Month: May 2005

STOP! Put Down That Toad And Back Away Slowly!

ToadThey’ve got a mystery critter over in Germany . . . and Denmark.

No, it’s not a mystery critter like a chupacabra or a sea monster for which there are few if any remains.

In fact, there are all too many remains of this critter.

Why?

The mystery critter is an exploding toad.

It seems that the toads in certain lakes over yonder are swelling up to three times their normal size and then . . . popping.

There’s no settled explanation for this phenomenon, though they’ve been trying to figure it out.

EXCERPT:

More than 1,000 toads have puffed up and exploded in a Hamburg pond in recent weeks, and scientists still have no explanation for what’s causing the combustion, an official said Wednesday. Both the pond’s water and body parts of the toads have been tested, but scientists have been unable to find a bacteria or virus that would cause the toads to swell up and pop, said Janne Kloepper, of the Hamburg-based Institute for Hygiene and the Environment.

"It’s absolutely strange,” she said. "We have a really unique story here in Hamburg. This phenomenon really doesn’t seem to have appeared anywhere before.”

GET THE STORY.

Now, there are some theories. F’rinstance,

ONE GUY THINKS THAT CROWS ARE PECKING OUT THEIR LIVERS,

but nobody’s seen that happen so it’s just a conjecture.

No word on whether al-Qa’eda is trying to harness the power of the exploding toad.

(Poor little toads!)

Caritas Et Veritas

Some years ago I read a children’s biography of St. Dominic (1170-1221) that included mention of a dream that Dominic was said to have been granted by God. In the weeks since Pope Benedict’s election, I have been reminded of the story of that dream and have been pondering it again.

In his dream, Dominic saw Jesus, furious and ready to hurl spears toward the earth as punishment for the wickedness of mankind that he was witnessing. The Blessed Virgin approached Jesus and begged him to have mercy on mankind. “My Son,” she said, “I have two witnesses who will convert them.” Jesus glanced at her and asked, “Who are they?” She replied, “Love and truth,” and brought forward two men. Dominic recognized one to be him. The other man he did not recognize until he later met St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226). St. Francis of Assisi was the embodiment of love; St. Dominic was the embodiment of truth.

Francis, known for his love of all mankind and for all creation, is beloved throughout the world, even by non-Catholics. And yet he is often misunderstood. The popular image of him is of a pantheistic nature-devotee, whose idea of love might be summed up as “Don’t worry, be happy.” Such an image couldn’t be further from the truth. Francis, often called the Catholic Man, was highly devoted to the Eucharist, to the Blessed Virgin, and the love he displayed for his neighbor was grounded upon his devotion to God (not the other way around). He was the Catholic Man in the universal sense because his love for all mankind was all-encompassing, but he was also the Catholic Man in the particular sense. He was an exemplary Catholic.

Dominic, when remembered today, is usually seen as a grim figure who fought heretics, was involved in the Inquisition, and who founded an order that would give the world the Grand Inquisitor Torquemada (1420-1498). Generally forgotten is a love for the poor that compelled him to sell his own hand-annotated books, his willingness to stay up all night talking to a heretic to show the heretic through reason the error of his ways, his love for the Blessed Virgin that inspired his order to promote the rosary in his name.

In other words, Francis and Dominic are often seen as caricatures of their true selves, molded to fit the biases of the individual.

What does this have to do with Pope Benedict’s election? It occurs to me that we are seeing a similar phenomenon with John Paul II and Benedict XVI. John Paul, especially in the halcyon glow surrounding his eulogies, is popularly thought of in much the same way as Francis of Assisi. John Paul reached out to men and women around the world, emphasizing to them the beauty and goodness of love and brotherhood. Indeed, his motto was a declaration of love, Totus tuus (“Totally yours”). But John Paul also firmly upheld Catholic doctrine, especially on matters of life and death and on the dignity of the human person.

Benedict, on the other hand, is seen as the spiritual incarnation of Dominic; an inquisitor, ready to crack down on the heretics. After all, his motto is an assertion of truth, Cooperatores veritatis (“Fellow workers in the truth”). We keep having to be reminded by those who know him personally that Benedict is a gentle person, a good listener, genuinely interested in the ideas of others. They report that his love of his priesthood is profound and his reverence during celebrations of the liturgy transparent.

Although, to the best of my knowledge, Dominic’s dream is a pious legend attached to the saint, I think it may contain something we should consider. If Dominic’s time was in such sad shape that Love and Truth needed embodiment to convert humanity, how much more desperate is our own time?

