Related in some way to all that has come before is the question of Salvation, to which you may say, “Which one?” for there are several, but specifically I have two friends who are playing house together with the intention of getting married who have arguments about such matters as Salvation. I have told the one who seeks my advice – the lady in this ‘couple’ – that they really ought to be arguing about mortgage payments like the rest of us. My wife and I used to argue quite a lot. Well, obviously we’re divorced. But certainly couples who don’t divorce must argue too. I can safely say we never once got into a situation in which I was sleeping on the sofa because of a disagreement about Salvation.

 

Well, the fellow’s a Christian; she isn’t. He belongs to a non-denominational church of some stripe. I’ve always thought ‘non-denominational’ to be a contradiction in terms because I’ve never known such a church that did not eventually splinter up into thirty entirely new denominations. But, putting that aside, (and it was an aside – so I suppose I am putting aside my aside), his church teaches that Jesus is the way to Salvation, excluding other ‘ways.’ I hear you saying “Ah – duh.” Yes, that is one of those things which makes a Christian denomination Christian, even if it is non-denominational. His worry – this Christian dude – is that his wife-to-be isn’t saved, obviously. She wonders what possible difference that could make.

 

I tried to explain that he would probably like to be assured that he will see her in the afterlife, (though why he would want to do that is beyond me – Lord, she’s a pain in the ass.) And I think she understood that. I think she is rather flattered by it. Well, wouldn’t you be?

 

Now, does she lack faith? Or does she lack belief? What she seems to be saying is she doesn’t lack faith, but she can’t bring herself to believe as he believes.

 

Here’s the Catechism:

 

169 Salvation comes from God alone; but because we receive the life of faith through the Church, she is our mother: "We believe the Church as the mother of our new birth, and not in the Church as if she were the author of our salvation." Because she is our mother, she is also our teacher in the faith.

 

So, if Salvation comes from God alone they may certainly both be going to Heaven, but…

"Faith is a personal adherence of the whole man to God who reveals himself. It involves an assent of the intellect and will to the self-revelation God has made through his deeds and words."

177 "To believe" has thus a twofold reference: to the person, and to the truth: to the truth, by trust in the person who bears witness to it.

178 We must believe in no one but God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

179 Faith is a supernatural gift from God. In order to believe, man needs the interior helps of the Holy Spirit.

180 "Believing" is a human act, conscious and free, corresponding to the dignity of the human person.

181 "Believing" is an ecclesial act. The Church's faith precedes, engenders, supports and nourishes our faith. The Church is the mother of all believers. "No one can have God as Father who does not have the Church as Mother" (St. Cyprian, De unit. 6: PL 4, 519).

182 We believe all "that which is contained in the word of God, written or handed down, and which the Church proposes for belief as divinely revealed" (Paul VI, CPG § 20).

183 Faith is necessary for salvation. The Lord himself affirms: "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned" (Mk 16:16).

184 "Faith is a foretaste of the knowledge that will make us blessed in the life to come" (St. Thomas Aquinas. Comp. theol. 1, 2).

Well, according to this neither of them is going to Heaven. So that’s why I think they really ought to be arguing about mortgage payments like the rest of us.

I’ve heard it said that conversion is a continuous experience, process. I certainly hope that’s true.

I’ve also written recently about Time. Most of us can understand that God exists outside of Space, outside of matter; God is transcendent. That’s fine. But no one can adequately understand how God also exists outside of Time. Think about that for a minute. Time’s up. You can’t. You see, without Space there is no Time. Because without matter there is no change. Time was created in the same moment that matter was created. Matter refers to ‘things.’ Things Fall Apart = Time. Ah – duh.

Boy, all this is making me hungry. I’m going to go buy some food now. And then I’m going to eat, and I’m going to drink (root beer), and then I’m going to be merry. Because tomorrow…

My dear Hopfrog,

 

            I am writing today in the manner of the Enemy’s advocate in order that I might dissuade you once and for all from this silly course that you are on, attempting to pursue those hapless persons who dabble in what they obliquely call “The Black Arts.” Once again, I cannot explain with sufficient power just how hard won was our experience in this matter. Those who practice witchcraft, or some other “New Age” chakra nonsense in whatever combination – (and it is impossible to keep track of these banal varieties) – are really not worth the effort, for they do so in all innocence. They may invoke us all they wish with their silly incantations, but if you or I were to actually make an appearance for them, as if we were puppets on their strings, the likely result would be disastrous. Why, they would take up the fetishes of the Enemy immediately in their terror and would then be lost to us. This has been our experience.

