Jack’s Winning Words 9/17/21

“Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them…well, I have others,”  (Groucho Marx)  People expect Groucho to have jokes, but who would expect him to have principles (rules of behavior)?  Zany?  Yes!  Conventional, No!  We each have our principles, things we stand for.  I feel more comfortable living among folks who know the difference between good and evil.     

Someone once told me that he lived where Groucho was one of his neighbors.  “He was really a nice guy.  Strange, maybe, but also nice.”  Do you have any neighbors like that?  ;-)  Jack

FROM THE VIKING:  Groucho must have been paying a trick on me today.  I thought that I'd sent out WWs on time.  B etter late than never.  In school, was that a good excuse for being tardy?===V:  When I was growing up we were nice neighbors and then my little sister Betty, at the age of four or five, started going around the neighborhood trying to sell potatoes for dollar a piece. When some kind neighbor told my parents she had doing it for a number of days the whole family felt zany. She did make three dollars!===JACK:  I would have bought her total supply and praised her for her hutzpah!

FROM WILLMAR REV:  I don't . . . but you might want to ask that question to my neighbors!?!? 0;-)))===JACK:  I once was playing horseshoes by myself in my backyard.  A neighbor walked over and asked if he could jopin in the game.  He was awful, with shoes bouncing all over the place.  Then he asked if I wanted to play for money.  I said, "No, I just want to play for fun."  Then, he began making ringer after ringer.  I sometimes have trouble with Jesus saying, "Love thy neighbor."===REV:  

FROM MD IN BSFL:  Sent from my Gala.   Groucho seemed like a very nice man. Often advanced self depreciated humor. One line that I remember is "I would not want to join any club that would accept me as a member."  It's difficult nowadays to define good and evil. I have had situations that I saw good but others saw as evil. I guess that the good neighbors are those who. know when to be quiet as you mentioned earlier this week in WW.   But the good friends are those who challenge in a civilized manner.===JACK:  People who read our e-mail responses might think that we are at odds with each other.  To the contrary,...We do see eye to eye, but express in a different way..

FROM NORM'S BLOG:  Just this morning I again placed on my front lawn a sign with a quote from Martin Luther King - “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Interestingly when I looked that quote up there is some controversy about whether he actually ever said those exact words. It is credited as coming from his I Have A Dream speech, but it actually a paraphrasing of a sermon in Selma, Alabama, on 8 March 1965, the day after “Bloody Sunday,” on which civil rights protesters were attacked and beaten by police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge:  A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.  King was talking about principles and what we stand for. He was saying that it is not OK to look away when we see injustice or to accept unacceptable behavior towards others. One cannot selectively choose which principles we will apply that day or in that instance. We cannot say, as Groucho said, if you don’t like my principles, I have others. If you do not stand on your principles, you step onto a slippery slope and fall. There is no half-way with principles. It’s like what Bob Dylan said about religion, “You either got it or you ain’t.” So, you either got principles or you ain’t.===JACK:  King wasn't perfect, nor did he claim to be...but he had "principles' and he stood by them.  It would be a better world if there were more people like that.

FROM GREAT LAKER JH:  I am very blessed and particularly with having you to call as a Pastor to me and my friend. I read Jack's Winning Words every time they come out and they mean so much to me. Thank you for all you do for so many in serving God. Peace,===JACK:  The pleasure is a shared one.  I write.  You read.  We both think.