Hi Friends and casual acquaintances. I have missed you.

We spent Christmas and New years with the children and the grandchildren. We also had my sister, Donna, her family and some friends over for a Christmas meal, and we had lunch with our in-laws. Quit a bit of fun, merriment, and warm Christian Fellowship, but I had all the turkey I want for a while.

That reminds me, when I posted my directions for fried Turkey sometime before Thanksgiving, I forgot to say, “thaw the bird thoroughly before places in hot oil.” Are you missing a friend who tried to fry a turkey?

I was amazed at the number of gifts received by our grandchildren (my daughter in law has two young girls about the same age as our grandsons, 3 and 6).

 When I was a boy, my Christmas gifts included going to the Christmas Cantata at our church, fruit, nuts, candy, some underwear if I needed it. Mother always though I needed it. I received a bicycle one year and a great boon to my transportation. This was necessary at this time because grandma and I were beginning to have a need to see each other every day or so.
 
I don’t have a way to get from there to the economy, so I’ll just jump.
The economy is bad. Let me tell you that that’s not new.
If you took History 101, you know that our county was founded by a group of rich, white men, who did not want to pay their taxes.
 
These same individuals also wore a lot of pretty clothes; which suggests to me they felt they had  “arrived.” the peasants all dressed alike, unrefined, many fewer clothes.  This tells me right off that the wealthy would not have “quickies” because they had on too many clothes. Thank God for peasants.
The wealthy tended to be fatter than the peasants too; being fat showed people you had arrived because this gave the appearance that you were wealthy.

A search for  “peace of mind” and a desire to acquire “wealth” seem to become the life goals of a great many folks.  If you’ve read the bible at all, you know that these two things are not important in God’s teachings. If you worship wealth, money will become your God. A new Mercedes will not give you peace of mind.

It gets worse. With the advent of television, radio, recordings, and newspapers, we quickly became “consumers.” This can best be defined as “ buying things you don’t need, with somebody else’s money, in order to impress people you don’t know or like, in order to “be somebody.”  Let them know you have arrived.  Herewith, we get on the treadmill and become a part of the rat race that leads to anxiety, depression, divorces, and another thousands maladies that I won’t name, none of the good.

Our forefathers in a search for religious freedom and Biblical principals also founded our country. What happened to the gene pool from these progenitors? Madison Avenue wizards with the advent of advertisements: television, newspapers, movies, radio, etc. With most advanced technology in the world, we have become a nation and world of secularism. I saw my naked women my freshman year in college at the County Fair. Now you can find any and every thing at anytime in any media. Morality and values are no longer with us. In Europe, the beautiful cathedrals are now mostly museums and shops.

Culturally, the music of Bach and Mozart have been replaced by rap and hippity hop. Notice I did not say music. Have you listened to any of the words of these songs?
Literature, theater follows closely in line. Anything goes.

First Corinthians 6-12 gives us something to live by in this chaos. “Everything is permissible for me: -but not everything is beneficial for me: =”everything is permissible for me; -but I will not be mastered by anything.”

Think summer and warm thoughts.

Uncle Jim

CONSIDER THIS WHEN MAKING YOUR CHRISTMAS WISHES!

DON'T ASK FOR A LOT OF GOOD THINGS

DON'T ASK FOR A LOT OF ANYTHING

"TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING IS WORSE
THAN A LITTLE OR NOTHING."