 

I have already explained this in so many words, and in other words, yet you insist on continuing to dabble with dabblers. Please remember the tremendous advantage we have while our prospects remain corporeal, and how it may too easily be lost at the moment of death if we haven’t brought them over fully to our side. I suggest that you take some time to observe the tremendous success that we have achieved in the “Charismatic movement” where the laying on of hands is more likely to transmit our spirit from one to the other than the spirit of the Enemy. It is we who are the masters of the five senses; it is we who provide the hedonic aspect. People are extremely limited while they are alive, and to them what seems becomes what is. That, my little nest of vipers, is our great advantage.

 

The best case one may imagine is the infiltration of one of their churches which was founded specifically to provide its adherents with precisely the sort of sentimental experience their bodies crave. The Enemy cannot so easily appeal to the senses as we can, so the Enemy’s institution is never as attractive as ours can be. How well I recall our colleagues’ triumphs in so effectively dividing that institution into warring factions – over 30,000 different ones at last count!  Confusion and doubt, in and of themselves, are no help to us unless we use them properly.

 

Remember that our weapons are distrust and resentment, not mere disagreement. As you are yet a novice I recommend you pursue the sentimentalists. Within a week or two you could have them accusing one another of demonic possession every time they get the sniffles, or any other bit of bad fortune. But surely, wasting your time with any group of grown up children wearing silly robes and pretending to invoke our Director will backfire on you. I cannot stress this enough.

 

Now, I may be away for some time. As you know, despite the concerted efforts of a great many of us who have been working with the one called Mother Theresa, we have been dealt a resounding defeat which our Director has taken rather personally. A number of us are facing disciplinary action, a fate which I will only slimly escape my own self without some complicated diplomacy. And so I bid you farewell until such time as I am free to write again.

 

And until such time I do remain affectionately,

 

Your Uncle Toadswallow     

My caterer friend is taking me out to dinner tonight - any excuse for a party, I suppose. It reminds me that I used to dine out frequently, particularly when I was married. And then later when I was dating. And well, the last time my caterer friend took me out I heard for six months thereafter that we were an item. People who should know better were asking. Goodness.

And then, The Lady will take me out again some time when our busy business and family schedules permit. But she has a birthday coming up in a few weeks, so it will probably be some time after we've both forgotten why we had planned a meal together that it will actually happen - through no fault of ours other than being grown-ups with things to do.

One thing we both say we miss about the bad old days of poverty and struggling is that we were able to spend so much time together then. Now she has her own car, her own house, her family reunited, and I have this cavernous museum, we hardly get a chance to talk. I don't think that means we want to leave all this middle class respectability and go back there for old times' sake, but really she has a point in saying she misses me. I miss her too. It was only five years ago - five to seven. It just seems like a lifetime.

Well - whatever, right? It's just a window through your computer screen into a day in the real life of this blog's authors. I need a quick reminder about etiquette for tonight, though. At what point during our meal do I select the virgin sacrifice from among the wait staff? Is it between First and Second Remove, or after the barbarian flame dancers?

I'm not usually home at this hour. It's a "lunch break" I suppose, but I'm having coffee for lunch. That makes it a coffee break. I might've said so in the first place if I wasn't so daffy.

Two deer, mother and baby, just came 'round the corner of the house to find me. They froze and looked at me. I froze and looked at them. I know better than to touch the dang things. I've seen them chase dogs. I can't run as fast as most dogs. I'm not St. Francis. I once knew a girl who practically was. Birds would light on her head and shoulders. Cats would follow her home (probably hoping for a spare bird), and dogs spoke back to her when she addressed them. Well, that would be Sister Midnight, of course. I've told that story. I'm not going to do it again.

But we ate out together once, in a group, and one of us ordered what he thought was an appetizer. Out came a three-tiered plant stand filled with food. I said, "Who ordered the Hanging Gardens of Babylon?" The poor fellow. I think it was J - a man totally without worldly skills. He had been a lecturer in something-or-other and one of his students married him, a bright girl, a wonderful enabler. J couldn't drive, couldn't cook, couldn't do his laundry. Crossing the street alone was a challenge for him. He had a brilliant mind but he made up his brilliant mind early on that he wanted to have nothing to do with the responsibilities which attend having a body.

Bookish he was - like me. But he was a nutjob.

Say a word and I'll find out where you live, hunt you down, and give you 'the look,' right?

