THE HABIT OF CONSIDERING "YOUR PATH"

I've alluded to this before, but if you lived in Southampton like me and you wanted to go to Toronto, you would not head northeast to Barrie or Huntsville. No matter your intentions, no matter how fast or carefully you drove, you would not reach Toronto by driving away from it.

The reason for this, of course, is that your destination has nothing to do with your intentions, and everything to do with your direction.

It’s a common-sense principle we abide by whenever we use a map, but it’s also a principle found in Scripture. Take Proverbs 7 which we reviewed not long ago in a post on Wrights Lane. In this passage, Solomon describes a young man who steps into the house of an adulteress. Because the young man is short-sighted and naive, he sees the encounter as a stroke of luck. After all, the woman’s husband is away—no chance of getting caught—and she has an intoxicating night of love planned for the two of them.

So, the man walks through the door. He goes inside under the false notion that there will be no consequences for his actions. He thinks can have his cake and eat it too.

But Solomon knows better. He knows this man is not exempt from all God’s warnings about sin and folly. This man is not the exception to the rule; he is the rule.

And rather than walk a unique path in which the rules do not apply, this man is on a crowded highway. Countless men and women have gone before him, under the exact same illusion.

This young man believes he is on a path to pleasure and bliss, but he is instead on a path to destruction. Solomon describes it this way: “As an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast till an arrow pierces its liver; as a bird rushes into a snare; he does not know that it will cost him his life.” (7:22-23)

The story is the principle of the path at work. His fate reminds us that we cannot attain the abundant life by choosing the path to a destination of no return. The path of sin, of corruption, of laziness, or ethical compromise will only lead to one place. Because direction determines destination.

I have always remembered the principle of the path because it has countless applications for our lives. For instance:

a) You cannot reach spiritual maturity on a path of spiritual neglect.

b) You cannot reach spiritual and physical health on a path of complacency and unaddressed issues.

This final point is, if we manipulate people, hedge on the truth, trample those with less power than us, or compromise our integrity in any way, we have effectively abandoned the path of godly leadership for a path of personal destruction.

Of course, we all make mistakes. Every one of us. In our faith, marriage, parenting, finances, and leadership, we will make bad choices. And when we do, there is more than enough grace to cover and redeem our brokenness. This is the good news.

But the principle of the path should chasten us. It reminds us to be wise and clear-eyed about our daily habits.

The principle of the path means that none of our choices take place in a vacuum. Every single one determines who we are becoming. Every single step is in a particular direction on a particular path, so the question we must ask ourselves every day is this: Where do I want to go, and am I on a path that will take me there?

Sadly, I have come to this conviction almost too-little-too-late to do much good in what is left of my life. At best most days, I simply pause momentarily on an old-age path that is assuredly downhill.

During those increasingly-frequent and necessary pauses, however, I still think about the inevitable and how I want to arrive at it.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!...WE DESERVE IT!!!

 

A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE...

 *be sure to watch fullscreen.

Ho,
    Ho,

        Ho,

            Ho!

PASSING THOUGHTS ABOUT LONG WALKS

If you are a parent or a grandparent there is no doubt that you have experienced some long walks in life.

I had a long walk last week when my car broke down two miles from home, but that is not the kind of walk I'm talking about. I'll explain:

Every Christmas, the parents of three grown children divided their holiday celebrations among the three different families. But with the difficulties involved in holiday preparation and extensive travel, sometimes they were tempted to throw up their hands and say, "It's too much! It's just not worth the effort." 

Whenever either of the parents got that feeling of exasperation, they would give the other a wink and say, "Long walk, dear, long walk," and laugh as they continued their holiday plans.

You see, "Long walk" was a code phrase. They began using it after hearing an old story about a young native boy who gave his missionary teacher an exquisite seashell as a Christmas gift. The boy had to walk exhausting miles to a particular bay which was the only place where such shells existed. 

