http://www.gashbag.com/submarinersprayer.htm In the beginning there was a word; and the word was God.  All else was darkness and void without form. So God created the heavens and the earth. He created the sun and the moon and the stars, so that light may pierce the darkness.  The earth, God divided between the land and the… Continue reading

“It is not worthwhile to try to keep history from repeating itself, for man’s character will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible. “- Mark Twain “To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.” – Samuel Butler “Boy, when… Continue reading

The utter devastation that has been visited on Japan is heart-rending. I fear the death toll will do nothing but rise for the next few weeks. My mind boggles at the damage that is slowly being revealed. I am doing the only thing that I know to do, and that is to donate to the… Continue reading

Speaking in the King Hussein Mosque in Amman, he argued that religion was a force for good, but its “manipulation” caused divisions and even violence. – Benedict XVI “I think it’s perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it, but I don’t know everything, and there may well be a… Continue reading

“A grove of giant redwoods or sequoias should be kept just as we keep a great or beautiful cathedral. The extermination of the passenger pigeon meant that mankind was just so much poorer; exactly as in the case of the destruction of the cathedral at Rheims. And to lose the chance to see frigate-birds soaring… Continue reading

“The [DADT] policy is an absurdity and borderline on being an obscenity. What it does is cause people to ask of themselves that they lie to themselves, that they pretend to be something that they are not. There is no empirical evidence that would indicate that it affects military cohesion. There is a lot of… Continue reading

“A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.” – James Joyce  “Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.” – Oscar Wilde “Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.” – Kevin Arnold “If you will call your troubles… Continue reading

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. – Albert Camus In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, Long ago. – Christina G. Rossetti… Continue reading

The greatest ignorance is to reject something you know nothing about. The constitutional freedom of religion [is] the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights. – Thomas Jefferson If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. –  Derek Bok Religion, as well as reason, confirms the soundness of those principles on which our government… Continue reading

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there, I’ve chased the shouting wind… Continue reading