In 2000, I began to share my thoughts on my personal study of the Bible, with a few friends numbering about 10, through email.  As I shared with these few friends of mine, they in turn sent my emails to others, who requested that i add them to my email list. No long after I started, my list grew to 20, then 50. At this point, it was no longer convenient to send to all those email addresses at once. I began to start thinking of a newsletter engine which would enable me to send my thoughts out at once.

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When the Haiti earthquake hit, it was virtually impossible for rescue operations to commence immediately. This was because the destruction was of a massive scale, affecting all forms of infrastructure. Initially all we heard and saw was the dead littered all over the place. It looked as if God had forsaken the people.

Days later, good news began to emerge from the bad. We began to hear news of people who were literally dug out of collapsed buildings with bare hands and small tools. How else would you be able to explain the rescue of a 15-day old baby who spent half her lifetime under a collapsed building? Or a 70-year old woman dragged out from under the rubble after being trapped for one week? Or the young girl who was rescued after 11 days of being buried alive under stone and concrete?
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It was a day like any other day. People had gone about their businesses and were winding down the activities of the day. Some were already planning what they would do at nightfall and probably the next day.

Suddenly, there was a massive shaking. Many of them didn’t know what it was because they had never experienced anything like that since they were born. Some were rooted in one place in fear, not knowing where to run to. The world later heard of the massive earthquake that hit Haiti, with a magnitude of  7.0.
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As people prepare for a new year, they go a process where their progress in the old year is evaluated and serve as the basis for making plans for the new year.

The usual practice is the drawing up of a list of things to do, which is popularly called ‘New Year Resolution’. These resolutions are usually in the form of promises to stop some habits, engage in an activity or undertaking some project which the person could not follow through in the past year.
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Maybe I’m just overly sensitive. But I think window designers, greeting card companies, and media have fallen victim to what I hope is the unintentional diminishing of December 25 for people with backgrounds similar to my own.

Have you noticed that “Happy Holidays” or “Seasons Greetings” seems to have replaced “Merry Christmas” as the standard greeting for this time of year?
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The season comes and we see the same scenario playing out itself. The shopping plazas are full; the cities are bustling with traffic, both human and vehicular. You wonder where such mammoth crowd emerged from all of a sudden.

‘But its Christmas!’ you might say, and I agree with you. My question however is, ‘Whose Christmas?’
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How would you feel when going through tough and difficult circumstances, someone rushes to you exclaiming, ‘I have good news for you!’  Skeptical, wary, excited?  I could understand if the first two responses are evident. It would take some more information for one to become excited when the circumstances are not favourable.
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One of the main activities of the Christmas season is the exchange of gifts between family members and loved ones. In some homes, children wake up on Christmas day to find presents waiting for them under the Christmas tree in the living room, presumably left there by Santa Claus.
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I know some of my friends who love cars. Let me rephrase that; I know some of my friends who are crazy about cars. They can be talking with you one minute and stop mid-sentence to stare at a car passing by which catches their fancy.  When they talk about cars, you know from their expression how passionate they are about those four legged creatures.

There are others like me however, who love to drive. Unlike the described earlier, I am not crazy about the make or the model of the vehicle. Just give me a strong car with ability to respond to my need for speed and you can be sure that I will do justice on the wheel within reasonable and legal limits though.

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One of my all-time favorite quotes is from Coach John Wooden: “What really counts in life is what you learn after you know it all.

After the initial chuckle, that is an ouch-maker for most of us. The older we get, the more set in our ways we are likely to be. The older we get, the harder it is to master new skills and adapt to new paradigms. The older we get, the more likely we are to tune out ideas that would require re-thinking a point of view.
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