Winning Words 2/13/13
“I’m going to a special place when I die, but I want to make sure my life is special while I’m here.”  (Payne Stewart)  I’ll never forget how Payne Stewart died.  His jet was on auto-pilot when the oxygen system failed.  TV followed to the end.  The night before that flight he said to his wife; “I don’t want to leave.  I want to stay home and watch the kids grow.”  Life takes us on unexpected rides.  We always need to be ready.    ;-)  Jack

 FROM WALMART REV:  It seems to me...always having life on auto pilot or traveling the nation's interstate might get us there easier or more quickly, but we miss many significant details and characteristics of the adventure of life.////JACK:  I read recently that California, Florida and Nevada have approved robotic driven cars (with no human in the driver's seat).  I wonder when they will be allowed in Minnesota?

 FROM SHARIN' SHARON:  I heard another amazing sermon yesterday at the church next door. It went something like this: everything was chaos. God pulled order out of the chaos. God is a rational being. This world keeps on being chaotic. It is our job, while we're here, to keep on bringing order out of chaos. Having experienced mental illness, this particular sermon was very special to me and I've been pondering every since having heard it the belief that God is a rational person/being. Yep, Jesus was certainly rational and truthful, I want to be special like him. It's easier aspiring to be rational like Jesus than being rational like God. Guess it was God who wanted to make sure our lives are special while we're here.////JACK:  Theologically speaking, one of the reasons God appeared in the human form of Jesus was to help us better understand the non-understandable.

 FROM RI IN BOSTON:  This world we dwell in is so magnificent, we don't need to do more than have our eyes open and our ears tuned to have a life that's special.  Of course if we exert ourselves a bit, then life could be more exuberant than we can imagine.////JACK:  I'm reminded of the verse from Robert Louis Stevenson... "The world is full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings."

 FROM MICHIZONA RAY:  More and more, as my time on Earth becomes more and more, I understand a little more the wisdom of following the Spirit's guidance. Fittingly, today we remember that we are of dust and to dust we shall return; ...in the same manner our spirit will return to its origin as well. The world requires its law and the Spirit its Law, and they are indeed worlds apart. Like Payne Stewart we are all torn between the two. I pray we learn to live wisely though the torment of the flight plan which we have been given. ////JACK:  We all have a destination, but the place and the ETA are not yet on the screen.

 FROM TRIHARDER:  That concept always brings me to tears.////JACK:  We never know, do we?  At least Payne left with some good and meaningful last words.////TH:  Hopefully, we all impart meaning and definition to our loved ones and others before we depart.  My children (and friends -- like you) will always know what they mean to me and how much I care for them, whether my last day is today or thirty years from today.  I'm sure that yours do, too.////JACK: Jeff Zaslow spoke to the Optimist Club one morning.  A week later, he was gone.  I can't recall his parting words, but I do remember feeling a sense of loss when I heard of his death.

 FROM PH IN MESA:  wise words indeed.  hope you are doing well today, Jack. each day is a gift, that is for sure.  i recall that death.  what a strange way to die.  a plane crash due to lack of oxygen. remember how the military jets followed it down hoping it would not crash into a populated area.  it just ran out of fuel. ////JACK:  Just like with the human body....we crash when we run out of fuel.

 FROM BLAZING OAKS:  Interesting that these would be the WW for today: I am completely engrossed in the book PROOF OF HEAVEN by Eban Alexander, a nuerosurgeon who has had an astounding Near Death Experience, and has done his best to put it into "earthly" words.  It is truly fascinating, and convincing that there is certainly a spiritual realm of life after we leave these earthly bodies. I recommend reading it!!  He was a skeptic before this occured, of course, being a Scientist of the Brain.  As Soren Kierkegaard once said, "There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true."////JACK:  I believe you!

 FROM CL IN CALIFORNIA:  AMEN to that////JACK:  As a kid, did you ever yell, "Ready or not, here I come?"

 FROM ILLINOIS LIZ:  creepy...////JACK:  Even creepier....Fighter jets were following the plane, ready to shoot it down if it was in danger of crashing into a populated area...and, creepier still, it was ongoing on TV.