Perhaps John Paul’s mission was, in part, to gather mankind around the See of Peter – much as Jesus gathered a large crowd of followers – so that they may listen to truth as expounded by Benedict. Indeed, the truth Benedict expounds will likely be the hard sayings of the faith; and, as Jesus had to confront his apostles after the large crowds left him in disgust over the doctrine of the Eucharist, Benedict may also be forced to ask of us Christ’s question “Will you also go away?” (cf. John 6:67).

How appropriate it then becomes when we remember that this papal transition has taken place in the Year of the Eucharist.

Jesus, Mary, And The 12: What's In A Name?

A reader writes:

As a recent reader of your (extremely interesting and original) site, I’ve noticed that you have some knowledge of Aramaic.  Could you answer some questions I’ve had since viewing the movie "The Passion of the Christ"?

What would be the spoken and written Aramaic form of "Jesus of Nazareth"? In the movie it seemed it was pronounced with slight variations by different characters, such as "Yeshua n’Zaret", or "Yeshua an’Zaret" or "Yehsua m’Zaret" (I writing this phonetically from memory, so please forgive the mistakes).  I realize that spelling and pronounciation can change as to a word’s function and place in a sentence, but if one wanted to say or write simply, "Jesus of Nazareth" in Aramaic, seperate from any place in a spoken or written phrase, what would it be?

The phenomenon of actors pronouncing the name differently is caused by the fact that the actors in the movie weren’t native speakers of the language and, so I understand, didn’t even speak it as a second language. Thus their own accents tend to bleed through into their delivery of Aramaic.

I should also mention that there were no standardized dictionaries in the ancient world and folks tended to spell words more like they sounded to them, so you’ll get variant spellings from time to time.

As to how Jesus’ name is pronounced, that’s going to change over time and region. Just as we have different accents in English, they have different accents (pronunciation schemes) in Aramaic, and words can sound significantly different depending on where and when an accent was based.

In the first century, Galilee and Judea had different accents, as we know because Peter’s northern (Galilean) accent accent gave him down south in Jerusalem, when he was at the high priest’s house. ("Yew ain’t from aroun’ these here parts, are ya, sir?") Even villages not that far apart (by modern standards) probably had different accents, like the Aramaic-speaking communities in Iraq do today (a Mosul accent ain’t the same as a Zakho accent, though they’re both in northern Iraq).

The best I can do is show you how "Jesus of Nazareth" is spelled in the Pshitta and tell you how that would be pronounced by a speaker with an eastern (Iraqi) Aramaic accent (i.e., the kind of Aramaic I’m most familiar with pronouncing), so here goes.

First, "Jesus of Nazareth" gets written different ways. Here’s how it’s written in Acts 2:22:

This is literally something like "Jesus the Nazarite." I’d transliterate it Isho` Nassraya. Pronounced in an Eastern accent, it’d be something like ee-SHOW-ah* naas-RYE-yah, but it’s hard to get across the exact sound because English does’t have two of the sounds that are used. That final character on Isho` (read from right-to-left) isn Aeh, which isn’t really like an English "ah" sound, which is why I starred it in the pronunciation. It’s a harsh gutteral sound that, to tell you the truth, sounds like you’re being choked, the airflow through the throat is cut off so abruptly. Make a kind of gutteral grunt choking noise and you’re about as close as you can get without hearing someone say it.

The other sound is easier. It’s the second character in Nassraya–the one that looks line of like a backwards Y. This letter is Sadhe (SAH-thay), and it’s a "dark S" sound. I doubled it in the transliteration to convey the idea that it in’t an ordinary S sound. Pronounce an S at the very back of your mouth (instead of at the front) and you’ve got it.

I checked some other passages as well, and the closest I found to something that’s literally "Jesus of Nazareth" was in Acts 10:38, where we find this:

Hyper-literally, this would be "Jesus of-from Nazareth," but nobody would translate it that way. "Jesus of Nazareth" or "Jesus from Nazareth" would be the correct translation.

I’d transliterate it like this: Ishoa dmen Nassrath, and it’d be pronounced ee-SHOW-ah* dmen NAAS-rath. It’s hard for an American to pronounce dmen if you haven’t practiced, but just say the D really, really fast on the front of the word "men." Don’t forget the dark S in Nassrath, either.

