Demonic Faces in Twin Towers' smoke?

In the words of one of my fave sci-fi series: what the frell? I'd not come across this until a conversation I had today:

"You may have heard of the pictures taken of the World Trade Center while it was burning, in which the smoke formed the face of Satan."and if you go here, Devil's Face in Smoke 9-11, you'll see some of the pictures to support the idea.

Now there are two things that occur to me straight away with this, maybe three, depending on how you count them.

First off, this seems a bit like those stories about images of the BVM in slices of toast, or the face of Jesus in a piece of cut fruit, or even supposed satellite images of verses of the Qur'an in pictures of trees felled by storms. In all of these cases it seems to me that it's mostly about an image that lends itself to interpretations of those kinds by being vague enough to serve as a kind of suggestive ground/base to our projections of meaningfulness.

The second thing is the meaning that can then be assigned to such a 'seeing'. In this case it seems to be conducive to a hospitality towards a particular view of the world in which the goodies and baddies are well-defined in terms of a 'clash of civilisations'. -Maybe I'm being a little too harsh there, but maybe not. Certainly I'm intrigued that other 'readings' are not so possible in the discourse generated here: for example that demonic entities are /were part of those buildings and are forced out by the destruction. This latter reading could lead on to seeing the events potentially having a positive outcome in 'exorcising' the heart of NY of evil entities -though I hasten to point out this is not my interpretation and it should not be construed as in anyway justifying the violence or the deaths involved. Indeed it is an interpretation which could be seen as implicitly critical of global finance or capitalism. The fact that this way of interpreting what is thought to be seen is not anywhere in view, is in itself interesting and should give pause for thought even if (like me) one is rather skeptical of the thing.

And another thing occurs to me: the stock images that are referenced in making these interpretive leaps. They don't come from biblical imagery which, on the whole, is rather restrained about such things. Like the 'faces of Christ' and the 'images of Mary', they are drawn from conventional and largely medieval (or later) iconography. The speculative imagery of artists down the ages have, in a sense, become canonical and serve as interpretive resources for ... well ... stuff like this.

Christening the dog means ...

There are two or three issues here but I'm only really interested in one, but it's hard not to note the other. The one I'm least interested in, for the moment, is that a dog should get a service in church or possibly that the owner should have spent a thousand quid on the occasion. They are both 'commentable' topics but I don't really want to say much about them.

What I found intriguing is the evident meaning -even in the Torygraph- of the word 'Christening'. See here: "The local vicar, the Reverend David Fowler, blessed the dog in church but refused to actually christen the animal there. Instead the dog, its owner, vicar and guests retreated to a local hotel where the vicar placed his hands on the dog's head and declared the puppy be called Sheridan Smith."
It does seem to me that it seems to focus on 'naming'. I had been wondering whether this could turn out to be a story about 'animal baptism', but clearly not: so, next time someone rings asking for a Christening, perhaps one need not be so quick to assume that a baptism is called for ...

Dog gets elaborate church blessing - Telegraph

Debaptism 2.0

A couple of months back, in one of the year 9 (I think it was) classes I was teaching, one lad asked if there was a way to leave being a Catholic. At the time we didn't have time to pursue it. In my mind was to ask further questions about what they thought should happen and why simply not turning up was not sufficient. This was a Roman Catholic school. Well, it turns out that it is possible in RC terms to leave officially and not just in heart and mind and body. And apparently it happens in Italy, though to what extent is hard to determine. "Cyberspace is one of the few places lapsed Catholics can get a copy of the formal letter called 'actus defectionis' that is required by Church officials to leave the faith. "
What I think we should pay more attention to is this:

unwilling to belong to a Church that didn't represent him, Luca made an appointment. He told the priest he had never been a believer, so why belong to the flock? "A flock that included me as soon as I was born without my consent," he said.

There's a lot to be unpacked there, and I'm not going to go into the nature of consent, cultural-formation or modernity vs post-modernity, but it does seem to me to bring about certain considerations about baptism policies in a post-Christendom culture and where, certainly in the UK, one can increasingly find non-church 'christenings' ...
Debaptism 2.0: Fleeing the Flock Via the Net:

Older fathers

Guardian Unlimited Money | News_ | Money worries delay fatherhood, says survey:
This is an important thing to note in terms of the big impact it could have on church life. Let's just tease out some possibilities on that. There's issues in the CofE related to Christening enquiries. My research shows that men are least likely to think that Christening in whatever form is something that they are wiling to publicly identify with and as their confidence grows with age I suspect that this could feed even more into the diminishing figures recently published. On the other hand, it is likely that they are going to be having children when mid-life is making them ask questions of meaning of life and which having children is likely to exacerbate. There may be opportunities though I think that pitching our response in terms of what kind of world we create for our children may be the most fruitful rather than an Alpha approach.

Also given new interest and entitlements to involvement in parenting it could be that the whole mother and toddler thing will look increasingly different.

Articulate, reasonably financially secure, wanting more involvement in their children's upbringing and perhaps less willing to let the mother's interest in spiritual things be the default position on matters pertaining to spirituality: that's the likely kind of way it looks. MAybe these guys are into midlife issues but do they really see anything in the churches or the lives of Christians around them that make them think that Christ has something helpful to speak into their lives? Remember these are people who may well also be used to various kinds of training stuff that has a vaguely spiritual link [usually new agey].

I may be running way ahead of the facts here, but I would be surprised if some of it didn't check out.

One thing though:
"'The concept of children knowing their grandparents could disappear within a couple of generations if those trends continue,' said Jason Wyer-Smith, of Virgin Money Life Insurance."
Seems to be an issue of not taking into account the bigger picture: when I do funerals for people who've died in old age they have often died in their late 70's or in their 80's or older. Their children are in their 50's and 60's; their grandchildren are teens or twenties or thirties, they often have great grandchildren. Life insurance people haven't been linking up their actuarials with this factoid!