My latest stop-motion film project: Animal Face-Off: Lion
vs. Tiger is going well. I am just waiting for the script to be printed so I
can get started. So I’d say it’s about 20% finished.
Also, our next practice for the Christmas play I wrote
entitled, “A Big Misunderstanding,” is scheduled for September 8th.
For exact dates and times be sure send me an email to the address near the end
of this post. We still have two major speaking
roles to fill (the parts of Mira and Kate), along with the 12 other non-speaking roles. So if you like acting
and are close enough to come, please do so!
What a lot of people don’t know about me is that I also do a
lot of research on upcoming movies. And from my research I have found out that
there are quite a few movies coming out in the near future that most people
only hear about a few months prior. Pixar is making quite a few of these
movies. Recently, they came out with a movie called “Brave” (I haven’t seen it
so I can’t give a review). The movie they plan to have out next goes with
another movie they produced in 2002 that was really a landmark for the series.
This movie was none other than “Monsters
Inc.” Well, the guys at Pixar have
decided to create another Monsters Inc. movie. However, there’s a catch to this
movie, and it is explained in the movie’s “slogan”. It says: “Since the very first bedtime, all around the
world, children have known that once their mothers and fathers tucked them in
and shut off the light, that there were monsters hiding in their closets, waiting
to emerge. But what they don’t know . . . is that those monsters weren’t always
so scary, they had to go to college first.” Yep, this movie’s not a sequel
to Monsters Inc., it’s a prequel.
This movie takes place ten years before Monsters
Inc. The movie is coming out in the summer of 2013. Other movies Pixar are
hoping to create are
- The Good Dinosaur
- Planes
- Possibly a sequel to “Finding Nemo” (this has yet to be confirmed)
- The Untitled Film that goes into the head of a little girl
Check out the teaser trailer below:
Anyway, back to the present.
With the Animal Face-Off movie coming up, I decided we could look at these two
animals for a little while. So, let’s take a closer look at the Panthera Leo, or “Lion.”
Think you know
everything about the “King of Beasts”? Well, we’ll see about that! First of
all, some of you might be thinking that lions and tigers don’t really meet in
the wild because they live on two separate continents -- lions in Africa,
tigers in Asia. For the most part, that’s true, today at least. But back in the
day, lions were quite numerous on both continents. Their range went from the
Kalahari Desert in Africa all the way to South East Asia! The Bible even talks
about this to some extent, as you will recall that the shepherd boy David killed
a lion when it came to attack his flock of sheep (with God’s help of course). Another
account of lions in the Bible was when Daniel was put into a den of lions when
he refused to worship the king. And another event was when a disobedient prophet
was killed by a lion (1 Kings chapter 13). This prophet (the Bible doesn’t give us his name) was
told by God to go deliver a message to a town and he was told not to eat a thing. After delivering
the message, he visited a old prophet who insisted that God said he could
eat now. Then the old prophet really did get a message from God: that the
unnamed prophet had disobeyed by eating on his trip. Then God had a lion kill
him. So after looking at these and countless other ancient accounts (in and out
of the Bible), it would be impossible that lions did not live in the Middle
East.
 |
| The "Panthera Leo's" former and present habitat. |
Lions were revered in many countries. They are very
dangerous animals as we all know. Now, let’s pretend you had a pet lion. What
would you feed it? Meat of course! I mean, lions are carnivores so they have to
eat meat to survive because they simply can’t digest plants and other non-meats
. . . right? Well, I guess nobody told “Little Tyke” that. From 1946 to 1955, a
female African lion was owned by Georges and Margaret Westbeau. They nicknamed
the lion, “Little Tyke”. She was born and raised in America. Now they fed this
lion liked a strange diet: grain, raw eggs and milk. If even one drop of blood
were added to her milk, she would sniff it and walk in the other direction!
This is a meat-disliking carnivore! What’s wrong with her? Folks were sure that
lions had to eat meat to survive, but Little Tyke proved this was not the case.
For her whole life of nine years, she didn’t eat a single speck of meat. Little
Tyke isn’t the only “vegetarian-carnivorous” lion.
In 2002, Lea, a lioness arrived
at Rhino & Lion nature reserve all the way from Rome in Italy. Like Little
Tyke decades before her, Lea didn’t eat red meat either. Instead this seven
year old lion was raised on a diet of potatoes, green vegetables and cheesy
pasta (speaking of cheesy pasta, I’m feeling hungry just thinking about it).
There was just one food however she liked more than any other: spaghetti. Then
it’s no wonder she got the nickname “Spaghetti Kid”! Now only was she picky on
what she liked, she was also picky on how what she liked was prepared. When her
new keepers fed her spaghetti with cut tomatoes, she refused to eat. The
keepers had to be corrected: Lea only like tomato sauce, not cut tomatoes. So she’s a “picky-vegetarian-carnivore”.
