Winning Words 8/15/12
“When you make a choice, you change the future.”  (Deepak Chopra)  Last Saturday the media focused in on Romney’s choice for a campaign partner.  That choice will affect the months, and perhaps the years, ahead.  We each make choices every day that alter the direction of our life…the road taken, or the road not taken.  I read of a high school that offers a class on “Making Right Choices.”  What good idea!    ;-)  Jack

FROM PC IN MICHIGAN:  Love Deepak! Did you pick up a book of his yet?////FROM JACK:  I must confess that I've read many quotes by Chopra and much about him, but I've never read any of his many books.  One that sounds interesting is:  "How to Know God : The Soul's Journey into the Mystery of Mysteries."  Another has to do with Spirituality vs. Science.

FROM SHARIN' SHARON:  Our congregation offers a worship at a nearby assisted living residence. For 8 years now I've been so impressed that 26 or so people, from different faith backgrounds--including even Jewish--choose to join us. And I've been ever hopeful that this ministry has been helping us in our own congregation to be welcoming to others, called to us by God, and from different backgrounds. At the current time I'm going through a period of bumpiness--and suddenly have decided to attend the Tuesday healing/worship noon service offered by a Catholic Church that is right next door to our house. Yesterday's sermon was we make ourselves unhappy, no one else can really make us unhappy, and it's because we don't have the right perspective. Look at the martyrs and so forth. Now I see even better how much those old people we've been ministering to at the assisted living have changed the future and that change seems to be still going on through me. I expected to see everyone come to a Lutheran church and never expected to make the choice yesterday I did, circumstances sort of forced me into it and I still heard God. Thanks again for your WW and offering us all the opportunity to share.////FROM JACK:  When God looks through his spectacles, he doesn't see Lutheran, Catholic, Jewish, young or old.

FROM TAMPA SHIRL:  You win some, you lose some.  So far, I have had 8 presidential winners and  7 losers.  Tampa is busy getting ready for the Republican convention.  The first that I vividly remember was in 1952 in Chicago when Stevenson was nominated and the first one I remember being televised.  The 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago was the first violent one that I remember.  Henry Commanger, my Constitutional History professor at Columbia, used to say that the conventions were gatherings where everyone learned to go along to get along.  That is paraphrased.  The only time  that didn't work was just before the Civil War, or, as they call it in the South, The War of Northern Aggression.  I just learned that a few years ago.////FROM JACK:  The politics of today seems to indicate that a war is still going on.  What many Americans are looking for is someone to be a uniter, to show us how to go along to get along.

FROM GOOD DEBT JON:  Been busy.  Like this WW though.////FROM JACK:  I'm glad that you chose to reply.  You've made many choices in your life which have brought you to where you are now.…

FROM BLAZING OAKS:  Maybe they should offer "Making Right Choices" to Adults, as well! :-)  I like Calvin Coolidge's remark along these lines: "Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.  Talent will not;nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.  Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent! Make your choices accordingly."////FROM JACK:  "The world is full of educated failures," seems to say that adults who take a course on "Making Right Choices," would have to follow thru by making right choices.

 FROM CJL IN OHIO:  Don't forget:  When you get to a fork in the road...take it....