ORDINARY LIFE - Thoughts and Ideas to Help You Live a Happier Life

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Summary for October 28, 2018

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Dear Folks -

This Sunday was my first time to speak since taking a month off. It was so good to see those of you in the Houston area who showed up on Sunday. I am grateful to Wayne Herbert for managing these e-mail messages twice a week, keeping the Ordinary Life community up to date on who was speaking. And, for maintaining the website. If you are interested in knowing more about how we spent some of the month off, go to the website and read the blogs I wrote about our trip to and through the Balkans.

Actually, there is a whole team of people who make Ordinary Life work. If you show up on Sunday, or watch the live-stream or video of the class, you’ll see them. They are the ones who make sure things work - like the audio-visual setup, making announcements, keeping up with the money you give, making sure it is used responsibly and transparently, etc. There are nine people on the Steering Committee and right now they are putting a lot of time and energy into making sure the Michael Dowd Event goes well. “Thank you!” to all of them.

On Thursday, November 8, the Ordinary Life Women are hosting a special luncheon titled “Family Reunion - Meeting Our Cousins 1,000 Times Removed.” The group has invited a number of Jewish and Muslim friends to join our Ordinary Life members in a wide ranging discussion featuring Moses, Jesus and Mohammad. Bring a food to share and join in a large discussion that will break into smaller facilitated discussion groups. In light of currently national and world events, very timely.

As for this past week in Ordinary Life -

We live in a disturbed and disturbing world. Religion has gotten involved in politics in a way we have not seen for decades. Uncertainty is the key psychological reality of our time. Our goal, in my opinion, is to aspire to become practitioners of the core values of Jesus. These are peace, love, joy, patience and humility. Also, in this talk I give an overview of the territory I hope to head into and cover in the weeks and months ahead. We will focus on the questions of Jesus as found in amazing stories told about him and amazing stories he told. In this talk I looked at the story about Jesus turning water into wine. I called the talk -

Becoming Answering People

That is a very brief summary of the talk offered this week in Ordinary Life.

You can read or download the text from which I spoke, view the presentation slides, or listen to the audio of the talk using the links below.