The reader then asks:

Second, what would the name "Mary" be in Aramaic?  I’ve heard it is "Miriam", but in the movie, Mary Magadaline calls out, "Marian".  Which is it, if either?  Also, isn’t the Blessed Mother also addressed as "Emi", "Mother" in the movie?

This one is easy. "Mary" in Aramaic is Maryam, but you pronounce the R as a tap or flap R, creating a false pseudo-syllable between the R and the Y, making it sound a little like MAR-(ee)-yaam. Strive not to pronounce it with three syllables. That tap or flap R in the middle doesn’t give rise to a full syllable.

Here’s what it looks like:

Oh, and about "Mother," what he’s saying is emmi (pronounced EM-mee), which is literally "my mother." The word for "mother" is emma and the –i suffix functions as "my."

Now the reader asks:

Third, and perhaps the most lengthy, what would be the names of all of the Apostles in Aramaic.  The movie only gives us "Kepha" and "Yohanan".

Owww! Perhaps the most lengthy?

Okay glutton for punishmentobliging soul that I am, here are the names of the twelve apostles (plus a couple extra words I’ve circled for reasons that will become clear) taken from Matthew 10:2-4:

I would bore everyone to tears for me to give detailed pronunciation instructions for these, but here’s the gist:

  1. Simon (Shem`on, shem-*on [it’s got that harsh Aeh sound in it])
  2. Kepha (KAY-pha, though folks today pronounce it KAY-pah)
  3. Andrew (Andareos, ahn-da-RAY-oss)
  4. James (Ya`qob, YAH*-qobb [note: the two words that follow this are bar Zabday or "son of Zebedee")
  5. John (Yohannan, yoh-HAN-nan)
  6. Phillip (Pilipos, pih-LIP-poss)
  7. Bartholomew (Bar Tolmay, bar TOL-may)
  8. Thomas (Toma, TOE-mah)
  9. Matthew (Mattay, matt-TAI)
  10. James son of Alphaeus (Ya`qob bar Halpay, YAH*-qobb bar haal-PAI)
  11. Thaddeus (Tadday, tad-DAI)
  12. Simon the Cananaean (Shem`on Qananaya, shem-*ON qah-nah-NAI-yah)
  13. Judas (Yhuda, yuh-HOO-dah)
  14. Iscariot (Skaryota, skar-YO-tah)

Hope that helps! ‘Bout the best I can do on the fly, though I’m sure I could refine it if I had more time.

Again, I’m writing this from memory and phonetically with no real knowledge of Aramaic, so please forgive my mistakes.  Thanks for your help.

No prob! And I’m impressed at how well you’ve done picking up stuff by ear from the movie!

Jesus, Mary, And The 12: What’s In A Name?

A reader writes:

As a recent reader of your (extremely interesting and original) site, I’ve noticed that you have some knowledge of Aramaic.  Could you answer some questions I’ve had since viewing the movie "The Passion of the Christ"?

What would be the spoken and written Aramaic form of "Jesus of Nazareth"? In the movie it seemed it was pronounced with slight variations by different characters, such as "Yeshua n’Zaret", or "Yeshua an’Zaret" or "Yehsua m’Zaret" (I writing this phonetically from memory, so please forgive the mistakes).  I realize that spelling and pronounciation can change as to a word’s function and place in a sentence, but if one wanted to say or write simply, "Jesus of Nazareth" in Aramaic, seperate from any place in a spoken or written phrase, what would it be?

The phenomenon of actors pronouncing the name differently is caused by the fact that the actors in the movie weren’t native speakers of the language and, so I understand, didn’t even speak it as a second language. Thus their own accents tend to bleed through into their delivery of Aramaic.

I should also mention that there were no standardized dictionaries in the ancient world and folks tended to spell words more like they sounded to them, so you’ll get variant spellings from time to time.

As to how Jesus’ name is pronounced, that’s going to change over time and region. Just as we have different accents in English, they have different accents (pronunciation schemes) in Aramaic, and words can sound significantly different depending on where and when an accent was based.

In the first century, Galilee and Judea had different accents, as we know because Peter’s northern (Galilean) accent accent gave him down south in Jerusalem, when he was at the high priest’s house. ("Yew ain’t from aroun’ these here parts, are ya, sir?") Even villages not that far apart (by modern standards) probably had different accents, like the Aramaic-speaking communities in Iraq do today (a Mosul accent ain’t the same as a Zakho accent, though they’re both in northern Iraq).

