I attended my church’s Good Friday service last night. While I was sitting there listening to the familiar story of Christ’s Passion and death on the cross, I couldn’t help thinking about a recent post to the Jack’s Winning Words blog – “It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness.” (J.K. Rowling)
Death is the one certainty that represents the biggest unknown in our lives. As the service went on, we prayed and said the words to Martin Luther’s Explanation to the Second Article.
I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the virgin Mary, is my Lord.
He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sin, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and His innocent suffering and death.
He did this that I should be His very own, live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in eternal righteousness, innocence, and joy; just as He is risen from death, lives and reigns in eternity. This is most certainly true.
The death and resurrection of Christ is the defining event in the Christian faith and I thought that if one believes in that event, i.e. if that is the foundation of one’s faith; then that belief should remove the fear of death. The next thought I had was one of wondering what someone has who has no faith? If you cannot find hope and comfort in the belief of life after death, then what do you have. Nothing? It’s no wonder those without faith fear death.
Man’s fertile imagination has allowed him to conjure up many different ways to express the concept of God and his need to organize and manage the process of expressing that faith has resulted in hundreds of religions. Even within the religions based upon the belief in Jesus Christ as the son of God, the hand of man has resulted in hundreds of implementations of the practices of that faith and the concept of the church as a vehicle for those practices. The religious chaos that grew out of all of this has fueled the argument of the cynics who have no faith in God or anything else. They are unable to put aside the trappings of the various religions and get to the core of them all, which is a belief in God and a faith that an afterlife exists.
As we head into Easter Sunday, we put aside the dark and somber meditations on Christ’s 
death and turn our attention to the joyous celebration of his resurrection. That is how we overcome our fear of death. Life after death may still be a great unknown for us, but we believe in it and look forward to the promise of “a peace that surpasses all understanding”.
He is risen! That’s all that we need to understand.
Posted by Norm Werner 
It occurred to me that the same thing applies to looking at people. Too often we look at someone without seeing them. We see a color or we see a hairstyle or we see a different way of dressing and we quickly look away without actually “seeing” the person that is there. There’s an old saying, “What you see is what you get”; but that saying requires that you actually see and not just look.
have to talk to them to “see” who they are. How many of us would have seen the genius in front of us if we just looked at Stephan Hawking sitting in his wheelchair? How many times have we looked at a special needs child and quickly looked away without seeing the real person that was there? Do we see and understand the person sitting on the corner begging for our help or just look at the bedraggled person there and turn away with a sense of pity and guilt.
somewhere in the world caused enough change in the movement of the atmosphere to cause minute changes to the weather patterns in the entire world. If you’ve ever wondered why it may be raining across the street, but not on your house, perhaps it was a butterfly somewhere in Asia that was flapping it’s wings that caused that weather pattern. At least it’s more fun to think of that butterfly flapping away in Asia than dwelling on the fact that it may be raining.
certainly guilty of procrastination about exercise. When the gym that I was going to closed, I told myself that I’d join another gym and get back to regular exercise. I’m still telling myself that. I’ve been looking at it as a big decision, when in reality there was a small decision that I could have made to do a little exercise at home each day, until I found a new gym. It’s time to make that small decision and change my life. Time for some home burpees.
Reconnect with God each morning and put your trust in what He has in store for your life today. I use the little prayer that I’ve posted here many times – “Not my will, but Thy will be done”. You will find that you start each day with a new attitude when you take that moment to reconnect and reassure yourself that God is with you. That new attitude and the aura of God working through you will carry over into the decisions that you make that day, which can’t help but change your life and the world around you. You will become God’s “butterfly effect” on the world.
predisposition in our minds about them/it and how to react to the encounter. Sometimes, those predispositions may be strong and well as wrong and have turned into unfounded prejudices. Many times it may just be a feeling of unease or fear, if we have little or no experiences upon which to fora more positive reaction.
Some people really don’t have a mind that is open to change, no matter what evidence is presented that a long held conviction is wrong. They have locked their brains tightly into a reality that is theirs alone and they “see” the world from within that realm. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case in Washington these days, as the politicians there become more and more polarized. One certainly doesn’t see a lot of open minds there, just a lot of brainless behavior.
idea may well displace old ideas that you now know were not completely right or which no longer fit for you. New people in your life may replace old friends who no longer share your values or whose position on things is no longer aligned with yours. Life happens and you move on.
ted elsewhere across the country, there was a lot of confusion and very mixed support for the Walk Out within the administrations of the various schools, even within our local school district. Some teachers and administrators supported the Walk Out, while others warned students not to participate for fear of consequences later. In general, the students who spoke at this round table were disappointed in the lack of a consistent message from the adults involved and vowed to do a better job themselves next time (and they were clear that there will be a next time).
