Ideologies, Idiosyncrasies, and Angry Squirrels (not necessarily in that order...)

You may say "I've never had the sense of being helped by an invisible Christ, but I often have been helped by other human beings." That is rather like the woman in the first war who said that if there were a bread shortage it would not bother her house because they always ate toast. If there is no bread there will be no toast. --C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

As has become my custom, I was up before the alarm this morning... And my only class is at 2pm...

I poured a cup of coffee and sat down to watch episode 1 of A&E's Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath, which premiered last night (after my bedtime) and in which the former Carrie Heffernan (in the 90s sitcom King of Queens) declares war on the oxymoronic Church of Scientology (considered a cult in the LCMS), the hood ornament for which is Tom Cruise. (Wikipedia has the A List of celebrities who were drawn in by L. Ron Hubbard's movement based on the psychobabblery and practice of "Dianetics," a tenet of which is "That Man is basically good." (from The Creed of the Church of Scientology). What I saw in this pseudo-reality biopic was an ism, comparable to what I know about Stalin's brand of Socialist Communism (you can check in, but you can't check out-- a couple of very good, very edifying movies about this that I regularly showed my high school kids during Russian history: Reds from 1981 and The Inner Circle from 1991, both based on true stories).

And, of course, my own perspective is pixelated by what I've heard, read, and been taught; I've not experienced either first-hand. But both billow a desire to dig deeper into a person's guidance system, how their moral compass and spiritual gyroscope can, after launch, steer them down range so far from the target... You can read more about Remini's jihad (ha! I kill me-- ha! I did it again!) in this article on salon.com, called "Your antidote to seasonal belief disorder".

Speaking of isms, an interesting editorial piece from the Washington Post showed up in this morning's paper, written by a Somali-American (hyphenation figures into our collective inability to work and play well with others IMHO) school teacher in St. Cloud, Minnesota: I’m Muslim. Here’s how I explain my faith to fearful Americans. At the risk of a debate over God's real name (the answer can be found in a manager), I was going to write the author, but thought better of it. [In three paragraphs here, I have, at least, done a drive-by past that which keeps us in a perpetual state of opposition. What we don't know is exacerbated by what little we do know (or think we know). But the author is correct-- generally speaking, we are fearful and ignorant (as in uneducated, not stupid), which kindles anger, which leads to violence, which causes fear, etc.] sigh sigh sigh

And, speaking of anger, how about this PO'd little critter who lunged at our patio door in a grudge because I booby-trapped the bird feeder (I added pizza peppers to the seed and 40W oil to the pole)(and before you send me hate mail about the peppers or report me to PETA, go back and read the last sentence of the preceding paragraph, then read this). Of course, my wife flings the sliding glass door open and yells at the likes of him, so maybe his grudge is becoming a vendetta. She sits at her desk right next to the door, in plain sight of the little buggers...

Even with squirrels, it's all about belief systems. Let's hope the ones around here don't turn to the Internet and become radicalized. (At that point, you may have to call PETA...)

С Богом!