The best I can do is show you how "Jesus of Nazareth" is spelled in the Pshitta and tell you how that would be pronounced by a speaker with an eastern (Iraqi) Aramaic accent (i.e., the kind of Aramaic I’m most familiar with pronouncing), so here goes.

First, "Jesus of Nazareth" gets written different ways. Here’s how it’s written in Acts 2:22:

Jesusofnazareth_1This is literally something like "Jesus the Nazarite." I’d transliterate it Isho` Nassraya. Pronounced in an Eastern accent, it’d be something like ee-SHOW-ah* naas-RYE-yah, but it’s hard to get across the exact sound because English does’t have two of the sounds that are used. That final character on Isho` (read from right-to-left) isn Aeh, which isn’t really like an English "ah" sound, which is why I starred it in the pronunciation. It’s a harsh gutteral sound that, to tell you the truth, sounds like you’re being choked, the airflow through the throat is cut off so abruptly. Make a kind of gutteral grunt choking noise and you’re about as close as you can get without hearing someone say it.

The other sound is easier. It’s the second character in Nassraya–the one that looks line of like a backwards Y. This letter is Sadhe (SAH-thay), and it’s a "dark S" sound. I doubled it in the transliteration to convey the idea that it in’t an ordinary S sound. Pronounce an S at the very back of your mouth (instead of at the front) and you’ve got it.

I checked some other passages as well, and the closest I found to something that’s literally "Jesus of Nazareth" was in Acts 10:38, where we find this:

Jesusofnazareth2_1Hyper-literally, this would be "Jesus of-from Nazareth," but nobody would translate it that way. "Jesus of Nazareth" or "Jesus from Nazareth" would be the correct translation.

I’d transliterate it like this: Ishoa dmen Nassrath, and it’d be pronounced ee-SHOW-ah* dmen NAAS-rath. It’s hard for an American to pronounce dmen if you haven’t practiced, but just say the D really, really fast on the front of the word "men." Don’t forget the dark S in Nassrath, either.

The reader then asks:

Second, what would the name "Mary" be in Aramaic?  I’ve heard it is "Miriam", but in the movie, Mary Magadaline calls out, "Marian".  Which is it, if either?  Also, isn’t the Blessed Mother also addressed as "Emi", "Mother" in the movie?

This one is easy. "Mary" in Aramaic is Maryam, but you pronounce the R as a tap or flap R, creating a false pseudo-syllable between the R and the Y, making it sound a little like MAR-(ee)-yaam. Strive not to pronounce it with three syllables. That tap or flap R in the middle doesn’t give rise to a full syllable.

Here’s what it looks like:

Mary Oh, and about "Mother," what he’s saying is emmi (pronounced EM-mee), which is literally "my mother." The word for "mother" is emma and the –i suffix functions as "my."

Now the reader asks:

Third, and perhaps the most lengthy, what would be the names of all of the Apostles in Aramaic.  The movie only gives us "Kepha" and "Yohanan".

Owww! Perhaps the most lengthy?

Okay glutton for punishmentobliging soul that I am, here are the names of the twelve apostles (plus a couple extra words I’ve circled for reasons that will become clear) taken from Matthew 10:2-4:

Apostlesnames2

I would bore everyone to tears for me to give detailed pronunciation instructions for these, but here’s the gist:

  1. Simon (Shem`on, shem-*on [it’s got that harsh Aeh sound in it])
  2. Kepha (KAY-pha, though folks today pronounce it KAY-pah)
  3. Andrew (Andareos, ahn-da-RAY-oss)
  4. James (Ya`qob, YAH*-qobb [note: the two words that follow this are bar Zabday or "son of Zebedee")
  5. John (Yohannan, yoh-HAN-nan)
  6. Phillip (Pilipos, pih-LIP-poss)
  7. Bartholomew (Bar Tolmay, bar TOL-may)
  8. Thomas (Toma, TOE-mah)
  9. Matthew (Mattay, matt-TAI)
  10. James son of Alphaeus (Ya`qob bar Halpay, YAH*-qobb bar haal-PAI)
  11. Thaddeus (Tadday, tad-DAI)
  12. Simon the Cananaean (Shem`on Qananaya, shem-*ON qah-nah-NAI-yah)
  13. Judas (Yhuda, yuh-HOO-dah)
  14. Iscariot (Skaryota, skar-YO-tah)

Hope that helps! ‘Bout the best I can do on the fly, though I’m sure I could refine it if I had more time.

Again, I’m writing this from memory and phonetically with no real knowledge of Aramaic, so please forgive my mistakes.  Thanks for your help.

