Merry Christmas

Here are pictures & words, which describe our lives in 2007.

 
 

May God Bless

you and your family

Merry Christmas

and

Happy New Year

 

Spring 300m Intermediate Hurdles Basketball Championship 110m High-Hurdles 22 years together Long Jump Shot Put Flowers 400m 200m 100m

Summer Florida Vacation Bahamas' Cruise Life Guarding Eagle Project Basketball Snorkeling Driving NASA Sand

Fall National Honor Society TOPs Soccer Cheerleading Super Goalie Eagle Scout Volleyball Camping Leaves

Winter Service Hours Basketball Ski Club iPods Snow ACT

Iraq - Yahoo! News Photos

 

Iraq - Yahoo! News Photos

Mary the mother of Jesus is someone who knows how to love.  To follow God's commandment to love freely, with all her might, with all her heart, with all her soul.

Imagine Mary standing at the foot of the cross.  I only hope to have this kind of love for my sisters and brothers throughout the world.

God is love!  God may we all love the world with no exceptions, as you do.

Is your house in order?

What kind of an interior house have you built for God to dwell in?

God of Israel, keep your servant my father David that which you promised him.

1 Kings 8:25

Solomon built a temple that was made of material goods for God to dwell within.  Those material items only last as long as someone maintains them.  Solomon being given WISDOM, one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, realized that no thing of human construction could contain the vastness of a wonder, power, love that is God.

If you build a dwelling place for God start in your heart. 

Awesome God, you who cannot be contained by buildings, help me to be truly awestruck by your very presence.  Help me develop a sense of wonder about you.

Atheists only have visible means of support.

Wis 13:1-9
Yes naturally stupid are all who have not known God,
and who from the good things seen did not succeed in knowing him who is,
and from studying the works did not discover the artisan;
But either fire, or wind, or the swift air,
or the circuit of the stars, or the mighty water,
or the luminaries of heaven, the governors of the world, they considered gods.
Now if out of joy in their beauty they thought them gods,
let them know how far more excellent is the Lord than these;
for the original source of beauty fashioned them.
Or if they were struck by their power and energy,
let them from these things realize how much more powerful is he who made them.
For from the greatness and the beauty of created things
their original author, by analogy, is seen.
But yet, for these the blame is less;
For they indeed have gone astray perhaps,
though they seek God and wish to find him.
For they search busily among his works,
but are distracted by what they see, because the things seen are fair.
But again, not even these are pardonable.
For if they so far succeeded in knowledge
that they could speculate about the world,
how have they been so slow to find their Master?

How do you see the world around you?

Why do we put human constraints on God? 

Moving job offshore?

10,000 Jobs To Move Offshore Under Barclays' Merger Plan

Link to 10,000 Jobs To Move Offshore Under Barclays' Merger Plan -- outsourcing merger -- InformationWeek

To have the right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing
it. - G. K. Chesterton - A Short History of England, Ch.10

Offshoring jobs is an answer to a relatively short-term financial issue. Who has the intellectual capital of how things ran? Will that knowledge get transferred, effectively? Why should someone help? Do the cost savings go toward funding a reward to the executive who architected the job transfer? Did that executive consider, what if I was one of the displaced workers? How does this effect the roof over their heads, food on their table?

Starting in '80s we saw worker rights slowly dwindle. Now granted many unionized businesses were constrained by work place rules and roles. Similar to lawyer joke:

How many personal injury attorneys does it take to change a light bulb?
Three - one to turn the bulb, one to shake him off the ladder, and the third to sue
the ladder company.

In many unionized workplaces to change a light bulb required more than 3. You needed:

1. An electrician to turn the light circuit breaker off.
2. A fork lift driver to operate the lift.
3. A custodian for access to the closet where the lights where stored.
4. Another custodian rated to get in a lift
5. A safety inspector

Was that really all necessary, I believe no. So hence in the '80s it started, but now we have who watching out for worker rights. 40 hours work weeks, who realy works forty hours any more? When I go home I may not be at my desk, but the thoughts are still churning. In the information age isn't that part of the job? When I worked on a lathe when I went home I was truly no longer working. Now when I leave the building where I sit for 9 to 10 hours Monday through Friday, I am still working.

Getting back to my orginal point, just because you can do something should you do it. Just because you can move jobs off shore should you? Does that remove the ethics from the decision? I would argue no. What is the cost to the community? to the good-will the company had? Now that the jobs are moved to the other side of the planet does that make it easier to out-source them, not having any emotional care for them? So you moved the jobs to Mumbai, what happens when that work-force increases their cost? Do you move to Belarus? Then to Kazakstan? Then to Beijing? Then to Hamburg? Hamburg! Yup, because that is where the jobs started, but by now the moving out of the jobs so depressed the economic community that the standard of living is the lowest in the world it is now the cheapest place to do the work.

What is the reason for moving jobs offshore? To get the executives pay as big as possible? I think in the '80s executive pay was five times the average workers pay. Now in many large organizations it is 100s of times the average workers pay.

Counterrevolution

In Fr. O'Hare editorial, see below the link, there are many points we as American need to be aware of what politicians are doing.

Link to Counterrevolution, Editorial in America, The Catholic Weekly Magazine

There is a phrase I like to borrow that points to the drive of human nature toward power -

Power Corrupts, Absolute Power Absolutely Corrupts

We always need to be on the guard against nationalism, secularism, or any ism as an excuse to not LOVE.

Here is a quote from April, 1946 at the Nuremberg trials:

“Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of
the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag
the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a
parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can
always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to
do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of
patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.” – Herman Goering (Nazi
Reichsmarshall and Luftwaffe-Chief)

We can not afford to forget political leaders can get mis-guided. We need to be their vocal conscience to go back to the greatest of laws - LOVE.

Have your actions today been Good, Honorable, and True?

Nos autem gloriari

We should glory in nothing but the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ: in Whom is our salvation, life, and resurrection; by whom we are saved and delivered.

Am I aware of how everything I have comes from God?
My life.
My security.
My freedom.

May God have mercy on us, and bless us: may He cause the light of His countenance to shine upon us; and may He have mercy on us. We should glory in nothing but the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Mk 8:34--9:1
Jesus summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the Gospel will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? What could one give in exchange for his life? Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this faithless and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

He also said to them, “Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the Kingdom of God has come in power.”