Starting Over

I have been neglecting my blog quite a bit lately. For a couple of years, I was posting family birthdays for every month, and sometimes that’s all I had to post. But my sister Lois said she liked that, so I’m going to try to proceed with the same this year.

Birthdays for January:
January 12 – my great-nephew Colin
January 16 – an unnamed niece
January 22 – my twin nieces, Judy and Jackie
January 26 – my niece Connie and my new great-great-niece – Elena – born today! Jackie’s granddaughter

I had been going to write a blog about the Golden Rule, comparing “versions” of it from various religions – many of the non-Christian, non-Jewish religions having forms that are “less” than what we know as the Golden Rule. For instance, some say “Do good to others so that they will do good to you;’ others say “Do good to others so they won’t do evil to you.” These are based on self-preservation, while the “real” Golden rule is based on doing for others – regardless of how it affects oneself. I decided not to go into that in detail after reading C.S. Lewis’s “Mere Christianity.” He describes the universal nature of the golden rule on the fact that it is born within us – part of our nature as God made us. He says every culture, every religion has a sense that some things are right, and others are wrong. They are not necessarily correct in specifics, but they have the general view of right and wrong. Only Christianity – and to an extent, Judaism – tell us the real reasons why some things are right and others are wrong. I highly recommend this book by Lewis. I don’t agree with every detail that he says throughout this book, but, as he says, if it doesn’t help, drop it.