The End of The Year . . .

As 2005 comes to an end I can't help but to look back on the year and remember the good times and the bad. At 40 years old I can not help but face the fact that my life is more than half over. It recently struck me that this is it. The one and only life I will ever have. And when it is over, it is over. There is no coming back. If it were possible someone would have done it by now.

While religion, spirituality and psuedo-science present many ideas on life after death, I have a hard time believing any of it. After all, mankind has had thousands of years to come up with proof. Where is it ?

I think that people need so very desperately to believe in an answer or a reason for it all that we sometimes create the ideas that become our reality. These beliefs can have a very strong following. Gaining strength as times goes on. And sometimes lasting thousands of years.

We have all heard the sayings. "You only live once" "Life is short" "Live everyday as if it were your last" And my favorite, "We all have to go sometime"

What kind of peace do we seek ?

They tell me that we are at war in Iraq to maintain peace. War for peace. It is hard to understand.

In June of 1963 a man gave a speech at the American University in Washington DC. In that speech this man raised the question, "What kind of peace do we seek?" He went on to explain his idea of the kind of peace we should seek. He said, "Not just peace in our time . . . but peace for all time."

This man was very insightful. He was very intelligent, and he was a world diplomat. He understood that peace by our force was not really peace at all. He knew that mankind should be seeking "Genuine Peace"

That man's name was John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Please take a moment to listen to a brief excerpt of that speech by clicking the link below.

www.sultex.servehttp.com/JFK

We the people here . . .

In 1969 Bobby Darin wrote a song titled "Simple Song of Freedom". In that song is a line that says, "We the people here don't want a war."

The lyrics to this song apply to the current state of world affairs and are as relevant today as they were in 1969 during Viet Nam.

Please take a moment to listen to this song at:

www.sultex.servehttp.com/freedom.mp3

Do you solemnly swear . . .

There has been a lot of controversy in recent times about the separation of Church and State. As in the past several years, the Christmas season seems to be a time for many ignorant individuals to force upon us their views of the topic. And while they themselves do not understand what separation of Church and State means, they try to interpret the U.S. Constitution in ways it was never meant to be.

Some of these individuals will cause children's school programs to not include such words as God or Christmas. They will even try to have religous figures excluded from public school Christmas programs.

The ignorance that which these people live with day to day is difficult for me to understand. Some of them will even go as far as to claim that thier beliefs are what the founding fathers of this country intended 230 years ago.

I encourage you to read the list of names below. Each of these men have a few things in common.

1: They were each the leader of the Free World

2: They were each the leader of the most powerful country in the world.

3: They were each the leader of the greatest democracy in the world.

4: They each took the same oath of office. That oath stated:

"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.


George Washington, 1789-1797
John Adams, 1797-1801
Thomas Jefferson, 1801-1809
James Madison, 1809-1817
James Monroe, 1817-1825
John Quincy Adams, 1825-1829
Andrew Jackson, 1829-1837
Martin Van Buren, 1837-1841
William Henry Harrison, 1841
John Tyler, 1841-1845
James Knox Polk, 1845-1849
Zachary Taylor, 1849-1850
Millard Fillmore, 1850-1853
Franklin Pierce, 1853-1857
James Buchanan, 1857-1861
Abraham Lincoln, 1861-1865
Andrew Johnson, 1865-1869
Ulysses Simpson Grant, 1869-1877
Rutherford Birchard Hayes, 1877-1881
James Abram Garfield, 1881
Chester Alan Arthur, 1881-1885
Grover Cleveland, 1885-1889
Benjamin Harrison, 1889-1893
Grover Cleveland, 1893-1897
William McKinley, 1897-1901
Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-1909
William Howard Taft, 1909-1913
Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1921
Warren Gamaliel Harding, 1921-1923
Calvin Coolidge, 1923-1929
Herbert Clark Hoover, 1929-1933
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933-1945
Harry S. Truman, 1945-1953
Dwight David Eisenhower 1953-1961
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1961-1963
Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1963-1969
Richard Milhous Nixon, 1969-1974
Gerald Rudolph Ford, 1974-1977
James Earl Carter, Jr., 1977-1981
Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1981-1989
George Herbert Walker Bush, 1989-1993
William Jefferson Clinton, 1993-2001
George Walker Bush, 2001-

MOST IMPORTANTLY:
The oath of office was taken and sworn to with their hand on a Bible.

YES! A BIBLE.