Natural Wonder Fellowship

Hello  Thoughtful Thursday. Religious nonbelievers are frequently harassed in the name of 'being saved'. I don't mean the bigotry, obnoxiousness, condemnation and so on from acquaintances (or strangers). I'm talking about the loving , deeply held belief that [some] family members think they will "save me from hell". Ah, jeez!  Fortunately, I have read the religious texts, various versions of them. Mom, if you truly believed your writings, then you know that I was saved long ago because * you * believed, Acts 16:31. Daughte r, forget the naysayers who claim it doesn't mean what it clearly says; that it was 'modified' when taken 'in context'; "they" aren't 'Real Christians'! Wasn't I 'saved' when Mom had me baptized as a baby? (Don't mention my DeBaptismal Certificate , LOL) Wasn't I confirm-saved when I ate those blessed crackers (cookies? wafers?) that morning at church? (Don't mention I was 6-7...

This was meant to be thunk about on Thoughtful Thursday, but... we can think on other days, too. How do you see yourself in relationship to 'the group' or 'the crowd'? Are you a member of "the crowd"? Are you not a member, but pretending to be because... [whatever personal reasons - often fear of rejection or retribution]? If a close friend or family member were having doubts about the dogma of the group, would you want to know? How could they best broach the subject to you? Would you continue to love and support that person? For instance, "Christian". I used to think it was a generic term basically meaning belief in the biblical "Christ" as a deity. I've come to realize that if that were the case, there would not be so many versions of "the church" and "christianity". I'm not counting mosques or jewish or hindu or pagan temples; I just mean "christian church". Straight off I ask, why are catholic ch...

Amazing Grace is among my favorite songs. For some reason, I especially like it when played (well) on bagpipes. If I can't have bagpipes, then I want strings. Listening to it, with or without lyrics, gives me chills. It is one of the first "real songs" I learned to play (not especially well) on my keyboard (on the 'strings' setting). Its lyrics are actually troubling the way they're usually interpreted though. You can be as obnoxious, as downright positively evil as you like, for as long as you like, throughout your life. Then halleluiah open your eyes to the [biblical 3-in-1 true] god, recognize the 'gift of grace' from this particular 'loving god' and you're good to go to your 'reward' (where you'll worship the 'loving god' for 10,000 years, and then 10,000 more). Hundreds of versions of this song exist on YouTube. This one for instance , gives me a tremendous headache in less than a minute. (It is far too sharp, ...

Chip is a complete sweetheart. He loves people, he loves other cats. He especially loves his litter mate brother Chad. It's hard to get a picture of just him. He's usually with another. He loves to play with rawhide string, and watch the birds. He really loves to eat, LOL. I noticed about a year ago that "the boys" were getting quite fat, but many of the others kept getting thinner...  yeah -- "the boys" were eating most of the overnight kibble put down for the entire group. Just to be sure, we took them to the vet for blood work. They're on scheduled meals here, with free feed only over night (Precious is teetering on the edge of whatever was not wrong with her litter mate Boots). Blood tests for them showed normal -- no hypo-thyroid, no nothing. So we isolated "the boys" overnight in the first bedroom. They began to lose a bit of weight, very slowly.  CC's babies - Oct 26, 2009 This litter has been with my rescue since late Octobe...