Friday 18 March 2011

The White Horse - A Refutation, and an Emulation

I have the fear that, reading Young Keith's record of something I do not understand, you will think I am one of his cronies with whom he spends his time revelling in the White Horse.
Nay. It will not be so. For is revelling and carousing, of all sins, not ranked alongside the sins of envyings, murders and emulations in Gal 5?

Although I have to confess, I know not why "emulations" would be such a bad thing. I have checked this with Daphne Hnaef - a little inclined to equal opportunities, in my opinion, but still an intelligent and informed woman. And she tells me that "emulation" is a means of, for example, allowing somebody with a laptop PC to open up a "window" in Unix, or Linux, or even - that I should ever mention the word, causing our first parents to sin as it did - an Apple.

Notwithstanding the evils to which an "emulation" may expose one, I do not feel that that of itself makes the "emulation" sinful. After all, objects may be used both for clean and unclean uses. A glass, for example, may contain a sinful concoction of hops and malt solution - or the refreshing water which quenches the thirst both of panting harts and of repentant Samaritan sinners. And so an "emulation" could be a portal to all the filth and laviciousness in the world - or to the wonders of e-sword, a Bible package that comes free with the King James Version (and the opportunity to download all sorts of inferior versions also).

But returning to the subject at hand - the idea that I hang about indulging in drunkenness and revelries. Far from it. Clutching a strictly innocent glass of bitter lemon (for I do not withhold all excitement from myself - nay, Marjorie does that) I was attempting to coax the pool players into the Kingdom of God by explaining how the game of pool is a parable of the Gospel - that even if you break first, and pot from the break, even so the first can be last. That one can only win by descending (as the balls on the table descend to the depths of the table). And that while the white ball - which represents goodness - can be raised once again and come out of the little hole under the baulk of the table, the black ball - representing all evil - is pushed into oblivion by the white as it is potted - never to rise again. Unless one parts with a not inconsiderable amount of one's post-tithing disposable income.

As I say, I was explaining this to the pool players. But they were clearly not open to the Good News. Rather, calling me something I cannot repeat on a family website - they left me to my bitter lemon. And, in the regret and recrimination of my failure, the lemon was truly bitter.

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