If Only we in the U.S. spent even a minuscule amount of what we spend for our wars to promote peace… I want to direct you to a website promoting peace instead of war. OneMinuteForPeace.org from the American Friends Service Committee. As the site states in the previous year the United States has spent over $1 trillion of military spending. That comes out to almost $2,000,000 every minute! It … Continue reading One Minute for Peace…..
I just got a haircut recently and a memory came back to me from my childhood. In order to get it back where it belongs on the far fringes of my memory I have to post it here. I don’t have nearly as much hair as I did back then and I get it cut much less frequently now. But it was a tradition for … Continue reading The Bi-weekly Haircut…..
I am back from my seven week hiatus and with some fresh insights. During this time I have stopped thinking about theology. It just became too troublesome for me to continue the way I was going. But, I have now come to some foundational conclusions. I was just getting too drained worrying about all the different views of Christ that exist in the world today … Continue reading A New Beginning….
This is my first post about my high school years. Since I want to make this a series I will only give you a small slice of those years here. I went to high school in the small town of Monrovia Indiana. I started there in the eighth grade in 1960. Before Monrovia I went to a Catholic school in Indianapolis. I can still remember … Continue reading My High School Years…..
I think of my deafness as an affliction that I must daily try to overcome in order to go about my business in the hearing world. That is not the case with some, perhaps most, who are born deaf. They claim they celebrate their deafness to the degree that they deem giving any child who is deaf a cochlear implant is child abuse! A cochlear … Continue reading Born Deaf vs Late Deafened…
When Jesus was on this earth he told us numerous times to be one as he and the father were one. If only we had listened and taken his words and life’s lessons seriously. I read recently that the very popular Christian author Ann Rice is giving up on all current Christian denominations. In the interview she stated that she is not giving up … Continue reading If Only We Had Taken Jesus’ Words Seriously
I grew up in a small town in Indiana and spent my summers putting hay in farmer’s barns at ninety cents and hour. But it wasn’t until my college years that I started learning real lessons in responsibility. Dad had tried to teach me about responsibility but like most teenagers then and now I didn’t really want to know that much about it. I started … Continue reading Learning Responsibility…
I know that I am not the only person in the U.S. who is deaf. In reality there are more than three million of us around. About two million of those are like me who went deaf as an adult. That means for Indiana where I live there are about forty thousand of us around. But since I am not active in any deaf … Continue reading Being alone in the world…
I believe that each of the 39,000 Christian denominations believe that they most faithfully follow Jesus. Each believes Jesus imagined the church as looking just like them. I believe that it is arrogant for any of us to suggest that we alone have most accurately discerned the true intentions of Jesus. I believe that we tend to root around in Scripture until we find a … Continue reading I Believe:
What’s the country coming to. It always will seem funny to us United Staters that we are about the only ones that really know how to do everything right. I don’t know how a lot of these other Nations have existed as long as they have till we could get some of our people around and show ’em really how to be Pure and … Continue reading Will Rogers – What would he say about us now?
Boy do I remember my wedding day. I suspect that most of us do. Of course for those who have been married multiple times the wedding day might get intermingled in our minds (ha). Fortunately I found my soul mate the first time around but it did take a while. I was on the teetering edge of forty years of age when it happened. … Continue reading Connecting with my Soul Mate…
If only we put as much enthusiasm into our academic accomplishments as we do our sporting activities. The rest of the world is at our door ready to eat our lunch. Why is this? One reason is because academically their children are now surpassing our in math, science and other critical subjects. Anyone that has any concept of what the 21st century will be about … Continue reading If Only…
I recently read an article that proudly made the point that the U.S. military is the largest minority employer in the country. It went on to argue that if our military complex were proportioned like the rest of the world there would be many more people without jobs. The United States which makes up four percent of the world’s population maintains over 60% of … Continue reading War is not the answer for ANY question….
Will Rogers – What would he say about… Today’s stock market As I mentioned elsewhere in this blog, Will Rogers is a hero of mine. He was plain spoken half breed Indian from Oklahoma who became world famous during the 1920’s and 30’s. If you haven’t had a chance to read any of his books or some of his daily newspaper posts then I would … Continue reading The Stock Market Needs a Good Dose of Ritalin
I regret to believing at one time that the sole value of Jesus rested in his ability to usher me into heaven. I believe the principles Jesus articulated, summarized in the Sermon on the Mount, is the critical foundation for His true church I believe that the fullness of the Holy Spirit is my inheritance. I daily reflect on Jesus’ words to be filled with … Continue reading I Believe….
One of the problems I have faced with retirement is the question “Where are the milestones?” I have up until retirement gauged most of my life by its milestones. They go something like this: Starting School My first communion Becoming a teenager Getting my driver’s license Graduating high school Deciding on college Being able to drink “legally” Graduating college Getting my first full time job … Continue reading Where are the Milestones??
I am a Christian and one of the places in the Christian Bible says “Ask and it will be Given”. I don’t think I have ever taken that to mean that if I asked God for $1,000,000 that it would show up on my doorstep the next day. I do know God doesn’t work like that. If He did the U.S. which claims to be … Continue reading Waiting for God to answer my prayers???
