“The Bible speaks with remarkable frequency of ‘bearing.’ It is capable of expressing the whole work of Jesus Christ in this one word… Therefore, the Bible can also characterize the whole life of the Christian as bearing the cross. It is the fellowship of the cross to experience the burden of the other. If one does not experience it, the fellowship [one] belongs to is not Christian.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer Bonhoeffer described faith without works as a dead faith and therefore worthless. Let us all take to heart these words and the words of James, the brother of Jesus, in our … Continue reading Bearing our Burdens for Others….

But every one of us write our own history. If it sounds better the way we want it than the way it might have been why that don’t stop us any more than an amber light. -September 17, 1933      Will Rogers I think that this is one of those saying that is probably more true now than when it was in Will’s day. If I remember the figures correctly about 50% of the resumes in the job world contain embellishments or outright falsehoods. And of course the number one cause for traffic accidents today are people running red … Continue reading Writing Our Own History….

Looking back at the prosperity of the Clinton years of the 1990’s I’d say we’ve lost a lot of ground in this country. Are our best days behind us? They don’t have to be but given the current circumstances they might well be. If we cannot put aside our hatred of other political persuasions and creeds we may have peaked. The “us” vs. “them” mentality  that is so pervasive today is a very destructive thing and as a result it just might be all down hill from here. If we can’t get past these things then even I might live to … Continue reading We've Lost A Lot Of Ground In This Country….

source:  Silence is My Leading – QuakerQuaker. One of the most fascinating things I find from Quaker religious practices is their unprogrammed worship. That is where they spend time simply sitting and waiting for a message from God. This activity, or should I say inactivity, is unheard of in most other forms of religious practices. From the source article I have found that there are two distinctively different feeling about what is to be accomplished by this “waiting”.  Here is a quote from that article: For the Activist silent worship is a means towards an end.  That end is the … Continue reading Silently Waiting for God…..

The short answer to this question at least to those of us who love our neighbors as the Lord taught us is an emphatic YES The longer answer follows: Going to war should be the very last thing we do when we have a conflict with another nation. But at least with our last two wars that does not seem to be the case especially in Iraq. We seemed to rush into the invasion of that country long before it could ever have been deemed necessary. We allowed our president to feed us an untrue line that we were in … Continue reading Is Technology Making War Too Easy??

Reflections of Canada – RJ Walters (all rights reserved) Continue reading Ottawa Canada July 2011

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:28-31 Continue reading The Greatest of God’s Commands

  Source: The 10 Biggest-Selling Drugs That Are About to Lose Their Patent – DailyFinance. I am one of millions of us seniors who is on some very expensive prescription drugs. I currently spend over $1,000/year on Plavix alone. But that is about to change. In May 2012 Plavix will lose is patent exclusivity. That will open the door for an inexpensive generic. The above article show ten high cost drugs that are in the same situation. To the right is also a mention of this from Money magazine in April 2011. I have had it pinned on my bulletin board … Continue reading Hello Plavix Generic…..

Here is a quote from Jim Wallis over at Sojourners that will be the foundation for this post. Since the Occupy Wall Street movement began, the talk about inequality has been greater than I can remember it being for a very long time. This has been the elephant in the room in our discussions about the economy that nobody wanted to say out loud. In the last hundred years, there have been two peak periods of great inequality in American society—just before the Great Depression, and in 2008, right before our current Great Recession. And in the mysterious and secret … Continue reading Inequity in the U.S.

  Christ, in sending the [people] to the scriptures, sent them, not merely to read them, but carefully to search and ponder them. And did he not say, “Read the scriptures,” but “Search the scriptures.” … Their meaning is not expressed superficially or set forth in their literal sense, but, like a treasure, lies buried at a great depth. And those who seek for hidden things will not be able to find the object of the search if they do not seek carefully and painstakingly. – St. John Chrysostom Homily 41 (John 5:39-47), A.D. 390 From Wikipedia John Chrysostom (c. 347–407), Archbishop of Constantinople, was … Continue reading Don’t Just Read But Search & Ponder….

The above title is something that many people espouse to live by.  But in my opinion you can’t just go with the flow in your retirement life. At least not the way I perceive it or at least not in the beginning. Going with the flow is allowing things to happen without much outside intervention. When we enter your retirement life each of us needs to have some plan on what we are going to do and what we hope to accomplish. Without that plan going with the flow could mean getting up every morning, watching TV all day and … Continue reading Just Go With The Flow….

Source:  Column: We don’t want an America ‘made in China’ – USATODAY.com. Let’s subtitle this post to “When Buying American Meant Something”. There are some rather disturbing things about the source article above. It seems very strange that a U.S. supplier would lose out to the China competitor for the glass used in the new Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site! If there is anything that should be American made it would be at that site! Yet the business went out of country, although through several intermediary U.S. companies, because PPG Industries could not afford to pay the … Continue reading We don’t want an America ‘made in China’…