Well, the difference is I'm highly functional. I will say that my business prospects are improving now that the White Tornado does me such favors as reminding me about appointments I would otherwise miss because my own mind is on some other planet. But this fellow's mind was some other planet. No, really - he had his very own ecosystem. Or perhaps ego-system in his case. Either way, it was a bit daunting for him to be presented with a plant stand when he thought he was ordering dinner.

Those business prospects, by the way, will advance socially in a significant way tomorrow. It seems my (our) reputation has at last reached a point where the grand high warblybottoms that pass for local aristocracy have decided to start demanding our services. I don't know if it's a good commercial direction, however, since the super rich tend to be awfully darn stingy. Drinking in that circle was grand, back in the day, but I'm not sure how lucrative it will be to network in it. We'll see. In any case, the furniture is going to be quite pretty.

I wouldn't mind, actually, managing a few of those properties for the winter. It may not pay much but they offer beautiful locations for running around naked. Hey - isn't that why I'm in business in the first place? Let's remember our priorities.

It has been my personal experience that those of us who have learned the spiritual principles of creating wealth are far more generous than those who just happened to inherit it. I suppose it's possible for someone with inherited wealth to have a poverty mentality of limitation so long as he pays wranglers to manage his assets - much like J had a wife who served as his eyes and feet, and hands. Also, I'm reminded of "Citizen Kane." When Orson Wells is told that his newspaper is losing a million dollars every year he replies, "Oh well, in that case I'll be broke - in sixty years." There is something to be said for having massive quantities of the stuff.

It fascinates me though, the attitudes most people have towards money. They see quantity but they don't see infinity. Much was made of one of the "big" oil company's record profits last year or the year before, or ten years before, the knee-jerk assumption being that they must have come upon it dishonestly. (Well, you're buying so much of the darned stuff, do you think they're going to go bust as a result?) Most of that was ignorance, of course. People think that raising prices increases profit, but that's silly. Increased sales volume is what increases profit. If the price is too high nobody will buy the product and profits will decrease - duh.

But the frightening thing about it was not that most people didn't take Economics 101, nor that most people don't own their own businesses so that they might learn the same through practical experience. The frightening part was the people's willingness to view profit as a dirty word. Profit represents earned money, people just like me working hard to create something. Our government, meanwhile, which earns nothing and creates nothing, came up with a budget figure somewhere in the unimaginable trillions - of stolen money, that is money they don't earn or create but simply take from people like you and me who do earn and create it. I didn't hear too many folks complaining about that.

Well gee, that has nothing to do with going out to dinner, does it? So what? Happy day to you!  

The photo looks about ten years younger than tonight's program, and the presence of a CBS microphone tells me it may have been taken during the taping of Jim and Marion Jordan's guest appearance on the mystery vignette series "Suspense" - and while do I have about 30 of those programs, theirs is not among them. Alas.

Fans of FM&M's first season (1935) would have recalled that a lot of the action took place on the road, and took great advantage of the comic opportunities offered by the McGee's dreadfully out-of-date automobile. It's a shame that season isn't well represented amongst the many files available on-line. There is a very funny Christmas shopping episode from '35 which I'll post closer to Christmas. The sound quality's rather poor compared to this one.

Of course, we're continuing the 1940 season here, and will keep going into '41 - Guildersleeve's last season with the program. 

Remember please that the action in this play is performed live by actors standing on a sound stage before microphones, scripts in hand. The laughter is provided by a live studio audience, and the music supplied by the Billy Mills Orchestra and the Kings Men - both ensembles sharing the stage with the actors.

But who else was on that sound stage that the live studio audience could see (but we can't)? The sound effects guys, of course - the same crew that figured out what an eyeball being gouged out of its socket must sound like for an NBC thriller program, "Lights Out, Everybody," (which incidentally had also starred Hal Peary a few years before he became Throckmorton P. Guildersleeve.) I like to think of the sound effects guys as no less than cast members themselves. This is "Theater of the Mind." You need sound effects.

You also need a mind.  

In the story there are nine people crammed into a little car - that's what we "see" when we listen to this. Three of the nine people are played by one man, Bill Thompson. They are Nick Depopulis, Horatio Boomer, and the Old Timer (in the luggage compartment).

Marion Jordan (Molly) does double duty, as always, in the part of Teenie, the little girl from across the street, a role she developed as Jim's comic foil for their previous program, "Smackout," in which Jim Jordan runs a store which is always "smack out" of everything.

That sure sounds like Harlow Wilcox playing the motorcycle cop.

