Winning Words 5/23/11
“Around and around she goes, and where she stops, nobody knows.” (Major Bowes) I decided to use this quote after last Saturday came and went with no Armageddon (end of the world in religious terms). In spite of warnings by some so-called “experts,” I hold to the idea that the end of the world will come like “a thief in the night.” The lesson of this is that we should be prepared always for the end of “our” world. ;-) Jack

FROM SH IN MICHIGAN: I wish right now I could be better prepared for the end of "my" world but the thing which seems to preoccupy me so much of the time is trying to be prepared and accept the end of "my" world as I know it. Somehow, it all involves the insecurity and uncertainty of the "nobody knows" and rebelling against that seems to be a great temptation. So hard to be poor, weak and vulnerable but also loving and compassionate.////FROM JACK: God knows!
Nobody knows the trouble I've seen Nobody knows but Jesus*
Nobody knows the trouble I've seen Glory hallelujah!
Sometimes I'm up, sometimes I'm down Oh, yes, Lord
Sometimes I'm almost to the ground Oh, yes, Lord

FROM DM IN MICHIGAN: So True is the moral to the end of today's words.////FROM JACK: "A moral is a value by which an individual lives." I'm glad that you answered...So True. I agree with you.

FROM FROM BL IN THE U.P.: Out daughter in Tx. sent us a good one. She related that one of her friends said, “Since I am apparently going to be left behind, shall my husband and I pack a picnic basket and go out to the cemetery so that we can watch the dead in Christ arise first?”////FROM JACK: Isn't she the one with the appropriate name...Faith?

FROM MT IN PENNSYLVANIA: Very true, Jack. Very true!////FROM JACK: Yea, Very-ly, Very-ly.

FROM JL IN MICHIGAN: I'm just thinking what the folks in Joplin, Missouri must be thinking! Worst tornado in the U.S. Since the 1953 tornado that hit Flint, MI.////FROM JACK: The "end of the world" came for them, when least expected. How many times have the words been said: "If I only knew..." Sometimes tragedy has a way of teaching us lessons.

FROM TAMPA SHIRL: Yes, of course, always and make use of each day.////FROM JACK: Do you remember Major Bowes? His was the original Gong Show. BTW, did you every watch the Chuck Barris "Gong Show?" You can probably call it up on uTube. Your Ashburn family might enjoy it.

FROM JL IN MICHIGAN: I don't know how to comment directly to the blog.
I love your comment that "we should be prepared always for the end of 'our' world". I work with this concept, too. In fact, my first blog (at judylipson.wordpress.com) discusses this very issue and includes an article that I wrote prior to Y2K. I find it interesting that the recent 2012 and Armageddon conversations sound so similar; and people are relating so similarly - with fear. Doesn't need to be perceived this way. Maybe you (and your readers) will visit my blog and share their thoughts with me.////FROM JACK: First...People respond to me, and I post the "edited" response on the blog. Then I post my response to the response. In that way inappropriate material is not posted for everyone to see. I don't know if yours works in that way. Second...The end of "my" world is the one I'm really concerned about. I think that most people are concerned in that way. Armageddon never was of much interest to me.

FROM MOLINER CF: Death itself is the end of the world to the deathee. Be prepared!////FROM JACK: More and more of the deathees are contemporaries of ours. You know what that means?

FROM PH IN MINNESOTA: good words. remember, the Bible calls us to engage the world, not escape the world. ////FROM JACK: Is that in Revelation 23?

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS: "It is the still, small voice that the soul heeds, not the deafening blasts of doom."
(American author and literary critic)

FROM YAHOO NEWS: It's hard to feel bad for someone whose doomsday predictions caused so much anxiety, but 89-year-old Harold Camping's recent admission that he's "flabbergasted" the world didn't end last weekend sounds somewhat pitiful. "It has been a really tough weekend," Camping said Sunday, after emerging from his Alameda, California home for the first time to talk to a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle. "I'm looking for answers ... But now I have nothing else to say."

FROM BLAZING OAKS: Jesus said, "NO man knows the time or the hour", but it seems some "experts" will always think they do! I hardly gave this a thought, except to wonder at their audacity, and to mourn the loss of life incomes in some lives who did absolutely believe the end would arrive on May 21st!! AS Thanatopsis (Wm Cullen Byrant) says so well at the end of the poem (thanks to my Moline Lit. teacher who had us memorize it!~): "So live, that when the thy summons comes to join
That innumerable caravan, which moves to that mysterious realm,
Where each shall take his chamber in the silent halls of death;
Thou go not like the Quarry slave at night, Scourged to his Dungeon,
But sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust,
Approach thy grave like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
about him, And lies down to pleasant dreams."
Hopefully, our faith will sustain us, when the time comes, and as we see more and more of our contemporaries making the journey, we know we are the fortunate few to live past 80!! Billy Crystal once said, "By the time a man is old enough to watch his step, he's too old to go anywhere!" I'm still going! Ha!////FROM JACK: When I took Greek, we talked about the words, thanatopsis....[from Greek thanatos death + opsis a view]

FROM IKE IN MICHIGAN: I prefer the OPTIMISTIC view: TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!.. ////FROM JACK: Yes, "Talk health, happiness and prosperity..."

FROM MOLINER JT: It feels "so good" to be ready.////FROM JACK: "The Day" has been postponed several times for you, hasn't it?

FROM JW IN MICHIGAN: We just came from Mary's funeral; she wore her Lance Parrish jersey with her stuffed Tiger around her neck. When her coffin was wheeled out after the service, Nancy played "Take me out to the ballgame" and we sang. We will miss her like crazy, but know that her suffering is over and she is with God.////FROM JACK: I like it. I can imagine Jesus joining in with the singing.

FROM THE JUDGE: I think the end of the world is much more personal---if you understand what I mean. ////FROM JACK: I think (I know) what you mean.

FROM BBC IN ILLINOIS: I am with you 100%. We like to predict and control everything ~ isn't there a line from Shakespeare about "at lover's promises they say love laughs" I imagine this is the same with end times predictions. If it comes like a thief in the night I will surely be sleeping :)////FROM JACK: Has a thief ever sneaked up and taken something without your knowing about it? Death sometimes happens like that.

FROM HAWKEYE GEORGE: Tornados. Have we ever had this many this severe hit our country as this past weekend? Add to this this year’s severe, record Mississippi River flooding, plus the flooding in Australia that covered an area the size of France and Spain, and one might think that we are getting much closer to the last days. I’m not a doomsday kind of guy, but it does make me think about it. How about you and your thoughts on these phenomena?////FROM JACK: I don't give it a second thought, because it's beyond my control and knowing. Every generation seems to have had Doomsday predictors. "Be ready always," is my motto. ////MORE FROM HAWKEYE: Jack, you are entirely right. I saw a note showing how many prominent people have predicted the end - going back

FROM FM IN WISCONSIN: Write on St. John!////FROM JACK: How much of your sermons was you, and much was the Holy Spirit? 50/50?

FROM CJL IN OHIO: That's what the Holy Book says, why wouldn't you believe it?////FROM JACK: Not believe what? ...that there will be an end to the world? Either by "ordinary" death, or by a cataclysmic event, the end will come...I think!