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Show EGwanis Club Hears Outstanding Speaker on Saturday Morning The Kiwanis Club held their regular Saturday morning meeting last Saturday under (he direction of Harry K. Derr at the West Winds Cafe. Speaker at the meeting was Neil J. Flinders Director of Research and Evaluation for the Church Educational System. Dr. Flinders is also a counselor in the Manila First Warci bishopric. The Review felt that his talk was so especially good at this time of the year that they have published its full text herewith. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! During the next two weeks each of us will express and hear expressed this and similar phrases dozens of times. This morning I would like you to reflect with me on the meaning of our season's greetings. What in fact are we offering our family, friends, and associates when we wish them "Merry Christmas" or a "Happy New Year"? Is the phrase trite and without meaning and substance? Or does it actually cause them to be merry, happy and joyful? How much do I really mean what I say? I believe that individually we have an obligation to make our seasons greetings symbols of actual substance. These greetings should be valid guarantees to our associates and loved ones. When we express ex-press a "Merry Christmas" or a "Happy New Year" it should be buttressed by the assurance that what we do and say andfeel will actually contribute merriness and happiness to the recipients of our season's greetings. How is this accomplished? By embracing and nurturing in our daily lives principles that bear fruits of merriness and happiness. hap-piness. Today, for example, many in our nation, in our state, and in our community are disillusioned, confused, anxious, critical and even cynical. They are not merry nor happy. Why? Because we in America have discarded, ignored, and in other ways disassociated ourselves from the principles which make us merry and happy. U.S. News and World Report recently described the American people in these words: "An economic surge that brought unparalleled advances in means and status during the 10's has turned sour on them as inflation erodes their savings, their plans for educating their children, and their own security in old age." Just listening to the news reveals to us that we are facing a serious social andeccnomic crisis. President Benson recently said it is the most serious circumstance America has faced since the Civil War. 1 Behind all this unhappiness, despondency and despair there is a familiar pattern a similar stairway that leads us down into the cellar of sin. The steps always seem to be the same: First: spiritual darkness ignoring our divine origin and nature; second, moral corruption choosing wrong over right; third, temporal or economic confusion LUSTING AND LOVING THE PHYSICAL THINGS OF LIFE : AND FOURTH, CONFLICT AND SLAVERY losing our freedom. Today each of us is experiencing a stirring kind of theatre in the round. The performance a tragedy is being acted out on almost every stage of life. The plot is monotonously the same. Only the actors and the scenery seem to change. It joes something like this: We compromise a true principle. In our effort to compensate we exhibit an overreaction an extremism that pushes us off balance and causes us to stumble. Like the football player that is lightly tripped by his would-be tackier, we run on lurching from one unsure stride to another until finally the weight of our body becomes so displaced we crash to the ground and slide to a stop on the turf. This not only happens to individuals, it happens to nations but it happens to nations and individuals in-dividuals at the same time. Perhaps we are justified in looking around and asking: Who then, can really offer me a truly Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year? Can a gorernment that Can a gorernment that takes my resources and gives them to my enemy and voilates its own fiscal integrity by spending more than it has? Can an impeachable president? Can the false witnesses of Watergate? Can a licentious congressman? congress-man? Can the man who murders my neighbors' young daughters? Can those who prostitute local political offices? Can entertainers who poison my mind with unclean suggestions? Can a businessman who sells me shoddy merchandise? Can a repairman who overcharges me? Can a neightbor who slanders my character or misjudges my intentions? This list could go on and on. But maybe asking who can give me a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year is not the best approach. It is better to give than receive, therefore, a more helpful question would probably be: To what extent am I capable of contributing to my family, friends and countrymen coun-trymen a Merry Christmas and a happy new year? To what extent am I actually creating circumstances and environments en-vironments that will bring merriness and gappiness into the lives of those whom I desire to be merry and happy this holiday season? I've asked myself a number of questions. For example: 1. Am I free from greed from wanting more than I need and can righteously use? When our wants get too far out in front of our needs it warps our behavior. 2. Do I teach my children to want what they can afford? Or, does the "gimme" within them rule their life and my home? 3. Do I and my family exhibit patience with each other, are we self-disciplined at home, at church, at school? Or are we suffering from the instant-breakfast instant-breakfast syndrome, wanting everything right now the easy way? Instant breakfast, instant learning, instant wealth, instant in-stant everything. Have we learned what nature tries so hard to teach us to wait? Everything should come in the season thereof. The partaking should follow the planning, the preparation, the planting, the hoeing, the watering, the harvest in short the working and the waiting. 4. When I look for a helping hand do I look first at the end of my own seleves? Or do I want others to do for me, that which I whould do for myself? Do I want others to suffer for me, that which I should suffer myself? 5. Do I live withing my meuns on the basis of the sweat of my own brow? (," do I live on credit, on the labor of someone else, or the pretense of wealth I do not possess? Do I reconnize that inflation is not caused by increased wages and increased prices but by credit policies that result in the creation of unsound, irredeemable monetary certificates? 6. Do the gifts I give carry with them well understood expectations on the part of the recipient? Do I convey to him the same lesson my Lord conveys to me, that every worthwhile and safe gift carries with it righteous expectations by the giver of the recipient? When these expectations are violated the recipient of the gift will ultimately and unnecessarily un-necessarily suffer a loss if not a punishment. 7. Do I acknowledge the gifts I have received from others and do I honor their expectations (Continued on page 7) Kiwanis Speaker (Continued from page 1) first and foremost my Heavenly Father and His Son whose birthday we are celebrating this season? This list of questions could also go on and on. The point, however, should be clear. What we are, now what we have, determines how much we can actually give how merry and happy we can actuallymake others during this holiday season and the coming year. Temporaral things are only means, not ends. What are our ends our purposes are will determine how we use our means. And the principles which we live that govern how we use our means-our temporal tem-poral assets-will determine the contribution we make, the fruit we will bring forth for others to enjoy. Therefore, to the extent I am able, I wish each of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in the name of Jesus Christ whose birth we celebrate, who did indeed live a life that actually contributed to a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Amen. |