Sleeping with the Ally

“Lamont,” said Patch, “I think Meugh has his nose bent out and of joint and it is because of you.”

“Me? Posh! Why would my buddy Meugh have his nose bent out shape because of me? I haven’t noticed his nose being any different that it has been.”

“I don’t mean a bent nose literally silly cat, but figuratively; his feelings are hurt,” continued Patch.

“Why?” inquired Lamont.

“I know,” interjected Paw. You’ve always been his favorite with your playing up to him all the time, rubbing his legs and getting your fur on his pants and shirt, always first in line for his attention. But now, you have been climbing up regularly on Mureen’s lap or beside her legs and snuggling in for long naps.”

“Yes,” added Patch. “And now he thinks you like her best. Mureen, his mate, his partner, his love; you have been sleeping with his ally!

Hmm, that's looks like Patch

“Oh my,” said Lamont, “I didn’t realize. That’s too bad. Well, I guess he’ll just have to get used to it. I like it there with her.”

That is Patch: more traitors.

Both Patch and Paw sigh and lay down for a nap.

White Hairs

“Lamont,” cried Patchtricia peeking out from behind the TV, “You’re getting more white hairs on your black fur. You had three, just like Meugh has three white chest hairs on his chest, but now you have a few more on various parts of your body. What’s with that?”

“Good works,” replied Lamont.

“Good works?” said Pawline, “What good works.”

“Well,” replied Lamont, “if you have noticed our human servants have been attempting to spruce up the place here. I suppose because we live here now they have raised their standards.

“Nevertheless, you likely have noticed that they took of the shower doors and replaced them with a curtain. They also put tile around the opening of the shower. Pretty nice, I added a few touches myself by putting some nice long hairs from my fur into the caulk to give it a little added panache. And you may have noticed some nice white paint added in the laundry room.”

“Yes, yes,” murmured Patch, “but what about your white hairs?”

“Patience little one,” said Lamont, “I’m coming to that right now. After Meugh painted the spot in the laundry room he started patching some chipped off paint in various places such as the rail upstairs and the newel post at the end of it. There were chipped parts on the rail posts and the underneath of the rail needed a bit more paint.”

“Oh yes,” said Paw, “that’s the rail you like to lay one and let our four of your legs dangle down as you rest on your tummy.”

“Exactly,” replied Lamont. “It is a fine place for me to stay while I inspect Meugh’s work to see he’s getting it done properly. So, right after he painted it I inspected it thoroughly to make sure he it done correctly.

“I’m not sure why, perhaps it was just my interest in his work, but that was when I when I got a few more white hairs on my fur. Probably an empathetic reaction.”

“Sure,” replied Patch, “that explains it very well.

Armageddon

In Christendom there have always been a number of folk who seem to gleefully predict the end of the world. For example, a New England farmer after careful study of the Bible thought that God would destroy the world between March 21^st 1843 and March 21^st 1844. His followers got rid of all their possessions, and thus were in bad shape when the prediction didn't work. Some of the kin of these folk went on to become today’s Seventh Day Adventists.

The founder of the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith told his church leaders in February of 1835 that the end would come with 56 years.

In 1881 an astronomer using spectral analysis saw the Halley’s Comet tail had some deadly gas, cyanogen, in it which caused many folk to conclude that would be the end of it all.

Good ol Pat Robinson in May of 1980 sounded the alarm that the world would end by the end of 1982, “I guarantee you…”

Another comet, Hale-Bapp showed up in 1997 caused more alarm by a cult called “Heavens Gate. Unfortunately some of the did find their end when 39 of them committed suicide  on March 26, 1997.

The great Nostradamus who has predicted many events said that the world would end in 1999. But if you have ever read his quatrains, you know they are as difficult to understand and the book of Revelation which promotes a lot of the hair-brained predictions.

If the infamous Y2K which frightened computer folk over the world had folk believing that would be the end of the world but it was just the end of Lotus 1-2-3.

Richard Noone wrote a book in 1997, “5/5/200 Ice: the Ultimate Disaster” saying that the planets would align making the Antarctic ice 3 miles thick by May 5, 2000 and that would be the end.

The Church of God leader Ronal Winland wrote in his book in  2006 that 2008 that hundreds of millions would die and it would be the worst time in human history. Nope, it was just the end of the Bush administration which was a good thing, though he definitely tried to make it the worst of times according to many.

And the list goes on and on. I have always written this junk off for what it was, the ranting of a bunch of weirdo’s who seemed to chant, “Ha, ha, ha, I’m saved and your not.” Sick.

