Jack’s Winning Words 12/20/13
“It’s better to walk alone than with a crowd going the wrong direction.”  (Diane Grant)  Raising a child is risky business.  So many “what if-s…”  Dr. Spock, well known for his advice to parents, said, “You know more than you think you do.”  Think back to when you were the age of your child.  You remember “the red flags.”  Among the reddest was hanging out with the wrong crowd.  Even as adults, choose friends wisely.    ;-)  Jack

 FROM PH IN MINNESOTA:  i also like this one: stand for something or you will fall for anything.. ====JACK:  Some think that in the Lutheran liturgy people stand and sit and stand and sit in order to keep from falling asleep.====PH:  he reminds me of Gene Robinson in the Presbyterian (?) tradition.  by the way,  have you seen the video The Bible Tells Me So.  it is quite good.  i think  you can even view it online.  Daniel Karslake is the producer/director.  it won a bunch of awards when it first came out in 2007. its all about the gay/lesbian debate.====JACK:  The Church seems to be a debating society as each generation comes of age.  From the very beginning...life is a matter of choices, and those choices, so often, depend on how God's "Word" is interpreted in a changing society.====PH  you are so right.  look at the following issues over which the church ended up doing an about-face.  the Salem Witch trials, Spanish Inquisition, human slavery in the UK and the USA, segregation in the south, inter-racial marriage, women being ordained, divorced clergy serving again in the pulpit, Galileo and Copernicus, limbo, mandatory celibacy, purgatory, suicide, etc.  the church has often changed its mind radically over these and many other issues.

 FROM LP IN PLYMOUTH:  Hm... I like your point. Somehow I needed that :)====JACK:  "Birds of a feather flock together."  There are many saying like that.  Teaching children how to choose wisely is a very important responsibility.====LP  Actually needed reminding for myself. I keep trying to 'fit in' with the grown-up 'in' crowd and just don't. Maybe it's time to let that be OK.====JACK:  One of my favorite poems is by Douglas Malloch.  I especially like the last line.
 If you can't be a pine on the top of the hill
Be a scrub in the valley--but be
The best little scrub by the side of the rill;
Be a bush if you can't be a tree.
If you can't be a bush be a bit of the grass,
And some highway some happier make;
If you can't be a muskie then just be a bass--
But the liveliest bass in the lake!
We can't all be captains, we've got to be crew,
There's something for all of us here.
There's big work to do and there's lesser to do,
And the task we must do is the near.
If you can't be a highway then just be a trail,
If you can't be the sun be a star;
It isn't by size that you win or you fail--
Be the best of whatever you are!

 FROM HONEST JOHN:  A lot of people are choosing not to hang out with the ELCA right now.   Are we the "wrong crowd?"====JACK:  We are choosing every day.  That's why G-d created us to have free-will. ====JOHN:  Some of us consistently choose to avoid the issue.....I did ask a question.   Do you have a response?====JACK:  I happen to think that I'm going in the right direction with the right crowd.  As with all choices, I could be right and I could be wrong, but the choice is mine to make, and I've made it.

 FROM SHARIN' SHARON:  this is so true. Among adults I know who have gotten into trouble and then gone to prison, it seems like the hardest thing for them to do is to learn not to go back to their habitual ways of making friends, i.e., stay away from the bars and so forth. I know Jesus always hung out in such places but we vulnerable people probably need most of all to hang out with people who go to church. Probably too simplistic, but I've known a few people who've gotten into trouble with the law and shed a few tears over it, worrying about how to be of help to them.====JACK:  One of my first Winning Words was this one.  "Virtue is learned at mother's knee.  Vice is learned at other joints."  That's simplistic, too, but the truth is that good and bad friends are everywhere.  Discernment is the key.

 FROM TARMART REV:  Interesting thought . . . fully agree . . . however, it was our Savior who felt it not necessary to remain equal with God, but gave up His privilege and came to earth to walk along side us who walking the wrong direction (Phil 2:5-7) . . . I'm sure you have joined Him and myself as well in walking along side some of these traveling the wrong direction during your lifetime, for a distance anyway? 0;-) ====JACK:  Life is such that we walk among all kinds of people.  I remember my children saying to me, when they were in high school..."We know who the druggies are."  Life is the choices we make.

 FROM MICHIZONA RAY:  I have been reading Habakkuk, and his reference to the twisted stick seems to apply here. A twisted stick can be twisted in many various directions; but a straight stick is straight in only one way. Just as today, there are many ways to be misled, and many who will mislead. I think it is Faith in its fullest sense to which Habakkuk refers. And, we can't be the "best" parents, we only need to be "good enough" parents. ====JACK:  I think that most of us are twisted sticks.  Eventually, by the grace of God, we can "straighten out."   BTW, that's a good Habakkuk reference.

 FROM FACEBOOK LIZ:  there is usually someone else to walk with you...====JACK:  I went back to examine the lyrics to "You'll never walk alone."  I thought to ask the question..."Who will you walk with?"

 FROM HR IN MICHIGAN:  It’s tough to walk alone. There needs to be a sense of real confidence in the direction to head for someone to not go with the crowd.  The level of self doubt is always amplified when you consider going it alone especially against conventional wisdom. Your thinking is considered suspect, your actions mocked or dismissed out of hand. Your called names or worse.  It ain’t easy, that’s why most people take the easy road.====JACK:  I think that Robert Frost understood that point when he wrote, "The Road Not Taken."
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,   
And sorry I could not travel both   
And be one traveler, long I stood   
And looked down one as far as I could   
To where it bent in the undergrowth;           
Then took the other, as just as fair,   
And having perhaps the better claim,   
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;   
Though as for that the passing there   
Had worn them really about the same,            
And both that morning equally lay   
In leaves no step had trodden black.   
Oh, I kept the first for another day!   
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,   
I doubted if I should ever come back.            
I shall be telling this with a sigh   
Somewhere ages and ages hence:   
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—   
I took the one less traveled by,   
And that has made all the difference.

 FROM HCC CHUCK:  AMEN to  that.  we inherited from Lois parents a stone carving (very heavy) carved by Lois's father's uncle who lived in the coal mining area of central Penna  on it is engraved  "WATCH YOUR FRIENDS"  I wish I knew the story behind the message.====JACK:  Some messages are left for us to interpret...just like with the Scriptures.  By responding to today's Winning Words you've given your own interpretation...and it seems to fit..