"How wonderful of you to have traveled so far for this present," the teacher said. The boy's eyes lit up as he replied, "Long walk is part of the gift." For the missionary teacher, this was a gift of infinite value that no other could ever surpass.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
LONG WALK THAT NEVER HAPPENED:
A FUNNY (?) STORY

One day after a nasty streak of bad weather, a man asked his teenage son to take their dog for a long walk after school.

When he came home from work, the father found his son stretched out on the recliner in the living room, watching television.

The boy had the leash in his hand while the dog trotted happily away on the treadmill beside him.

BIBLE STORIES AS TOLD BY AUNT CHARLOTTE

If only we had more Aunt Charlottes in the world today!

Let me explain, in a rather roundabout way.

I often regret that children today, blessed with great potential, are being deprived of the precious truths contained in many of the pages of the Holy Scriptures. The Bible is the source of all our right thinking and right doing, as well as the guide to religious life, a blueprint for living, as it were.

That same Bible contains the entire history of one of the greatest races in the world, one that produced a Blessed Saviour two thousand years ago. It tells of great men and women from the time they were born to the time that they left an everlasting imprint for Christians to follow. 

Of course, the Bible was written and interpreted in beautiful language for grown-ups to read over the centuries, but in many instances it is almost impossible for children to understand. This is where dear souls like Aunt Charlottes of my memory used to come into the picture. She knew all the stories in the Bible by heart and every Sunday she told some of them to her small and impressionable nieces and nephews.

Sometimes Charlotte would tell a story after breakfast, one after dinner and another after supper, and after she finished each story she would ask the children questions to see if they had listened and understood what she had told them. And you could be sure that they remembered everything because their Auntie had been telling stories for so long that she knew the most interesting way to explain difficult Biblical text to them and to hold their attention while doing it.

Not done yet, after the children had answered her questions and given a chance to express natural thoughts that were on their minds, Aunt Charlotte would follow up by giving them a page of pictures and words, which she called "Bible symbols", to help reinforce all the stories she had related.

In typically concluding one of her story sessions, Aunt Charlotte was heard to say: "And so it was that our blessed Lord Jesus once again ascended up to His home in heaven, after He had lived and died, so that we might be saved."

Prompting this reply from little Sara who had been attentively sitting on her lap, clinging to every word: "...and Jesus is there in Heaven now, watching over us and laying our prayers before His Father in heaven, and getting ready our home there for each of us?"

"Right, my darling," assured Aunt Charlotte. "Jesus said, 'I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am you may be also,' and He promised to come again and receive all those who love Him and make them His brothers and sisters in heaven."

"I'm so sorry that Jesus had to go away," added Sara. "Weren't the disciples very lonesome, Auntie?"

"Yes, they were very lonely; but Jesus will not leave His followers unhappy for very long...And next Sunday I will tell you what He sent to make them glad and joyous," Aunt Charlotte replied with a smile and a hug for each little one on her ample lap.

Scenes like that just do not happen anymore. That's what concerns me. Too bad!

THE CHRISTMAS TALE OF TOM DOUBT

I thought that today I would produce a CHRISTMAS video just for kids, but it can be for parents and grandparents as well...Heck, even aunts and uncles can listen, if they promise to be very quiet! The story of "Litle Tom Doubt" is one of my favorites and I hope you enjoy it too. As I say, the video can be shared, but if there is enough interest I will post the text and you can play the role of storyteller at an appropriate time and place. (Be sure to watch full screen.)

A PASSING THOUGHT ABOUT GIVING -- AND RECEIVING

Many years ago Mark Twain wrote the following Christmas Holiday message in a New York City daily newspaper:

"It is my heart-warm and world-embracing Christmas hope and aspiration that all of us -- the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the admired, the despised, the loved, the hated, the civilized, the savage -- may eventually be gathered together in a heaven of everlasting rest and peace and bliss -- except the inventor of the telephone."

I daresay if Twain were alive today, he might instead deny "everlasting rest and peace and bliss" to the inventors of Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok! Of course, the Good News of the Christmas Event is that there are no exceptions to God's Love for His human creatures -- not even the inventors of social media. 

