Feline Faith, or Kitties and the Ordo Salutis

While I find Anthony Hoekema's “facet” approach to the “order of salvation” more helpful in understanding God's saving work than the traditional Ordo, knowing the traditional linear order still has its merit. (And, I needed to know it for an exam.)

I came up with a little mnemonic to help myself memorize it and thought I'd post it here in case anyone else might have a need to keep the events in order.

Or, so my cat told me.

To Be Vunerable

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one. To love is to be vulnerable.

C.S. Lewis always has a way of putting things just right.

In Defense of Cats

One phenomena I will never understand is why so many people have such negative views of cats. Most people are loathe to pick on dogs, while they are perfectly content to tell tales about this or that bad experience with felines. Never mind that for all the good pooches in the world, there are also plenty who do annoying things such as bark their heads off. Constantly. Even as I write this.

Sloane Crosley comments about this odd anti-cat attitude in a New York Times opinion piece. She hits a lot of good points most cat owners will surely be able to sympathize with. Crosley notes,

Even now, I am a bit hesitant to extol Mabel’s many virtues. And they are many. To wake up with her belly-up and demanding affection is to have your heart explode with the kind of joy that compels some people into a life of large-scale oil painting. Alas, I am loath to cheapen her existence and dignify the city’s anti-cat stance by creating a dog-like defense for her.

Maybe a good start would be for cat owners to start using terms such as “cat-like” as positive descriptors.

Hope Souffle

Edward Luce writes in the Financial Times:

Having been elected partly on the basis of hope, Mr Obama may have to put the accent on fear in 2012 if he wants to be re-elected – fear, that is, of what the other guy might do. As Bill Galston, the respected US political observer, points out: “Hope is a souffle that never rises twice.”

Astute.

Late Night Haiku XXXVI

C. The cat sleeps soundly.
My lap is his bed tonight.
My legs sleep under.

CI. Tomorrow's journey,
Takes me down old, well known roads,
For unknown stops.

CII. The crickets chirp now,
A last song before frost gives
A cold curtain call.

If a High Speed Train Leaves a Station...

Ronald Utt comments on a planned high speed train route connecting Kansas City, St. Louis and Chicago:

For instance, one has to wonder what exactly motivated the review team to endorse the proposed $1.1 billion investment in the Kansas City-St. Louis-Chicago route, which would allow customers to reach their destinations 10 percent faster than they could by driving between Chicago and St. Louis.

He raises an interesting point in suggesting that pluggable hybrid cars promise a cheaper and cleaner alternative to such a plan. Nevertheless, the idea of reaching Chicago from STL in four hours without having to either bother with an airport or be actively driving a car is an intriguing.

Plenoptic is Plenty Intriguing

Mike Prospero reports on something intriguing from Adobe.

After giving a brief demonstration during the keynote address at Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference, Adobe went into more detail about computational photography using plenoptic lenses, a method of taking pictures so that any part of a photo can be brought into focus after the fact.

My camera wants one.

Late Night Haiku XXXV

XCVII. How I wish time might
Flow back that too soon spent time
Could relive the day.

XCVIII. Softly, I watch it,
Soft focus, unfolding, yet
Still left too folded.

XCVIX. Indian summer —
The weary flowers' last dance
Before frost's sharp blade.

English is Dead

Gene Weingarten reports,

It was not immediately clear to what degree the English language will be mourned, or if it will be mourned at all. In the United States, English has become increasingly irrelevant, particularly among young adults.

Alas, poor English. According to Weingarten,

Once the most popular major at the nation's leading colleges and universities, it now often trails more pragmatic disciplines, such as economics, politics, government, and, ironically, “communications,” which increasingly involves learning to write mobile-device-friendly ads for products like Cheez Doodles.

This would be funny if it were not so sad.

Reopen the Box

From Hesiod's Works and Days,

But [Pandora] took off the great lid of the jar with her hands and scattered all these and her thought caused sorrow and mischief to men. Only Hope remained there in an unbreakable home within under the rim of the great jar, and did not fly out at the door; for ere that, the lid of the jar stopped her, by the will of Aegis-holding Zeus who gathers the clouds. But the rest, countless plagues, wander amongst men; for earth is full of evils and the sea is full. Of themselves diseases come upon men continually by day and by night, bringing mischief to mortals silently; for wise Zeus took away speech from them.

Sometimes it would be nice to reopen the jar.