Soft soulful whispers
against cool jazz riffs-
forested skyline ablaze
with autumn sunset-
moving west
down the main strip.
Violet gold
flares and subsides
ahead
as star-flecked purple
closes in behind.
Nostalgic
and Gothic.
Welcome.
More stuff about me
-
I actually am ordained, by virtue of the
First Amendment, the Free Enterprise System,
and the US Postal Service, as a Pastor in
World Christianship Ministries.
*
I have done two stints (1980-82, 91-92)
in the John
Birch Society, finally concluding
that we just have different visions of the
American Right. Unlike most mainstream
Conservatives, I do believe in New World Order
conpiracies, but I don't regard all who differ
with me as pawns of the Illuminati.
I do thank the JBS for its work in exposing the
Establishment Collectivists, who often have
operated through groups like the Council
on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commision.
*
My Christian conservative views are best
embodied in Taylor
Caldwell's Dear and Glorious Physician
(her novel of a compassionate man's fight with a
seemingly uncaring God as the free republic about
him
degenerates into a decadent empire),
with a Libertarian streak reinforced by Ayn
Rand's
epic of the creative minds on strike against a parasitical
world-
Atlas Shrugged (tho without, of course, her
atheism or sternness.)
Lately, I've discovered the Christian
Reconstuction
(aka Dominion, Theonomics, Preterist Postmillenialism)
of
Gary North, Gary
DeMar, the late David Chilton,
the late Greg Bahnsen, James
Jordan, Ray Sutton,
Ken Gentry, and Rousas
J. Rushdoony.
Their work in explaining Bible prophecy from
a Preterist
stance and applying Biblical (mainly OT)
Law to the Christian faith & modern life is both
controversial and thought-provoking.
In short, most hold the Tribulation was the 1st
century persecution of Christians and the Roman siege
of Jerusalem, and now Lord Jesus governs the world
from Heaven through His Church, who is to get in
gear and exercise His Love and Law in all nations.
I don't fully agree here but I don't fully disagree
either.
I like to call myself a Biblical Libertarian, but
that just
means I usually vote Conservative Republican while
hoping for something better *G*.
*
I was raised Christmas & Easter Catholic as a
WEE child,
tho around 4th grade started attending a Christian
& Missionary
Alliance Church, where I really got grounded in the
Faith.
Reading Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth-
a pop
presentation of Bible prophecy from the Rapture-Tribulation-
Christ's Return-Millenium-Eternity format
(aka pre-tribulation Rapturist pre-millenialism)-
at age 13 (1975) really activated me as a Christian,
tho I had
become interested in the Bible a few years earlier
through, of all things, Erich
Von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods
and other "Ancient
Astronaut"/UFO literature.
While I am now a late-trib Rapture historic pre-miller,
I find the Preterist position quite worthy of consideration.
David Chilton's The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition
of the Book of Revelation is required reading
for anyone
interested in "End-times Bible prophecy" from any
perspective.
*
With the checkered political-theological background
I've admitted to, of course, I'm also a Charismatic
*S*
Spirit-baptized with tongues in an Assembly of God
revival around 1978, discipled in an Episcopal/interchurch
prayer group, veered into a New Agey Manifest Sonship
sect from 1982-84, and then settled in my local Assembly
of God, where they love and accept me but don't fully
understand me either.
*
Random info- my patron saints
are C.S. Lewis
(St. Jack of Narnia) and Mary Magdalene;
I love the social satire of the late Southern Gothic
Catholic Existentialist Walker Percy (Love in
the Ruins,
Lancelot, The Second Coming, Lost in the Cosmos);
and I think Eastern Orthodoxy & Celtic Christianity
will be shown necessary to the spiritual growth of
the Western Church.
*
Movies and Music!
I was blessed to be raised at the time when
the local (now closed) Drive-in Theatre
showed (sometimes in first run) the horror
films of Hammer Studios (usually starring
Christopher Lee and the late great Peter Cushing)
and of AIP director Roger Corman (usually starring
the also late great Vincent Price- whom I once met,
and based around the works of Edgar Allen Poe.)
