Giants Don't Use Strength

Hello Folks — T'is excellent to have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant. Shakespeare.

—o—

Graduation is over. For us it was an important occasion; Lowell graduated from high school.

As we sat there in the auditorium along with more than 1,000 others parents and friends, watching the orchestra perform, seeing the graduates march in and everybody in their best attitudes I got to thinking "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could all reach the goals we set for ourselves, always be at our best, and everything be as beautiful as we would want it?"

Then I got to wondering why so few reach those goals. Perhaps none of us do. I believe it is because we don't make the things we have to do in life important enough. We lose faith in ourselves, we don't follow through in the things we know we should, and we very likely don't reach for the highest source of help we should.

I thought of the youths there and how wonderful it would be if by the concerted action of all of us they could be as wholesome and honorable as we would like them to be. I think possibly a few of them come pretty close to that goal, but certainly not enough of them. I am convinced it is the fault of all of us.

I think our teachers do a wonderfully good job of instructing them. Certainly there is a lot of room for improvement, but I believe that if we parents would do half as good a job with our children as the teachers do these young people of ours would get a lot farther in life than they do. Too often we fail to sustain the teachers and actually harm the teacher's ability to teach and the child's ability to learn.

I think the Commencement this year was the finest I have ever seen, the music played by the high school orchestra was exceedingly beautiful. The prayer was inspiring. The temperature was ideal and the speech was full of 'meat', and not too long.

—o—

They were discussing girls "How is it, Jim, asked Joe, "that you get along so well with the girls?"

"Easy," was the reply. "Try flattery for instance. The girl I was with last night got a fly in her eye. I said, 'I can't see how it could miss such big eyes as yours', after that I had her eating out of my hand!"

A few days later they met again. "H'm said Joe, "I don't think much of your flattery stunt. I tried it but it didn't come off so good."

"What happened?"

"The girl I was with got fly in her mouth."

—o—

The Corning glass works has developed a new family of basic materials, said to be harder than high-carbon steel, lighter than aluminum, and up to nine times stronger than plate glass. It is called Pyroceram. It is a finegrained crystalline material made from noncrystaline glass, but with a melting point near that of iron.

2 Theories About Life

HELLO FOLKS —

A Candle's but a simple thing:
It starts with just a bit of string.
Yet dipped and dipped with patient hand,
It gathers wax upon the strand,
Until, complete, and snowy white,
It gives at last a lovely light.

Life seems so like that bit of string;
Each deed we do a simple thing;
Yet day by day, if on life's strand
We work with patient heart and hand,
It gathers joy, makes dark day bright,
And gives at last a lovely light.

—o—

UNINSTRUCTED
"I'm going to send you down to earth".
Said God to me one day,
"I'm giving you what men call birth —
Tonight, you'll start away.
I want you there to live with men,
Until I call you back again".

I trembled as I heard Him speak
Yet knew that I must go;
I felt His hand upon my cheek,
And wished that I might know
Just what on earth would be my task,
And timidly I dared to ask.

"Tell me before I start away,
What thou would have me do;
What message would thou have me say?
When shall my work be through?
That I may serve Thee on earth?
Tell me the purpose of my birth".

God smiled at me and softly said,
"Oh you shall find your task,
I want you free life's paths to tread.
So do not stay to ask
Remember if your best you do,
That I shall ask no more of you".

How often as my work I do,
So common place and grim,
I sit and sigh and wish I knew
If I am pleasing Him.
I wonder if with every test,
I've really tried to do my best?

-----------------------------------------------------

Vera Petersen, 95, wife of Edwin Petersen, the author of these articles, passed away on Friday evening, June 19th 2015. 

A Danger to Our Nation

HELLO FOLKS! — A sure way of getting nowhere is to follow the crowd.

In life's garden it is as important to plant the right things as it is in a vegetable garden. What we plant and how diligently we care for what we plant determines the harvest.

In this garden of life, here is a sample of what to plant.

Start with four rows of peas:
One row of pleasantness,
Another row of perseverance,
One of preparedness,
The fourth of permanence.

Next plant five rows of lettuce:
Let us obey,
Let us be true,
Let us be faithful,
Let us be unselfish,
Let us love one another.

Three rows of turnips:
Turn up at meetings,
Turn up with a smile,
Turn up with determination.

Also there must be three rows of squash:
Squash gossip,
Squash indifference,
Squash criticism.

IT SEEMS from here, that we are going to face the facts that anyone in politics who stands firm for constitutional government is going to be bombarded with ridicule of the worst sort and have to face character assassination too.

For many years we have been heading deeper and faster into mob rule, government by whim and fancy and special interest legislation, plus circumventing the constitution, until it has caught fire and anyone who wants something done for them follow the pattern of former successes in the field.

People are less and less concerned about what has made and kept our nation strong (Meaning the constitution) and are more inclined to go for the quick and easy answers.

However, I don't believe the real problem is the people themselves. I believe that we have to face a far more sinister enemy than that. There seems to a well organized underground press that grinds out the poisonous venem against those who stand for constitutional government.

Who is this enemy? I believe it is none other than communism. Communism knows that the only way it can 'bury' us is to destroy our constitution; and by grinding out the "smear" against anybody who stands strong for it they can find plenty of fellow travelers and political opponents who are looking for ammunition to aim at their opposition. It therefore becomes popular to follow the crowd and the press has been plenty gullible at times following the trend.

This underground press is so potent that few politicians want to be the target. An example could be the wheat deal to Russia. There has never been any attempt to explain why the administration was so anxious to guarantee payments to Russia on the wheat. For lack of an explanation from the proponents we can only venture a guess of our own. Could it be because they were so anxious to avoid conflict with this press that the President risked his foreign aid bill in order to get the wheat legislation passed?