Christmas was not just a starlit night in Bethlehem; it in essence, has existed from the beginning of time.

*There was Christmas in the heart of God when He made the earth and then gave it away to mankind.

*There was Christmas in the heart of God when He sent us His prophets.

*There was Christmas in the heart of God when He sent His Son to earth and gave Him to the world.

As Jesus grew up, there was Christmas wherever He went -- in his giving sight, giving food, giving life -- for Christmas is "giving.

But, here's the catcher. Christmas is also for receiving. In John's Gospel, it is written, "... to all who received Him ... He gave power to become children of God." (John 1:12).

"To all who received Him": When we take those words seriously, we begin to understand that receiving can be just as important as giving. It is when we genuinely receive the gift of Christ that we truly experience the gift that is Christmas and, ideally, we share that gift with others.

There is a little Nativity story that says, "On Christmas Day an enchantment falls upon the earth -- a time when the Spirit of a newborn Child whose Name is Love possesses the world." The way to Christmas, says the story, "lies through an ancient gate, guarded by angels, with stardust in their hair. It is a little gate, child-high, and there is a password: 'Peace on earth to all women and men of goodwill.'"

NOTE:  I hope I do not come across as being preachy with "Passing Thoughts." My intention is that these posts, often with a twist, serve only as reinforcement -- yours and mine.

THE STORY OF THE CHRISTMAS POTATO IN MY FAMILY

For a lot of people the world over, the common ordinary potato has special and differing meanings this time of year.

St. Mikulas Day in the Czech Republic, for instance, is when trios of people dressed as an angel, a devil, and St. Nicholas walk around handing out candy to children who sing a song or recite a poem. Later, when people have house parties, the devil covered in coal dust will show up in Santa’s place, thus terrifying little children. The children must sing a song for the devil to prove they’ve been good, otherwise they get a potato and the devil threatens to take them back to hell in his potato sack. Kind of a mean-spirited tradition, in my mind.

I’m not sure what potatoes have to do with sin, but no "normal" kid (me excluded) wants a potato for Christmas, all of which reminds me of a rather unique story just between me, my grandfather and my youngest daughter Cindy.

My grandfather Nelson Perry grew up in an impoverished large family in the 1860s. He was the youngest of eight siblings raised virtually singlehandedly by his widowed mother. He frequently enthralled me with stories of life on a humble Upper Canada homestead in rural Middlesex (near Ingersoll).

My childish heart would ache every time he repeated his "Christmas potato" story.

It seems that one Christmas when Nelson was only four or five years of age, his mother had no money to spend on gifts for her kids so she broke a stick of candy into eight pieces and placed each one into a stocking along with a potato, the only other edible she had left in the house.

The eight stocking-stuffer potatoes, of course, subsequently went into a pot of broth for that evening's Christmas dinner.

Hence, a tradition was born.

Thanks to the fun nature of my granddad and mother, every Christmas that I can remember I too received a potato, always in the toe of my stocking, hung by the fireplace with care. The only difference being that I would also receive an orange, along with a half dozen other play trinkets and, naturally, the customary candy cane. Family laughter and applause always ensued when the last thing I pulled out of my stocking was the anticipated potato, in all its glorious splendor.

Debbie and Cindy mailing their
letters to the North Pole.

It seemed fitting, that I would continue the potato tradition with my daughters when they came along. The oldest girl, Debbie, accepted it in good fun but it was a different story for my youngest Cindy who was not in the least impressed.

Justifiably convinced that she had been a good girl all year, she simply could not understand why she was getting a potato in her stocking and promptly cast it aside with disgust. The scowl on her three-year-old face and the assumed insult that went along with it, expressed it all. Tradition does not always compute in a small mind.

Needless to say, discretion dictated that we thereafter put an end to the Christmas potato tradition in the Wright household.

