I must be on vacation

Everything I read seems interesting, and worthy of comment.  Either everyone goes on vacation at the same time that I do, or I function more coherently with a little bit of rest.

Here’s five links, with some commentary:

1. Polar Bears.  If you remember, a few years ago, polar bears got upgraded to protected status.  The story was that global warming was wiping out their habitat, which consists of ice floes.  Here’s an article on how Scientists count, and how easy it is to (mis)count them.  For instance, they only put radio collars on adult females because juvenile bears grow too fast and could choke on the collars, and the adult male bears necks are bigger than their heads.  It’s a common problem we have in the Army as well.
2. Catholics usually make super-hero movies instead of zombie movies.  It’s because zombies are better left to people who don’t believe in purgatory.
3. There’s a new concept floating around that it is impossible to unilaterally forgive somebody. One party has to forgive, and the other party has to receive forgiveness, repent, etc. You can see this concept at work in Salvation.  Nobody gets saved against their will, and nobody in hell will be allowed to offer the excuse that God should have just forgiven them instead of holding on to all that bitterness.  Presumably for God forgiveness ends in a restored relationship.

   But this makes me wonder what the right word is for this other stuff we’ve been pushing.  When you get mugged, and the next day you decide to write off the experience and offer the open hand to a fellow you will likely never see again, if that isn’t forgiveness in the Biblical sense, what is it?  For that matter, at the end of days, when God is judging the quick and the dead of all their deeds, and our hypothetical mugger comes up, having never repented, and the Lord of Heaven lays out a just sentence for all his crimes, do you stand up and say, “But Lord, I forgave him!”?

4. It’s been a saying in my family for a long time that the best way to stifle a child’s love of reading is to put him in a primary or secondary English class.  Here’s a post that covers why.
5. Last, a fascinating post on the trouble of translating mythological sounding words in scripture.  Are they Fauns or Jinn, or just plain old goats?  Well, it was fascinating until the part about Adam and Eve. That was just horrifying.

Author: KB French

Formerly many things, including theology student, mime, jr. high Latin teacher, and Army logistics officer. Currently in the National Guard, and employed as a civilian... somewhere View all posts by KB French