I had forgotten I have some sort of medical credentials until someone asked me to do something or other with the body of a recently departed fellow at the local hospital. Wondering – as often happens – when and how am to be paid, I arrived on a wet but sunny Autumn day to begin my new job. Whatever my credentials are – or were – they were accepted by the hospital’s staff routinely. A central horseshoe-shaped desk was manned by a young yuppie who referred to my dead clients as screamers, this due to the fact that they made sounds rather like my cast iron radiators when the furnace comes on. I was surprised he kept them right behind the desk on the floor. Was that my fault for being late? Was I late? And there was also the body of a young woman, which was unexpected, but did I mind squeezing her in?

 

I was a little appalled that the staff treated their dead patients so casually. The two corpses – old fellow and young girl – appeared to be just as nonplussed by their treatment. Like two dolls, one thrown arms akimbo somewhat against the other, they seemed aware – though I knew they could not possibly be aware – that they were sharing a humiliating unpleasantness, and supporting one another morally in the silent way passengers do on a subway car that is stuck in the tunnel. Except that they were not silent; they ‘screamed,’ albeit quietly, like the radiators.

 

I never did find out precisely what I was supposed to do with them, but apparently, whatever I did was well thought-of. It was well thought-of enough that I should be asked back again. They addressed me as ‘Doctor.’ I also cleaned the bathrooms. My crew was not the usual hard workers – those that I normally use being all one family who live in the hills, and they are really good at what they do, no slacking, no nonsense. But I was having difficulty motivating their stand-ins. I ended up doing most of the bathrooms myself.

 

For some reason I decided to take a staircase which, it turns out, was no longer in use, perhaps trying to find a shortcut to my car. The day was rapidly spinning out of control. This was not only a hospital but apparently also a college. A student – a bearded young fellow sporting a style I can only describe as terrorist chic – remarked loudly, “If they are going to close off the west wing they should lock the doors!” He seemed truly miffed that I should be allowed to pass with impunity through an area from which he was restricted. I knew explaining I had done so accidentally would be useless. He was narrow-minded and hateful, like most college students. It didn’t matter anyway.

 

The quadrangle into which the forbidden doorway deposited me was wet with rain and littered with autumn leaves, even though there were no trees. Dusk had descended. I could see lights on inside what I assumed were classrooms. There seemed to be no convenient way out of where I had found myself. I was thinking it was an awful bother, but par for the course, that I would have to retrace my steps through the building in order to find the main entrance again.

 

What struck me as remarkable was my total lack of control in the situation. Is this how most people live? I wondered. Why, for instance, could I not command the buildings to move aside for me? And why, though I may jump ridiculously, could I not become airborne? For that matter, it seemed no one else had that ability either. As interesting as the architecture was, I grew impatient with the whole thing and decided not to play anymore.

 

“This is boring,” I muttered.

 

It was time anyway to answer Nature’s call – which is a horribly hackneyed way of trying to say politely that I needed a pee. And to check the clock. I had vowed to write a blog post in the morning, come hell or high water – which is every bit as hackneyed as answering Nature’s call – and, if it were after 5, I should begin to do so. For I know myself. I know that when I write in the morning I may begin at 5 and not be done until 9, and I cannot be done until the thought is finished and the spiders are gone.

 

Lately I’ve had absolutely no imagination. I have been writing about such ordinary, run-of-the-mill things… You see? There’s another one – ‘run-of-the-mill.’ How tedious.

 

I thought of turning on a light, but no – I don’t care for lights. But blocking my way to the bathroom was a ‘screamer,’ dumped without ceremony as usual next to my bed. If I stepped out of the wrong side of the bed I would no doubt trod on him – or her – whichever the case, and I thought it was undignified enough for the corpse of somebody’s grandfather or mother, husband or daughter, to be left in such a random place to begin with. I really must do something about that. I really ought to take a stand. The staff may be hardened to the sight of dead bodies – hardened to the point where they will routinely leave them to scream like radiators where everyone can see them – but it’s just not right all the same.

 

Finally, I decided to get out on the other side and go all the way ‘round through several hallways, and through The Squabbler’s room, to get to the bathroom. And if I click on the light in there the exhaust fan comes on. I can’t stand the sound of that exhaust fan, so I customarily sit on the commode, which I can do blindly, rather than stand which – well, you get the idea. And so there I was, sitting in a big pile of autumn leaves, listening to the radiator. Then I remembered the pretty cosmetologist who works for my Funeral Home director friend, and I wondered if she was married because if she was not married that would make her the only available woman in town I haven’t dated at least once – out of that pool of women I would be inclined to ask out, of course – and I gather she might not get asked out too often on account of what she does for a living.

 

Then I turned on my computer to write my post, just as I had planned to do. And I still have absolutely no idea what to write about.