Todays the Day
England 3 - 1 France
Where There Is No Vision: Reflections on Our Restless Age
More thoughts from an old man witnessing a culture lose its way Introduction “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” - Proverbs 29:18 “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” - Ecclesiastes 1:2 I keep returning in my prayers to two voices from Scripture that speak directly to our time. The wise man in Proverbs warns that "where there is no vision, the people perish." The Preacher in Ecclesiastes laments that "all is vanity;" our projects, our achievements, our carefully constructed meanings dissolve like vapor. These two truths haunt me as I watch our culture flail about, desperately seeking something to believe in now that the Christian story has been largely abandoned. We are a people starving for a vision giving meaning, yet everything we grasp turns to dust in our hands. The Restless Substitutes In my lifetime, I've watched secular society try to fill the God-shaped hole with various substitutes. Eac...
Who's that in the picture? Not Linus, is it?
ReplyDeleteCan't be. He doesn't have a castle with a moat.
DeleteAh, but how he aspired to one.
DeleteCould be!
ReplyDeleteIf England does not defeat France, Lord Nelson will throw himself from his column.
ReplyDelete@Carl, I think France are seen as the better team.
DeleteJust like at Agincourt.
Delete@Pubcrawler
Delete↑Uptick
Will Mbappe prove to be their Joan of Arc?
Delete@Pubcrawler, touché!
DeleteMbappe as Joan of Arc? Mmabbe. But perhaps he won't be martyred. And that would make the French Mhappe.
Delete@ BrianR
Delete🙄
So, rooting for France is just morally wrong. Argentina winning would be boring. No one wants to see that. And if England would win, this board would become insufferable. That leaves Croatia, Portugal and Morocco.
ReplyDeletePortugal? Nah. Too close to Spain. So then - Croatia and Morocco. Two underdogs. That could work.
Your powers of prophecy are impressive, Carl. Morocco are through to the semifinals.
Delete@ Carl
ReplyDeleteYou're sounding like the Scots.
I see no call for insults.
Delete'Tis yourself, Mr Bell! Did you get your own blog set up yet?
DeleteI predict that this game will go one of two ways.
ReplyDeleteHow very 'Zen' of you, Lain.
ReplyDeleteFor everything one wins, one loses something. For everything one loses, one wins something.
Delete"Dieting is the only game where you win when you lose."
DeleteAs everybody knows, when it comes to sport it's the taking part that counts. The true trophy is the friendships we make along the way, not that thing that looks like it's made out of scrunched up foil takeaway trays.
DeleteAnyway, the cricket between Pakistan and England has been pretty darn good.
ReplyDeleteI'm not really into football 😂
Cricket ... good ... This does not compute.
ReplyDeleteAh Carl, scoring at over a run a ball, over 500 runs on the first day in the first test match.
DeletePerfection.
Is it good to run over the ball 500 times? Cricket is a mystifying game.
DeleteIt is Indeed. I actually think that if you spent some time studying it, you would be converted.😂
DeleteI did get taken to a village cricket match once. Best years of my life 😁
DeleteReally? Told you you'd enjoy it. Now to get you to a test match 😇😁
DeleteJack, are you seriously going to content that this board wouldn't be insufferable if England won the World Cup?
ReplyDeleteWell ... maybe ... for a day or two, Carl. There aren't that many England supporters on here.
ReplyDeleteOh I'm happy for England to win, just as long as I don't have to watch 😂
ReplyDelete@ Prof G
DeleteHappy? As a son of Scotland?
Well if I was that anti English I wouldn't have married the wife.😎
ReplyDeleteThis explains the ambivalence.
Delete@Prof :-)
DeleteCan anyone explain to me why that wasn't a penalty?
ReplyDelete🥅
ReplyDelete🤬 🤬 🤬
ReplyDeleteI thought England played really well. Disappointing but no shame. Now, come on Morocco!
ReplyDeleteJack's prediction wasn't too far off, he just got the teams the wrong way around and one goal too many.
ReplyDelete雲水 :-D
DeleteLook it could be worse, you could be Scottish, we win nothing.
DeleteWhich in some ways can be quite liberating.
@ Lain 🟨
DeleteYou are Jack's quest here .... 😡
He has the power to delete comments and to block commenters!
@Jack
DeleteDeleting comments leads to the Dark Side, Darth Jack. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you, it will.
Excommunication serves to awaken an individual’s conscience to repentance and initiate change.
DeleteA reference to the adventures of Jack ... err ... Chad Vader seems appropriate at the moment.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wGR4-SeuJ0
@ Carl
DeleteWell that's 5 minutes of Jack's life wasted that he will never recover!
@HJ Gasp, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely..................!
DeleteYou need to repent and confess
@ Prof G
Delete😈
Is it my fault that the British sense of "humour" is so distorted? Chad Vader is brilliant.
Delete@ Carl
DeleteSo what part in this little drama do you play?
The guy who says "Chad, it's really not working out."
DeleteThere are four seasons of Chad Vader, easily located on YouTube. You should watch.
Suddenly everyone has fallen strangely silent. What could possibly be the explanation?
ReplyDeleteJack's waiting for Carl's words of consolation.
DeleteNo, Jack. No words from me. That was just brutal. England should not have lost that match. It's like the stars aligned to create a travesty of justice.
ReplyDeleteHow many chances?
Brutal.
@ Carl
DeleteBut isn't that why football is so enjoyable - even if painful? It's very unpredictability. Moments of brilliance; bad decisions by referees; missed opportunities; luck; poor performances leading to victories. Would we have it any other way?
So the semifinal will be Morocco v. Morocco ....
ReplyDelete@Brianr If France win the thing we well presumably be told again that it's a 'victory for Africa' - I'm perfectly happy with Africans taliing a whole load of pride from that (as they could also have done from an England win) but it's a bit like saying that a win by e.g. the Austalian rubgy team is a victory for Europe!
DeleteAllons enfants de la patrie le jour de .gloire est arrive...France.2- England1 ...Vive la France....!!!
ReplyDeleteALLEZ LES BLEUS !
ReplyDeleteSuddenly Jack is a supporter of Croatia.
Deletehttps://youtu.be/hf1IgNGU0j4 and now we know why!
ReplyDelete