”

The Bloody Sunday reference comes from the fact that on Sunday Bob is leaving for New York City in America to promote his meaningless invention, which will almost certainly be a commercial failure. He is not involved enough with either lover to stay. He would rather pursue a wild and useless whim.

She “loves” Bob and would rather share him than lose him. He “loves” Bob and would rather share him than lose him. Bob does not love, he is too shallow for a real emotion. He simply does not even care. To quote Roger Ebert again, “This is not a movie about the loss of love, but about its absence.”

There are billions of lost people in the world, chasing after sex, love, money, power, pleasure, recognition, relationships, fame, fulfillment, and hundreds of other false gods. It is our responsibility to present them with the good news of the gospel.