Funny, but I miss the old pock-marked spud in my stocking, even to this day! As I was setting up the stocking photo at the top of this post, I thought to myself, "Hey, that potato can be my gift to myself this year!" A meaningful symbol of Christmases past.

Then I'll have it for Christmas dinner...A gift that keeps giving!

LET THE SUNHINE IN AND YOUR LIGHT SHINE OUT

Skip the ads and Let the Sunshine In, a classic version.

You may have read about the small Norwegian town of Rjukan (pronounced roo-kahn) which was in the news a few years ago.

Situated between steep mountains, for six months every year the little town is shrouded in semi-darkness as the great peaks cast their shadows over the terrain below. And during the winter months, the only way the residents of the town can get a dose of sunlight is to take a cable car ride to the top of a nearby ridge. That is, until one cold October day when the entire village assembled to witness a miraculous event -- for the first time ever faint rays from the winter sun reached the town’s market square!

But how did it happen? What brought the town out of the shadows and into the light? 

Believe it or not, a local artist devised a plan to install three giant mirrors high on the mountain. The solar-powered, computer-controlled mirrors steadily track the movement of the sun across the sky, reflecting its rays down onto the square and bathing it in bright sunlight. And now, finally, Rjukan has found its place in the sun!

On that October day, to mark the occasion of the mirrors' dazzling debut, a band performed the popular song, “Let the Sunshine In.” The cheering town's people -- some on beach chairs and donning sunglasses -- watched that first moment as the sun crept from behind a cloud to hit the mirrors and reflect down onto their families, neighbors, and friends below.

Said one woman who witnessed that first light, “Before when it was a fine day, you knew that the sky was blue, and you knew that the sun was shining. But you couldn’t quite see it. It was very frustrating. And now this feels warm," she beamed. "It will be lovely to come out for an hour and feel this warmth on my face.”

Very soon we will be celebrating the birth of Jesus -- the moment of passage from the Old Testament Tradition to the New. And as we hear the Lord Jesus proclaimed as the "Light of the World," we remember that all through our religious history the symbol of light has been used to symbolize the Divine.

We anticipate with joy the coming of Christmas. When the Christmas Season comes around, we are attracted to the Light of Christ. We find comfort in the sunshine of Christmas goodwill. But when the holy day is over, we tend to put the Christmas Spirit back on "hold" again. And in so doing, we thwart the very purpose of Christmas. In giving His Son as the Light of the World, God's purpose is to transform us into children of light, giving us the power to radiate His Love from moment-to-moment, and for a lifetime.

At the conclusion of a seminar conducted by the Greek Philosopher, Doctor Alexander Papaderos, someone asked: “Doctor Papaderos, what is the meaning of life?” The usual laughter followed, and people started to leave. Papaderos held up his hand and stilled the room. “I will answer your question,” he said. Then, he brought out a very small round mirror, about the size of a quarter, saying ...

Are we prepared to search for the Light of the World through the darkness of tears, fears, heartaches and disappointments? Are we prepared to let the Light flow into every crevice of our soul so intensely that it will radiate into our households, and beyond into the neighborhood and the world? 

A little girl was visiting a beautiful cathedral with her aunt. It was late afternoon and the sun’s rays were streaming through a stained-glass window that featured the figures of several saints. The little girl pointed to one of the figures standing out in the strong light and asked, “Who is that?” “That’s Saint Peter,” the aunt replied. Then pointing to another, the girl asked who that one was. “That’s Saint John,” was the reply.

When she pointed to still another she was told, “That’s Saint James.” Then, with a sigh of satisfaction, the little girl said, “Well, now I know what a saint is. A saint is somebody the light shines through.”

Christmas is just a few days away. We can begin today to let the light of the Lord shine through as we offer the peace of the Christ Child to our families and neighbors -- wherever they may be? Why not begin today to journey step-by-step to where the Light of the World is leading us? Why not begin today to light up the world with the love that is flowing into every crevice of our souls!

I'm sure you know the feeling. Don't hold it back!