PLUS, WTTV out of Bloomington IN would air
"Nightmare Theatre with Sammy Terry", a burgundy
cloaked & hooded ghoul or vampire or something
who would rise from his coffin to present classic
horror films (and occasionally the cheapie p.o.s.)
PLUS, my parents would actually buy me the Warren
Publications magazines- CREEPY, EERIE, VAMPIRELLA
(well, Dad first bought Vampi
just for himself) and my
personal favorite FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND,
edited by the not-late but greatly revered Forrest
J. Ackerman
(whose mansion-museum in Horrorwood, Karloffornia
I
finally got to tour! YIPPEE!!! The Sistine Chapel
of the Horror-SciFi Fan!)
My favorite horror films-
NOSFERATU (1922)
FRANKENSTEIN (1931, Universal)
BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (U)
DRACULA (U)
THE MUMMY (U)
THE WOLF MAN (U)
FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN (U)
NIGHT OF THE HUNTER
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS
THE SEVENTH SIGN
HORROR OF DRACULA (Hammer)
BRIDES OF DRACULA (H)
BLACK SUNDAY (starring Barbara Steele)
CARNIVAL OF SOULS
THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (AIP)
THE DUNWICH HORROR (AIP)
THE RAVEN (AIP)
THE HAUNTED PALACE (AIP)
THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES (AIP)
THEATRE OF BLOOD
FRANKENSTEIN (1973 w/ Bo Svenson)
FRANKENSTEIN-THE TRUE STORY
CARRIE
COUNT DRACULA (1970-starring Louis Jordan, BBC/PBS)
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS
ERASERHEAD
NOSFERATU (1979)
REANIMATOR
WILD AT HEART
TWIN PEAKS-FIRE WALK WITH ME
SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA
MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN
THE JIM ROSE CIRCUS SIDESHOW
THE RAPTURE
THE ADDICTION
STEPHEN KING'S THE STAND
STEPHEN KING'S STORM OF THE CENTURY
Probably quite obvious now that I lean to classic
Horror, such as Poe, Shelley, Stoker, Lovecraft &
King.
These are the two best horror novels I've seen since
1988-
Jeffrey Sackett BLOOD OF THE IMPALER
(woefully out of print. Young irresponsible Malcolm
Harker
has disregarded the faith which Grandpa Quincey tried
to instill
in him. As a result, he has weird dreams of
being a medieval
Wallachian tyrant & strange symptoms of the family's
blood-curse.
This fine work is a sequel AND prequel to Bram Stoker's
DRACULA.)
Kim Newman ANNO DRACULA
(an alternate history that begins as Dracula defeats
Van Helsing,
weds Queen Victoria, and places literature's classic
vampires in
charge of the British Empire. Meanwhile, vampire
harlots in East
End London are being slain by a killer called Silver
Knife,
aka Jack the Ripper, aka Dr. Jack Seward- former
suitor to a
Miss Lucy Westenra. A hodge-podge of historic
persons
such as John Merrick and Oscar Wilde, and literary
characters
like Dr. Moureau, Henry Jeckyll, and Mycroft Holmes
take sides around Prince Consort Vlad's regime.)
Musically, the awesome chants of Hildegard
Von Bingen,
the elaborate works of Johann Sebastian Bach,
the majestic joyous Beethoven's Ninth Symphony,
the moving strains of Wagner's "Magic Fire Music"
and
"Siegfried's Rhine Journey" from his RING OF THE
NIBELUNG,
and the haunting melody of Tschaikovsky's SWAN LAKE
(used as the theme of Lugosi's DRACULA and Karloff's
THE MUMMY)
are my classical faves.
More recently, Roy Orbison, the Beatles, Pink Floyd,
Jethro Tull,
the Alan Parsons Project, the Doors, Andrew Lloyd
Webber, Enya and Tori Amos
among my faves. Ultra-special recognition goes to
Angelo Badalamenti
and Julee Cruise for their David Lynch collaborations-
FLOATING
INTO THE NIGHT, THE VOICE OF LOVE, and TWIN PEAKS.
But my favorite group, who has written the theme
song to my life-
The Moody Blues- DAYS OF FUTURE PAST- NIGHTS IN WHITE
SATIN.
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