Hello Blondie,
thanks again for your excellent weekly review of
the study's article .
Just another brilliant analysis . Very factual and logic.
Here below, imho, two ?shots, ...surely among your
best ones !
*1 ?Then why not go directly to the source, medical journals, medical websites on the Internet, your own physician? Why filter it through the WTS?
*2 ?Materialism is rampant. JWs are spending too much on personal wants and not contributing to the WTS. After all, how are they going to pay for the $50 million expansion project in Wallkill?
Concerning the quote, please allow me to add the following :
The quote , '
One scholar
noted: "The future of reality is seldom as bad as the future of our fears."
comes from this web page: http://www.applebychurch.ca/worry.htm
Appleby United Church
4407 Spruce Avenue, Burlington, Ontario L7L 1L9
Phone: 905-637-2942 Fax: 905-637-0799
Email:
[email protected]
with this information also:
http://www.applebychurch.ca/about_appleby.htm
HOW TO FIND US
We are located at the corner of Spruce Avenue and Henderson Road,
in the southeast part of Burlington.
From out of town, follow the QEW to Appleby Line.
Go south on Appleby Line past New Street
to the stoplights at Spruce Avenue
(you are now in a very residential area).
Turn right on Spruce Avenue, and go about 3 blocks,
until you see the Church on the right.
To get to the parking lot, turn right on Henderson Road, and right into the lot.
(A map will soon be available.)
and also this material:
from http://www.applebychurch.ca/Worship.htm
Christian Meditation, also known as contemplative or centring prayer, is prayer beyond words, thoughts and images. It involves coming to a stillness of body, mind and spirit. When we meditate we are not thinking about or imagining God at all. Instead, we seek to do something much greater - we seek simply to be with God, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit. In short, meditation is concerned not with thinking but with being. By meditating, we allow God's mysterious and silent presence within us to become the only Reality which gives meaning, shape and purpose to everything we do, everything we are. As Meister Eckhart put it: "All things come to taste of God."
What is it that makes a person want to meditate? I'm sure there are as many reasons as there are people who begin to meditate. Speaking for myself, I was beginning to feel that my too-infrequent periods of prayer were becoming too formalize, too needy, too "head-centred". I was looking to put some life into my relationship with the Creator God, to experience the fire of Divine Love - to attain a more "heart-centred" prayer life. And, to borrow a phrase from our Buddhist brothers and sisters: "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." In July of 1997, I attended a 3-day silent retreat/workshop that introduced me to the practice of meditating in the Christian tradition. I'd found the "heart-centred", disciplined prayer life for which I'd been looking. I'd come home!
When we meditate, we abandon all selfish motivation and attachment in our spiritual pilgrimage as a way to that poverty of spirit of which Jesus spoke - the first beatitude and precondition of true happiness. Out of that silence and stillness when we turn away from ourselves and towards God, comes the Life of the Spirit where we are transformed into Love. As Christians, we meditate in order to open ourselves to the birth of Christ within our hearts.
Why, then should I meditate? Because, by doing so, God is left to work unimpeded deep within my soul. Because, to do so, I surrender myself completely to the prompting of the Spirit, to the love that Jesus and the Father have for me. By meditating on a daily basis, I am more and more able to see how the fabric of the ordinary is interwoven with the fabric of the Eternal Love of God. But, as John Main reminds us, we can become intoxicated by words - the experience itself will teach us more about the "why" of meditation.
Kevin McNamara, Leader
Our Christian Meditation group is ecumenical and practices an open door hospitality, welcoming anyone who comes sincerely seeking silence and a deeper spiritual path.
Just for the sake of clarity ...here below the full passage:
Matthew 6: 34 So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.
These words of Jesus have troubled many Christians throughout the ages. Is he advocating shiftless, thriftless, reckless, thoughtless, improvident attitudes toward life? Would he sneer at prudent foresight, which most of us practice?
Not at all. What Jesus is actually condemning in this passage about the "birds of the air and the lilies of the field" is care-worn, anxious worry which takes all the joy out of life and mixes up all our priorities. Jesus is imploring us not to let anxious worry about the future replace prudent foresight.
There is a difference, although sometimes hard to see, between worry and genuine concern. The main difference is that worry immobilizes, but concern moves you to action. Planning for tomorrow is time well spent. Worrying about tomorrow - straining to see a future which you cannot see; and seeking to find absolute security in things stored up and accumulated against the future - is time wasted.
Firstly, worry cannot affect the past, for the past is over and done with.
As
Omar Khyyam said in The Rubiyat:
The moving finger writes, and having writ,
Moves on; nor all the piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it
Equally, worry about the future is a useless and wasted effort. The future of reality is seldom as bad as the future of our fears. Many of us worry ourselves into paralysis over things that never happen.
What Jesus is actually advocating in this passage is
a combination of
prudence and foresightwith serenity and trust.
The best, and only real security, in a person's life is the knowledge
that she will be able to face
with serenity and confidenceany unexpected trial that may confront her during the course of her life.
Careful planning is thinking ahead about goals, steps and schedules, and trusting in God's guidance and companionship. When well done, planning can help alleviate worry. Worriers, by contrast, are consumed by fear, and find it difficult to trust God. They let their plans interfere with their relationship with God.
Don't let worries about tomorrow affect your relationship with God today!
(P.S. In red the part of the quote used by the WTBS Inc. in the Watchtower article)
Thanks again?now you really can relax and have a nice and
refreshing drink?from the best!
Greetings, J.C.MacHislopp