ALL THE PLACES I DO NOT GO TO ANYMORE

Where to go in my world now that I've eliminated so many places?

Do you have places you don't go to anymore? I have lots of 'em!

In no special order:

I am no longer concerned that generally, I sense that I am not liked as much as I like...You can't go around making people like you. It is phoney to try...I just do not go there anymore.

I have given up the naive notion that I can save the world...I do not go there anymore.

I used to fret over the fact that I am not as smart as I would like to be and that I have never fully excelled at any one thing, as hard as I may have tried...I simply do not go there anymore.

I used to be nostalgically attached to the place of my birth, but after 65 years a lot of water has passed under the (Sydenham) bridge. There is nothing nor anyone to draw me back and memories can only take you so far...I literally do not go there anymore.

With the passing of time and life unfolding the way it has, I have struggled with being deprived of a special soul mate -- that someone to love and to share tender moments with...Sadly, I choose not to go there anymore. 

Similarly, I accept the fact that I'm not as good as I used to be, physically speaking. As a matter of fact, I am convinced that I would not even be as good once as I ever was...Discretion wisely tells me that there is no use even trying to go there anymore. 

Unlike in the past, I do not sweat the small stuff...I do not go there anymore.

I refuse to let unreasonable people get under my skin. It is hopeless...I do not go there anymore.

I have given up advocating against bigotry and discrimination. I had little influence anyway...I do not go there anymore.

As a voice in the wilderness, I refuse to get worked up about politics and the state of the world, pro or con...For the good of my emotional well-being, I do not go there anymore.

To no particular avail, I have beaten social horses to death...There is nothing to be gained by going there anymore.

While conscious of the kind of food I eat, I no longer feel it necessary to follow a strict diet. Life is just too short.  The writing is already on the wall for me...Meantime, I'd rather not go there anymore.

With coronavirus hanging over us, I'd dearly love to go to church, drop into Tim Horton's for a coffee, shake hands with a friend, give someone a hug, or celebrate Christmas with my family -- all the things heretofore taken for granted -- but the imposition of distancing, coupled with discretion and common sense, dictate otherwise...Better I just not go there, at least for the time being.

I am not concerned about dying...I'm not ready to go there yet either!

I suppose too that I should give up trying to write the great Canadian novel, but that's another place I'm not ready to go yet...After all, what else would I do with all the time I have left on my hands now that I don't go many places anymore?

REFLECTIONS OF GROWING UP IN THE HAIR BUSINESS

Ken's tools of the trade.

My father Ken Wright was both a barber and a hairdresser. He apprenticed with a Dresden, ON barber by the name of Fay Craig in 1917 and moved on to Detroit, Mi where he barbered at the Detroiter Hotel and later the J. L. Hudson Company department store where my mother Grace just happened to work in the hosiery section. The Wrights moved back to Chatham, ON in 1936 where they opened a downtown Beauty Salon. My folks eventually sold the business and moved back to the Wright homestead in Dresden shortly after I was born, and Ken resumed barbering in the town from whence he came.

I

KEN WRIGHT

have always taken more than a passing interest in hair, due primarily I guess, to the fact that my father Ken was a lifetime barber and hairstylist. He operated Wrights Beauty Salon on King Street West in Chatham, ON for a 10-year period, and commuted daily from our home in nearby Dresden. For much of that time it was a matter of routine that my mother Grace and I would travel to work with him on Saturdays.

While my mother did her weekly grocery shopping at the Loblaws store just below my dad's shop and attended to other matters, I was left to put in time looking at magazines, sorting out brushes, combs, clips, curlers and sweeping up hair from the floor around four hair-dressing stations. My day was broken up with a highlight visit to the Blue Bird Restaurant for lunch where I developed an addiction for liver and bacon.

With an average of a half dozen customers at any given time on a busy Saturday, the beauty shop was a beehive of activity as four attendants, in addition to my dad, hustled from chair to chair and hairdryer to hairdryer. The hum of constant chitchat and the smell of hairdressing chemicals linger with me to this day.