Apparently the keepers didn’t feel good about this diet so they were able to
switch her diet to red meat within a week.
 |
| These images were taken from http://creation.com/lea-the-spaghetti-lioness |
Some lions don’t like eating meat, as we just learned.
However, some lions even have trouble killing
the meat. In 2002, one wild lioness named Kamunyak (which means "blessed one"), did a weird thing with a
baby antelope she just caught. Instead of killing it like she normally would,
she started to take care of it! Many
people were surprised that a ferocious killer like Kamunyak could actually take care
of her prey. Scientists were astonished! Kamunyak was so devoted to the baby
antelope that she even neglected her own health to ensure the baby was
protected. Unfortunately however, the baby was killed by a roving male lion (that’s
just plain tragic! I’m going to have to give that male lion a call and tell him
he just upset hundreds of people!). But one baby wasn’t enough for Kamunyak. She
adopted five more baby antelope, and while they didn’t survive nearly as long
as the first, we can plainly see that this lion was not the ferocious killer that we’d expect her to be!
Lions refusing to eat meat, lions caring for their prey . .
. hmm, this is strange! This has never happened before in the history of the
planet! Actually, it has. As a matter of fact, the Bible clearly states that
this sort of behavior isn’t new. It is actually rather . . . old. In the book
of Genesis, chapter 1, verse 30: “ ‘And
to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the
creatures that move along the ground – everything that has the breath of life
in it – I give every green plant for food.’ And it was so.” This is God’s voice commanding every animal on
the planet that they were to eat fruits, vegetables and other plants. You see,
God created everything to be perfect. Even the lions, or whatever cat God created,
was to eat plants. However, when man sinned all of Creation was cursed and
everything became corrupt. But let’s look at another book of the Bible, Isaiah
65:25: “The wolf and the lamb will feed
together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox . . .” This is a section
of the book of Isaiah that explains not the past or present world, but a
future. This future world is different than anything we have experienced before.
If you read on in the book of Isaiah and Revelation, you would see that this
new world is when God creates a new heaven and a new earth. There will be no
more sin, curses, death, disease, struggle, hardships, sadness, pain, etc, etc,
etc. And it appears that in this new world, God will create animals that will
eat plants, just like Lea and Little Tyke did. And best of all, we will be able
to see God Himself. Boy, I’d better
book a permanent visit to this new world. Wait a minute, I’m already booked! Would you like to be booked to this permanent visit
too? Well, first you should know that God has a problem with sin, the bad
things that we do. And believe me, we “all
have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23 (and yes, that
includes me, too). Sin would include things like stealing (even a rubber band
of CD), hating someone (God compares hatred to murder), being disobedient to
parents, lying (even the so-called “white lies”) and committing adultery (God
says that even looking at a person with lust is committing adultery). A common
way people sin every day is saying the expression “Oh my God.” This is misusing God’s holy Name. People who use God’s
name as a curse word have also sinned. Due to all the sin we’ve done throughout
our lives, we don’t deserve to even book a visit to this new world. Instead, we
deserve a booked permanent visit to Hell. Fortunately, God doesn’t want us to
miss out on this permanent holiday destination. Instead, God provided a way for
even us sinners to get to Him. He sent His only begotten Son named Jesus Christ
to take the punishment we deserve: death, even though He did nothing wrong.
However, three days later he rose again and went back up to live with His Father.
Would you like to book a permanent visit to the new world? It’s not hard to do.
You just need to follow these simple steps that are as simple as A-B-C:
· A: We must Admit
to God that we’ve sinned and turn away from it
·
B: We must Believe
that Jesus is God’s Son and accept His gift of forgiveness
·
C: We must Confess
out faith in Jesus as our Savior and Lord and live our life for Him.
See? Can’t get much easier than that! Would you like to make
those steps right here? Right now? Well, say this quick little prayer to God:
“Dear God,
I know that I’m a sinner, and I also believe that Jesus is Your
Son and that He came into the world to take a punishment I cannot pay. Please
come into my heart today, oh God, and help me to live for You for the rest of
my life, amen.”
If you said that prayer and meant it with ALL your heart, you are now officially
booked into that permanent trip to the new world! Congratulations! Please be
sure to send me an email to the address near the bottom of this post so that we
can help you get on the road to living a brand new life with God as a Christian.
Oh! I almost forgot! The “new world” isn’t quite open for
business yet! However, after we die, God has provided a perfect place for us to
wait for its opening. A cool place called heaven!
Oh boy, won’t this be exciting! A permanent holiday destination that’s
absolutely free. Thank you for joining me today and be sure to check back next
week for more cool stuff. Good bye!
PS: Have a puzzling question about creation, animals (including
dinosaurs), God, Christianity in general, myself or any my stop-motion movies
or my newly released book: “The King on a Cross?” Post your question as a
comment or send me an email to animaladventures@aol.com.
You can also do the same if you’d like to start your walk with Christ.
PS 2: Don’t believe what I said about those lions? Check out
these links: The Lion that wouldn't eat meat, Spaghetti Lion, and Heart of a Lioness.
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