When folk have come to me as a pastor would supposedly know biblical stuff better than others, I’d tell them I didn’t have a clue, but if God didn’t want waste a perfectly good creation we’d likely have another approximately 13 and a half billion years left which at the time was the nature life expectancy of the universe according the the science of the day. Most found this highly unenlightening.

Perhaps now I may join the doomsday sayers but from a different perspective. It has never made much sense to me for God to break what he had created. But human beings, that is a whole other story and our track record for reaping mass destruction upon each other is not good.

Perhaps, I think, humanity may be the only species to bring about its own destruction given our current responses to the global warming phenomena. A bunch of folk make it a political issue rather than a scientific one. More take a traditional ostrich stance by burying the heads in the sands and try to ignore it. We have by almost all measures not followed God’s command in Genesis to be stewards of the earth: The God said, ‘Let us make man (human beings) in our image after our likeness. And let them have dominion (responsibility) over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” ~ Gen. 1.26. Well, that hasn’t worked very well.

So, as Al Gore warned five years ago the polar ice may melt by now, more scientists are seeing this as likely and we can’t stop it raising the sea level 3 feet or so. It’s not a good time to be buying coastal property. For a long time the fear was the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet and ultimately may cause a 10 foot increase in ocean levels. CBS news science reporting has recently talked about the slow collapse as being unstoppable in the future. NASA studies of 40 years of ground, airplane and satellite data shows this weak “underbelly of the West Antarctica.” The ozone hole, and human carbon emissions are clearly the guilty parties in causing all of this over and above natural warming and cooling cycles.

Scientists seem to be the modern prophets who warn that if we don’t change our ways, terrible things will result. And like the Old Testament prophets they are not just predicting the future but interpreting what is going on at present.

So, will this be our own Armageddon caused by our own hands? I don’t know. I hope that as in the past God will intervene, likely through the hands of enlightened human beings that are not myopic and care for the future and accept responsibility for the planet God gave us.

With all that said, we must remember Jesus words about the subject: ³² “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ~ the Gospel According to Mark 13.32

Invaders

“Head for the hideaways,” Patch meowed loudly, “more invaders are coming in.”

“Not again,” groaned Paw. “Didn’t we just get rid of a bunch of those from the human servants family?

“Yes,” commented Lamont. “Mewreen’s daughter Ann, her son J and his wife Laurie, the mad-cap garage salers were all just here for the 100 miles garage sale. Talk about a dumb human idea; 100 miles of people selling their junk to other people who collect that junk so they can sell the junk again at their own yard sales. People!”

“While it is true they were quite a bother,” added Patch. “After they drank versions of Mint Juleps they seemed to settle down and watch a bunch of horses running around a circle on TV. I thought horses were supposed to be smart. They will never get anywhere if they keep running around in circles.”

“True, but I did like it when Ann gave us supper goodies at breakfast time,” added Lamont. “They were all unusually tall people. I was concerned that after a few mint juleps they might step on us. But they didn’t.”

“But now there is this new huge dude around the house,” said Paw. “I think he is called ‘Let David Do It’, at least that’s what I read on some cards the Meugh gave him.”

“Yeah,” offered Lamont. “He spent a lot of time in our old home in the Schackteau where we used to live. I think he was laying boards down on the floor for some reason. Anyway, Meugh and Mewreen got very excited about it, especially Meugh.”

“And then he went outside,” continued Patch, “and pulled up a bunch of green stuff. Why didn’t he just eat it. All we get to eat in here is those artificial flowers Mewreen puts on the coffee table. Though once you get a taste for them they are not bad. Though Mewreen seems to get excited when we munch on them for some reason.”

“Now Let David Do It is upstairs where we like to wile away the afternoons gazing out the patio window and napping,” said Paw. “He put up some new lights in the human servant’s bedroom. He and Meugh had quite a conversation about weird wiring whatever that means.”

“Yes,” commented Patch, “and now he is taking down some sticks off the ceiling and then putting up sticks that look just like the ones he took down? They do look neater, but what’s with that?”

“And then ever so often a yellow bowl with some stuff on top of it periodically makes and infernal noise,” said Lamont. And, there is a hose attached to it that has a gun attached to it and Let David Do It shoots the boards he is putting up. Weird, very weird. Perhaps he’s a modern gunslinger.

“Oh well, live and let live as I always say,” said Lamont.

“Since when,” said Patch as they all found quiet places to lie down and give themselves and each other good cat baths with their tongues.