Faith & Life Inspirational Message

If you are reading this, you too have survived last year and now are living in a new year!   If you participate in the media in any form, from reading newspapers to watching tv, you have become aware of a flood of statistics.   There are countless stories about last year.   I have become aware of the ten most brilliant-this and the ten dumbest-that.   As one who watches sports, I have watched the most amazing-this and the most disappointing-that.   Already coaches are losing jobs because of their involvement in some kind of “disappointing-that.”   As I write this, two professional football coaches have been fired.   I can’t imagine what they will do without their million dollar salaries!   As an assistant coach next year, they may have to scrape by with half that! The other annual fascination of mine as last year gives way to a new year is the making of resolutions.   Two staples of the new year are greeting everyone you meet with the p...

I am not sure how old I was when it dawned on me (or someone told me) that Christmas and the New Year did not come at exactly the same time everywhere in the world.   I am not sure how I felt when I learned the kids in Europe had opened their presents six hours before I did.   And for sure, I do not think I could quite grasp the fact that Chinese kids had done their New Year’s party at noon my time.   And by the time I watch an old year go out and welcomed a new one, the Chinese had just had their lunch!   Now I know fully that all this is due to the fact that our earth is round.   It is a big ball.   And it takes the ball twenty-four hours to spin around one time.   I know this in my head, but honestly I have had very few experiences to convince me the earth is round!   It still looks flat, except when you get in the mountains.   But there is nothing even with the mountains that would tell us the earth is round.   I don’t doubt the s...

We have survived another holiday hiatus!   I realize most folks would not put it this way, but it is a good way to understand the Christmas/Hanukkah/New Year’s Day combination.   I also realize the word, hiatus, is not a word you regularly hear in a McDonald’s coffee conversation.   But it is a good word.   It means a gap or break.   In the way it is being used here, it means a break or interruption in time or routine.   Oddly enough, the root meaning goes back to the Latin word for “yawn.”   So we have just come through a big yawn in routine time!   A hiatus is often a very good thing.   It is not unusual for people to get tired or even bored with their routines.   “Same job day after day,” is a common lament.   Even those of us who like our jobs are often eager for a break.   And certainly those who no longer have jobs because of age, infirmities, etc. welcome a break in their routine.   Busy people need one kind of b...

I am not sure how old I was when it dawned on me (or someone told me) that Christmas and the New Year did not come at exactly the same time everywhere in the world.   I am not sure how I felt when I learned the kids in Europe had opened their presents six hours before I did.   And for sure, I do not think I could quite grasp the fact that Chinese kids had done their New Year’s party at noon my time.   And by the time I watch an old year go out and welcomed a new one, the Chinese had just had their lunch!   Now I know fully that all this is due to the fact that our earth is round.   It is a big ball.   And it takes the ball twenty-four hours to spin around one time.   I know this in my head, but honestly I have had very few experiences to convince me the earth is round!   It still looks flat, except when you get in the mountains.   But there is nothing even with the mountains that would tell us the earth is round.   I don’t doubt the s...