This is a post that I have carried over from my other blog at RedLetterLiving. It is about an epiphany I had several years ago about my spiritual beliefs. I wanted to share it with my readers here.

Posted on October 22, 2012 at RedLetterLiving.net

The title of this post came to me as I was recently reading the book Falling Upward by Richard Bohr.  In this book the author says each of us has two distinct parts of our lives. The first is making the container and the second is filling it with what we were meant to do.  Although I don’t necessarily agree with some parts of this book the thought of having two distinctive parts of your life is thought-provoking for me. It just makes sense. How much of your life you spend building the container and how much filling it with … Continue reading It’s Hard To Make a Fine Wine When All You Have Is Sour Grapes….

Old age is an excellent time for outrage. My goal is to say or do at least one outrageous thing every week  – Maggie Kuhn I guess I am old at least as far as this saying goes. But it does seem as though when you get some years under your belt you have seen more of this world that warrants getting outraged about. Let’s face it most of us have seen some pretty stupid things in our lives.  We let our government spend our tax dollars for some pretty dreadful things like our obese military establishment while denying healthcare … Continue reading Outrageous Things

I am going to put on my teacher’s hat now.  Although I have never been an official teacher I have taught at several seminars in both the professional arena and the religious arena. So here is a lesson about altruism. On the right side of my blog I proudly proclaim that I am a passionate altruist. But what does that really mean? As usual there are varying definitions of the term. Here is what Dictionary.com defines as an altruist: altruism  (ˈæltruːˌɪzəm) 1. the principle or practice of unselfish concern for the welfare of others 2. the philosophical doctrine that right action is that which produces the greatest benefit to others While this short answer gives you an idea of what altruism is let’s … Continue reading What Is An Altruist??

I want to get back to our study of the Book of James in the Bible.  To me this is one of the most important books in the Bible as it tells us most directly how to live our lives. Here is an extended quote from the second chapter for our discussion today. I have underlined a few places that I will be discussing further. You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless ? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You … Continue reading James The Brother of Jesus – Faith Without Works is Dead…..

Source: Column: You can’t reconcile Ayn Rand and Jesus – USATODAY.com. The source article is about how many conservatives have put Ayn Rand on a pedestal lately. It goes into how much of her philosophy runs very contrary to espoused conservative values. The graphic I attached here from that article is pretty neat. It does a good job of showing the broken link between Ayn Rand and supposedly Republican party principles. Here are some words from the reference article: Turning the tables on traditional Christian morality, Rand argues that altruism is immoral and selfishness is good. Moreover, there isn’t a problem in the … Continue reading Conservatism and….

I heard an interesting sermon this Sunday. It was about waiting for God. As you know this is a topic dear to my heart. Some examples given in the sermon were all the prayers to stop the BP oil leak and the many amber alerts that take place in the U.S. nowadays. The sermon thread seemed to be that we are always disappointed in the silence of God when it comes to our prayers. Why didn’t God stop the leak earlier? How can he allow children to be molested and murdered when there are so many prayers coming to him … Continue reading Waiting For God…