[Askel5]

That GIF in #28 just about says it all, doesn't it?

Well ... if you click it, you may find it says more.

To be honest, I'm not a big fiction fan ... very picky and (as with films) generally only pick up books on trusted recommendations (from the alive and dead =).

You can't go wrong, however, with Father Elijah and the rest of Michael O'Brien's "Children of the Last Days" series, Coyote. (You should maybe start with "Plague Journal" if you've not read any of them.) Father Elijah's some 500+ plus pages and I put it down only to rest my eyes a minute and maybe get a drink of water.

[father_elijah]

As an enormous fan of Father Elijah I can whole-heartedly recommend it to one and all.

DID YOU KNOW:
The Anglo-American bombing in Afghanistan began at the exact moment that the Jewish Feast of Hoshanah Rabba began in the Holy Land. So not only was it the Feast of the Holy Rosary, it was also Hoshanah Rabba.

This Feast concerns God's final judgment of the nations.

In Jewish worship on the feast of Hoshanah Rabba, willow branches are waved before the Lord as the faithful march seven times around the Bema (where the Torah is openend), then they beat the willow branches on the ground. Willow in Hebrew is ARAVA. This word ARAVA also means wilderness, desert, the Plains of Moab, and ARAVA is used particularly in mystical literature to signify the whole world outside of the Holy Land.

In the Zohar, a holy book of the Jewish mystics called Kabbalists, the Zohar says that the great war between Esau and Ishmael will begin on Hoshanah Rabba. In Kabbalist literature Esau represents Christianity and Ishmael stands for Islam.

[Coyote]

He stared at it for a long time. Suddenly, the meaning of the mural became clear, like a scene viewed through lenses revolving into focus. The blurred shapes of reality drew together into a sharp, piercing landscape of moral disaster.

I'm fighting back the overwhelming urge to be sick, with a shudder, a chill, and watery eyes. From the look of the moment, getting to know you, I probably don't have to tell you that IT SUCKS TO HAVE PROPHETIC VISIONS. You probably already know that. You also know I went to great lengths to take that warning bell to those I saw who needed it most, wrapping it up in such a carefully tailored suit, it was not only well circulated here, but even published at LF City Times, that super secular, cynical stronghold of libertarianism. Although when they finally felt that hint of final judgement creeping up on their own necks, they burried it.

The visionary of our age can't help but see one thing. You're stuck with a vivid glimpse into the future, through that little space cleared in that dirty windshield, and like an innocent adolescent caught up in shock at his first glimpse of a pornographic image, you want to both scream and cry.

I've been away from the vision for some time, just suppressing it in order to get by, just to get along with my friends and loved ones. But it seems I've missed a great deal.

For decades I looked forward with delight toward the next image from that visionary gift. But now it's actually become a burden, a veritable curse. I can hardly bear to look ahead, because what I see is not only exceedingly dismal, it's apocalyptic. Tell me I'm over reacting. Please. But sometimes it seems like being caught in that very moment just before an automobile accident. That instant when you're still pushing on the brakes, but with less and less conviction, as the adrenaline rushes up and weakens your legs, because although you know you have to keep standing on that brake with all your might jsut as long as you can, you also realize there's no way you're going to avoid a terrible crash.

The very same authority that is virtually our only authority for believing that "God is love" also clearly teaches that God is just, and that those who do not meet him clothed in his gift of salvation and grace must meet him naked, without a wedding garment.