No prob! And I’m impressed at how well you’ve done picking up stuff by ear from the movie!

Steve Ray Has A Riddle

Over yonder on his blog, Steve posts the following riddle:

This puzzle was written by a lady in California in 1890 in response to a gentlemen in Philadelphia, who said that he would pay $1,000 to anyone who could write a puzzle that he could not solve. He failed to do so, and paid the lady $1,000 (a great sum at that time).

The answer is one word, five letters long, and appears only four times in the King James version of the Bible. An eight-year-old boy figured out the puzzle. Can you? If you give up, need a hint, or guess the answer, write me at sray@rc.net. Happy hunting!

*******************************************************

God made Adam out of the dust,
but thought it best to make me first.

So I was made before the man,
according to God’s Holy plan.

My whole body God made complete,
without arms, or hands, or feet.

My ways and acts did God control,
but in my body He placed no soul.

A living being I became,
and Adam gave to me a name.

Then from his presence I withdrew,
for this man Adam I never knew.

All my Maker’s laws I do obey,
and from these laws I never stray.

Thousands of me go in fear,
but seldom on the earth appear.

Later, for a purpose God did see,
He placed a living soul in me.

But that soul of mine God had to claim,
and from me took it back again.

And when this soul from me had fled,
I was the same as when first made;

without arms, legs, feet, or soul,
I travel on from pole to pole.

My labors are from day to night,
and to men I once furnished light.

Thousands of people both young and old,
did by my death bright lights behold.

No right or wrong can I conceive;
the Bible and it’s teachings I can’t believe.

The fear of death doesn’t trouble me;
pure happiness I will never see.

And up in Heaven I can never go,
nor in the grave or hell below.

So get your Bible and read with care;
you’ll find my name recorded there.

A NOTE FOR COMBOX GUESSERS: The in the above the statement that God did not put a soul in this thing must be understood of a rational soul. (Hint! Hint!)

The Kingdom Of Not

There’s this Ridley Scott movie coming out called Kingdom of Heaven that’s about the Crusades. Word I’m getting is that it is problematic, though not an all-out Christian bashfest.

For some of the problems, here’s films critic Peter Chattaway semi-fisking the NYT-noids at the New York Times and their comments about the movie.

EXCERPT:

The article continues: "Mr. Scott and his screenwriter, William Monahan, have tried to be balanced. Muslims are portrayed as bent on coexistence until Christian extremists ruin everything. And even when the Christians are defeated, the Muslims give them safe conduct to return to Europe."

Um, this is balanced? All the extremists are Christian and all the Muslims are nice and peaceful? I think the film, to say nothing of history, is more complicated than that, though I don’t think the New York Times is.

GET THE STORY.

And So It Begins . . .

666616?

That’s a question some folks are asking themselves right now. Actually, they’ve been asking that question for a while, but they just started asking it more insistently. Lemme ‘splain why:

Y’know those Oxyrhynchus manuscripts they’ve been reading lately? Well,

TURNSOUT ONE OF ‘EM’S A MANUSCRIPT OF REVELATION THAT GIVES THE MARK OF THE BEAST AS 616 INSTEAD OF 666.

Of course, the press is already getting the story wrong. The above link, for example, goes to a story headlined:

Revelation! 666 is not the number of the beast (it’s a devilish 616)

I’m sorry, but we just can’t say this with that kind of certainty.

616 Y’see . . .

The discovery of a manuscript with the number 616 isn’t exactly news.

Over yonder to the left, for example, is a photo of manuscript P115 (sorry I can’t do the fancy Germanic P)–also found at Oxyrhynchus, incidentally–which also gives the number of the beast as 616–only we’ve had it for a long time.

What’s why if you look in the footnotes for Revelation 13 in your Bible (assuming it’s a modern translation), you’ll see a note saying that the number may be 616 instead of 666.

So all they’ve turned up now is yet another manuscript saying this. But if the evidence we had wasn’t decisive, adding one more manuscript to the pile won’t settle things.

Especially when the new manuscript is reportedly from the late 3rd century.

So it’s still undecided what the number originally was.

A favorite conjecture (though only a conjecture) is that the origin of the discrepancy has to do with the spelling of Nero’s name. The Emperor Nero fits the description of the beast really well, and it happens that his name adds up to 666 in Aramaic if you spell it NRWN QSR, which is one of the ways it was historically spelled. But it was also speled NRW QSR, which adds up to . . . you guessed it! 616. (N = 50 in Aramaic numbering.)

