Opinion

See right at the top of this column those two words that few other people in the world can use...Valerie Close. That's my name. Now, we are getting in the territory of commenting on our latest breaking news about the community leaders. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone has a name. Everyone wants their 2¢ published. We love your comments, but PLEASE USE YOUR NAME! In the volume of clicking that we do on this end, something is bound to get clicked through that shouldn't, and something gets through without a name, sometimes I could swear I clicked the reject and it went through, but I know it was me that did it.

  "How We Serve"   James 1:22-25 Matthew 20:20-28 "Put me to doing, put me to suffering [waiting/enduring].  Let me be employed by you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you."  from Wesley's Coventant Prayer This is part three of the series, "Whose We Are" based on Wesley's Covenant Prayer.

Tonight we had our usual weekly music practice.  It consists of 2 mothers with 2 daughters each, a single guy, and another gal. We usually have a great time practicing our music, and go home on cloud nine...sometimes not so much, but usually! It's kind of fun to watch other mother and daughters interact. Tonight the one of the mothers said to her older daughter, "Do you feel okay?" Daughter: "What? Are you trying to say I don't look good?  Thanks mom!" Later the same mom said to the group that we were going to cut a song.

Usually we drive to town, and back and never give the scenery another thought.  Other times we see a herd of anywhere from 10-20 deer romping through a field and get a kick out of the gracefulness of these creatures, and then hope they stay off the road. ...and sometimes we see a deer in the road, usually in time, but too often they manage to literally run into our car.

Last weekend I thought I'd watch "Eat, Pray, Love", not because I've been dying to see it, or even because I thought I'd be impressed with it.  It was more out of curiosity to see why it was such a big deal. I thought it was one of the most unmemorable movies I've seen in a long time. Let's see, it has a lot of Julia Roberts, eating, riding a bike, trying to figure out who she is, and being with multiple men.

Matthew 9:9-13 (NRSV) As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.  And as he sat at dinner* in the house, many tax-collectors and sinners came and were sitting* with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?’ But when he heard this, he said, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

  Editor: When the Democrats had the numbers why didn’t they pass a budget presented by the President?(Oops, I don’t recall he presented one!?) The next question is:  if the present tax rates (“Bush Tax Cuts) are so bad why continue them??  Do the present tax rates contribute to the deficit or do present spending levels contribute to the deficit?  While mulling the above over consider the following:  We have some leaders who say we can’t afford to cut spending, while we have others who say we can’t afford current spending levels.

       "WHAT are we looking for?"      A clearly-irritated female voice echoed across the aisle of a building supply store.      I do not know the lady or her husband. (I assume it was a husband; it did not seem like a first-date location or question.)      But I could have told her what he was looking for.

     I was walking into work one day with a colleague.      Ahead of us, another co-worker was walking to her office.     "I don't know what's wrong with her," said my peer. "She just does her job and doesn't come to our meetings."     When we got to the upstairs office, there was another meeting going on.

We've all heard it over and over, don't use the same passwords for your online accounts...bank, e-mail, online store accounts, facebook, etc. They also tell you NOT to write down the passwords. After last weeks episode with facebook hacking, I thought, "No big deal, they can have my facebook account, it's not that important.