Happy New Year - 2012

News worthy events of 2011:

• Japan earthquake and tsunami
• Royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton
• Death of Osama bin Laden
• Oprah Winfrey Show ends
• The Space Shuttle Program comes to an end
• Occupy Wall Street
• Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, dies at age 56
• Libyan Leader Gaddhafi captured and killed
• War in Iraq comes to an end
• Death of Kim Jong Il
• Casey Anthony exonerated in daughter’s murder trial
• Conrad Murray found guilty in Michael Jackson death trial
• The World Economy

Some in this list were astounding and others not so much. Honestly, the Oprah Winfrey show ending didn’t affect me at all.  Prince William and Kate’s wedding was a wonderful distraction from the everyday hum-drum with all of its pomp and royal aire.  I still shudder when recalling the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  The trials that are mentioned were surprising in one instance and not so in the other.   

It was a year of contrasts involving natural disasters, wars, deaths and murders and what the media deemed important enough to share with us.  It all seems so negative in nature with exception to the Royal Wedding.  It so reminds me of King Solomon’s words: 

Ecclesiastes 3

New American Standard Bible

¹ There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven—

² A time to give birth and a time to die;
A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.
³ A time to kill and a time to heal;
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
⁴ A time to weep and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn and a time to dance.
⁵ A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.
⁶ A time to search and a time to give up as lost;
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
⁷ A time to tear apart and a time to sew together;
A time to be silent and a time to speak.
⁸ A time to love and a time to hate;
A time for war and a time for peace.

⁹ What profit is there to the worker from that in which he toils? ¹⁰ I have seen the task which God has given the sons of men with which to occupy themselves.

My prayer for 2012:

Psalm 122 vs. 6 – 9 (NIV)

⁶ Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
“May they prosper who love you.
⁷ “May peace be within your walls,
And prosperity within your palaces.”
⁸ For the sake of my brothers and my friends,
I will now say, “May peace be within you.”
⁹ For the sake of the house of the LORD our God,
I will seek your good.

Happy New Year! 

Tamara

Arizona Highways

Arizona Highways is a monthly publication with wonderful photographs and articles from around the state.  I once carried the magazine in the prison library until it was determined to be an escape aid.  It does have maps that could be utilized for that purpose and was thus administratively eliminated.

We live in rural southeastern Arizona. To travel to Phoenix, an approximate 3 and half hour trek, we must exit the community on Highway 70, which then turns into Highway 60 in the Globe, Miami, and Superior area.

Thoughts and Questions

The agency I work for has carried out the executions of four death row inmates this past year. What is the Christian response to the law, criminal justice and Capital Punishment? Then I ask myself the proverbial question, “What would Jesus do?”

Aging & Humor

Laughter is better than crying about spilled milk, or gravity and specific body parts, don't you think?  Click on this link for comedic relief:  Anita Renfroe