I am intrigued by something the Independent article mentions, though.

Y’see, there’s more than one Roman emperor who fits the description of the beast really well. The other is Gaius Caesar, better known to the world as Caligula.

Caligula did all kinds of beast-like things: He wanted people to worship him as a god, he tried to have a image of him put in the Jewish Temple, he had a "head wound" (blazingly intense headaches coupled with what may have been a nervous breakdown) from which he recovered and came back mad as a hatter, he slaughtered tons of people, etc., etc., etc.

He then was followed by the similarly beast-like Nero (with the milder Claudius in between them).

Many scholars, putting the book of Revelation in the A.D. 90s (which is much too late in my opinion) have looked at the revival of the beast and thought it’s based on the "Nero Revividus" rumors that circulated in the late first century. These were the ancient equivalent of the "Hitler ain’t dead" rumors that were found in the mid 20th century. According to Nero Revividus, Nero really didn’t die but was in hiding, waiting for his chance to come back and persecute everybody all over again.

Since I place Revelation earlier than that, before A.D. 70 (since it speaks as if the Jewish Temple is still standing), I’ve wondered whether the the revival of the beast isn’t something else. Caligula fits the beast so well–in some ways better than Nero–that I’ve wondered whether Revelation means us to understand that Nero is or will become a revived Caligula, or that there is an emperor yet to be elected (Nero, possibly Domitian) who will be a revived Caligula. In any event, I’ve wondered for some time whether Caligula isn’t much more central to the beast than interpreters generally credit.

So here’s the interesting thing that the Independent mentions:

The number 616 was applied to Caligula.

I did some checking, and folks have found a couple of ways that his name might equal 616. In Hebrew (and therefore Aramaic, which uses the same alphabet and numbering system), "Gaius Caligula Caesar" appears to equal 616. Also in Greek "Gaius Caesar" equals 616. Here’s the math:

ARAMAIC:

Gamal = 3
Simkath = 60

Qop = 100
Lamed = 30
Gamal = 3
Simkath = 60

Qop = 100
Simkath = 60
Resh = 200

Total = 616

GREEK:

Gamma = 3
Alpha = 1
Iota = 10
Omicron = 70
Sigma = 200

Kappa = 20
Alpha = 1
Iota = 10
Sigma = 200
Alpha = 1
Rho = 100

Total = 616

Interesting!

(Incidentally, I also thought the comment by satanist guy in the Observer article was also refreshingly honest.)

Oh, one  other thing: Last go-round some folks asked what if the Oxyrhynchus papyri turned up different versions of existing books of Scripture? Would the Church accept them? As manuscript evidence, yes, as the case of P115 illustrates. As definitive replacements, no–the Observer’s attempt to canonize the new manuscript notwithstanding.

(CHT to the reader who e-mailed!)

Speak, Lord

Remember those billboards with pithy comments attributed to God, such as "Keep using my name in vain, I’ll make rush hour longer"? Well, God is speaking again and a new series of billboards capture his comments:

"One nation under me."

"Life is short. Eternity isn’t."

"If you must curse, use your own name!"

GET THE STORY.

(Nod to Katie Allison Granju for the link.)

I read in the recent coverage of Benedict XVI’s election — it was either Time or Newsweek, but I don’t have the issues in front of me — that Theodore Cdl. McCarrick of Washington said, probably with heavy irony, that the cardinals knew that Cdl. Ratzinger was the favorite when they read it in the newspapers. He figured that the Holy Spirit could speak through newspapers.

Looks like the Holy Spirit speaks through billboards, too.

Tales Of The Plush Cthulhu

<Rule 15b>R. V. Miole</Rule 15b> writes:

Hope you’ve been having a great week. Offered you and your apostolate up during Mass today. Thought I’d give you this hilarious link since you mention H.P. Lovecraft once in a while. Don’t die of laughter…the Church still needs you. I think you should post more of your thoughts on Lovecraft–I don’t think I’m the only one who’d want to hear your views on his life and works.

In Jesus and Mary,
R.V. Miole

http://www.logicalcreativity.com/jon/plush/01.html

P.S. You have permission to credit me for the link

P.S.S Dude, you should blog about pipe smoking. Seriously, what sort of tobacco do you smoke? What kind of pipe do you use?

Yeah, I’ll have to blog on that soon, I s’ppose.

In the meantime . . .

GET THE STORY.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

Plush_cthulhu