As I have mentioned before I went deaf in 1988. Learning to cope in a hearing world has been one of my most strenuous challenges. Most people, whether they want to admit it or not, have preconceived ideas of who a deaf person is and for the most part I don’t fit into that mold. I am deaf but have maintained my ability to speak … Continue reading Playing “Deaf & Dumb”…..
Here is a picture of my big brother taken standing on the bumper of a 1950 Buick I think. He was probably seven years old at the time. That would have made me about four. My big brother did the usual things that big brothers do. He often teased me and sometimes mistreated me but that was what was expected of big brothers. I think … Continue reading I Missed My Big Brother
Let’s do a couple of other posts with my pictures of Mexico. This time we will concentrate on Tequila 🙂 We were very privileged to have a private tour of the tequila plant by one of the owners! These pictures were taken in 1995. Continue reading South of the Border (con’t)….
During the 80s and 90s I made quite a few trips to Mexico, particularly the Guadalajara area. I will spend the next few posts on some of the pictures from that area. See my other blog http://www.Waiting4God.net to see some discussion on these experiences. Since I have many pictures of GD this will probably be the first of many posts on the area. Continue reading Some Time South of the Border….
I believe that there is a spark of God in every human being. When one human kills another for any reason he is also killing a small piece of God. I believe that all people are created equal in the eyes of God. I believe that the first story of creation in Genesis 1:27 is more accurate than the second one in Genesis 2:21. … Continue reading I Believe….
Let’s use this post to show some pictures of my current homestead. Since we live in the country we have a variety of critters who visit us regularly. We also have plenty of room for flowers (although weeding them is another story). We don’t get out in the gardens much this time of year as it is just so darn hot out there! I wish … Continue reading Around the Homestead…
I think most investment advisers are actually in the “anti” retirement business as they scare us out of it by insisting that the you need as much income in retirement as you did before! They actually seem to be discouraging us from thinking about actually retiring! But then again they make their living taking a “small” percentage of your money in the process of … Continue reading Retirement Investment Advisers…
Yeah, I’m probably pretty typical of a retiree in that I have read several books on what to do in my retirement years. To be quite frank none of them have been terribly useful to me! But that does not mean they were not worth reading. They did incite me to think about various things. Most retirement books are pretty generic: Get a hobby, enjoy … Continue reading Books on Retirement Living….
No this post is not about hunting or eating but about drinking! We visited Wild Turkey distillery during our stay in Louisville in April 2010. The large buildings, there are scores of them in the area, in one of the pictures is where they age the bourbon. The present factility is very old but they are about to move to a new one. I’m not … Continue reading Wild Turkey!!
My wife Yvonne was born in a small town in northern Wisconsin in the 1940s. When she graduated from high school she decided it was time to move to the big city. Milwaukee that is. After spending some time housed at the local Y she ended up sharing an apartment with a girl friend from the same small town. From the stories she tells they … Continue reading Laverne & Shirley???
We visited Louisville in April 2010. No, we didn’t go to Churchill Downs but did visit the Louisville Slugger store. Louisville has some unique statues throughout the downtown area. Continue reading Louisville, KY…
When I was young I guess I was sometimes a pretty serious guy as I often thought about what the future would be like. I enjoyed sitting out in the dark of night looking at the stars and thinking about what my life would be like “x” years in the future. I would lie down on my back in the grass and look at the … Continue reading Starry Starry Night…
Let’s do one more series on the Eastern seaboard. These were taken during a 1998 long weekend on the island of Nantucket. My wife being a basket collector insisted we had to go there so she could get a Nantucket basket. President Clinton and family were there that same weekend. We didn’t run across them but the local newspaper was full of pictures of their … Continue reading Nantucket …
Let’s continue with the NYC pictures taken in 1999. The last picture in this post was from the Window on the World Restuarant that was on top of the World Trade Center. We celebrated Yvonne’s birthday there that year. Continue reading NYC continued…
One thing you won’t find on this blog is anything related to today’s headlines. Quite frankly I find that area just too depressing at this point in my life. The anger that seems to be out there on just about everything is sometimes overwhelming. News people like Beck, Limburgh, Sanchez, Dobbs, and Coulter are ranting and raving to millions of adoring fans. They fan (pun … Continue reading You Won’t Find “Ripped from the Headlines” here…..
As mentioned in the last post I live just outside a small (population 1200) town in the Midwest. I enjoy the small town life immeasurably more than the big city stuff. Yes, I have spent a considerable amount of time in both. I am not one to insist that I be able to walk to a dozen museums or see a different Broadway play each … Continue reading Small town life for me….
These pictures were taken in 1999 when we lived in New Jersey. They are mainly of Central Park and the Guggenhiem. The picture by the Duck Pond is one of my favorite ones of my wife Yvonne. Continue reading NYC…
I have always been a big fan of the songwriter Woody Guthry and especially his song “This land is your land”. Of course one of the places he mentioned in the song was the redwood forests. These pictures where taken in June 2009. We took a mile and a half hike through the Lady Bird Johnson Grove of redwoods in northern California. These pictures can’t really convey … Continue reading The Redwood Forests…
With this post I am going to start a new Sunday thing related to what I believe in regards to spiritual matters. I spent the last sixty years trying to understand just who God is and why he put me on this earth. I have also spent the last four years diligently studying about one hundred books on theology and of other faiths beliefs. At this … Continue reading I Believe…
RJ's Corner 