that this has to stop, that schools need to be a safe place of learning and not a place where “shelter in place” and “active shooter” exercises are the norm. I hope that the children will continue to make noise, continue to walk out and protest the mess that the cowardly politicians in Washington cannot seem to take fix. There is no place in the woods for a hunter to use an assault weapon and there should be no place in our nation’s classrooms for them either. Had they foreseen the future, I’m sure our nation’s founders would not have included in the Constitution that every citizen has the right to bear a machine gun or assault rifle.
provide for have grown up and moved away. They rationalize all of the time that they spend at work instead of at home as necessary to provide all of the things that they think the family needs. Often, the only thing that the kids really wanted was more time with dad. Perhaps the saddest country song that best captured this topic was 
chose to pursue will be viewed as a necessary and secondary commitment of your time and attention. An even deeper truth is that family will actually be second, after your commitment to God. Once you have made that commitment your other priorities will fall into line. When you get your priorities straight, you will also find that your level of satisfaction with life increases dramatically. A loving kiss from your partner or a hug and a heartfelt “thinks Dad” from your child is much more rewarding than another reward plaque to put up on your wall.
work”. Perhaps “at work” is his prison. In any event, the result is still the same – children being raised in what is effectively a single parent home. Grant yourself a pardon from your work prison and spend time at home with family. Don’t worry that you can’t afford to give them the latest things; the one thing that they want is you in their lives and you can give them that. Be like St Joseph and be there for your children.
provide food for the millions in Africa who are starving, so we do nothing. We cannot stop the genocides that are on going in the Middle East, so we do nothing. We cannot stop human trafficking, so we do nothing. Doing nothing is the easy choice. We fail to see what we can do right in our own back yard. What’s within your reach?
seemingly unsolvable huge things that we are incapable of solving alone. It’s not just that homeless beggar, it’s all homeless people. It’s not just that one teen prostitute, it’s all people hooked on drugs. It’s not just that one crazed shooter, it’s all of the disturbed people in the world. If we let that happen, we become paralyzed by the enormous size of the problems than we see. What’s within your reach?
to approach the homeless person or the street walker with your offer to help. Maybe fear keeps you from saying anything to (or about) that unstable person. There are still ways that you can help. There are organizations that you can join and work for that provide that help and intervention. Groups like 
in Indonesia and thought by many to be the first bird that God created in the Garden of Eden. To see such a bird is rare and to actually have one alight upon your hand even more rare.
possess people. We want them to be “ours” and ours alone. What we don’t understand is that love is a feeling that must be shared and not possessed. Saying I love you to someone does not carry with it “I own you”; but, sometimes people imply that into the relationship. Those relationships are doomed to fail. Love is something that is at the same time shared and earned in return.
violence situations. It is often the case that domestic violence is driven as much by the need to control the other person as from any other reason. Once all other techniques of control fail, the possessive person is left with physical violence or threats as a mechanism of control. Domestic violence becomes the final spiral towards oblivion of a long failed relationship.
there are things that you could do that would cause love (and the Bird of Paradise) to fly away by being too possessive. Love cannot be grasped it can only be shared and it must be shared freely and without constraints. Just as the Bird of Paradise is beautiful to behold, love is a beautiful things to see and feel and even touch, but it cannot be grasped and possessed.
condition. PTSS is a leading cause of suicides among soldiers returning from prolonged or repeated duty in war zones.
Perhaps you haven’t been through anything in life as traumatizing as deployment into a war zone; however, we all have had events in our lives that were (at the time anyway) somewhat traumatizing. Those “how can I go on” moments helped shape our lives. For most there was the “ah ha” realization that, as bad as it seemed at the time; it didn’t kill us and we made it through the event. Perhaps the pain was real or maybe just deeply emotional; but we survived and life went on. It is our ability to compartmentalize and rationalize things that happen to us that helps us get through them and go on with life.
thing to contemplate, with thoughts of “What can I do? I’m just one little person” or maybe “I have no skills to help the world.” The fact is that your time and willingness to help are the only things that you need to get started making a difference in the world. Don’t hold your breath.
help. There are children who are too hungry to learn in school. There are thousands in hospitals and nursing homes that long for someone to talk with. There are caregivers struggling to to get through each day without anyone to relieved them. There are families trying to deal with hardships or losses with no one to turn to for help or counseling. Don’t hold your breath.
stand on the food line serving the food when the TV cameras show up. There are many people in the background doing tasks like preparing the food or washing the dishes. Those are often thankless tasks, but essential to the process. Often, when I volunteer for something, I’ll ask, “What’s the job that nobody wants to do?” Then that’s the job I ask for. In church event’s that’s usually set-up and tear-down or perhaps washing dishes. Don’t hold your breath.
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