It'll only be another 50 minutes girls!

My dad developed a number of permanent styles and specialized in hair cutting and finger waves. He was especially known for his neat and tapered neckline cuts at a time when shorter hair was becoming popular. He also introduced manicuring, marcelling, scalp treatment and tinting to the fair ladies of Chatham.

The "permanent" was big business in the late 30's and early 40's and its importance can be gauged if one considers that the majority of middle-class women, at a rough estimate, had their hair set once a week and permed perhaps once every three months as new hair replaced the waved hair. Meanwhile, hairdressers sought to improve the process and reduce the work involved; this meant savings at the lower end of the market and yet more women getting their hair permed. This was also stimulated by pictures of the rich and famous, particularly film stars, who all had their hair permed.

It was kind of a glamorous era, no question.

I seemed to pick up a lot about the business through the process of osmosis during those formative years. But heaven help me if I ever entertained thoughts of going into the field myself...Both my parents would have killed me! LOL

A finger wave was a method of setting hair into waves (curls) that was popular in the 1920s and 1930s and again in the late 1990s in North America and Europe. Silver screen actresses such as Bette Davis and Anita Page are credited with the original popularity of finger waves. In their return in the 1990s, the style was popularized by pop stars like Madonna, and Hip Hop stars of the time, such as Missy Elliott. The popularity of finger waves in the 1990s was aided by a movement toward shorter, more natural hair in the African-American community.

A complimentary cardboard fan
given to all Wrights Beauty Salon
customers having to sit under the
heat of hairdryers.

The process involved pinching the hair between the fingers and combing the hair in alternating directions to make an "S" shape wave. A waving lotion was applied to the hair to help it retain its shape. The lotion was traditionally made using karaya gum, but more modern styles often use liquid styling gels or hairspray. Over the years, the use of clips (and later tape) also became popular to hold the heavy damp waves until the gel dried.

The Chatham business was severely impacted toward the end of WW2 with the introduction of the Toni Home Permanent that offered women an inexpensive alternative to the cost of professional hairdressing. For Ken, the writing was soon on the wall and he sold the business to private interests in 1945.

He then resumed cutting men's hair back in Dresden by joining an old friend by the name of Jim Ford who also operated a billiard hall in conjunction with his establishment (combined barbershops and pool rooms were not uncommon in those days). 

Still, it was not unusual to see a woman, draped with a towel in my dad's barber chair while having a trademark neck trim, or several town "toughs" sitting with curlers in their hair and unperturbed by curious onlookers, courtesy of a finger wave that had suddenly become popular with fashion-conscious young males -- perhaps due to Ken Wright's persuasion. Uni-sex hairstyling in the early stages, you say?

My dad always claimed that he "cut my hair curly", although I too was subjected to more than one of his finger wave and booster tonic sets -- always in the back kitchen of our home.

Ken had to give up barbering in 1951 as a result of a heart condition. He died a year later in his 53rd year. 

At 14-years-of-age, I got my hair cut for the first time outside of my home by the aforementioned Jim Ford who could not stop crying, start to finish...Poor Jim, it was the worst haircut I ever had! He charged me full price though...Again, the first time I ever paid for a haircut.

I never went back to that shop. Nothing about haircuts was ever the same!

A NOTE BY MY MOTHER APPEARING IN "OUR BABY BOOK".

I can truly say that my life has been a hair-raising experience!

A TRUE VISIONARY: POW MAJOR SPENT SEVEN YEARS MENTALLY PREPARING HIS GOLF GAME

Major James Nesmith was a man who had a vision for improving his golf game.

Just an average player, he developed a unique method of transforming his vision into reality. But for seven years he didn't play even a single hole of golf. He didn't touch a golf club or step onto a course. Ironically, it was during this seven-year break that Major Nesmith came up with his amazingly effective technique for improving his game — an approach we can all learn from. And the first time he set foot on a golf course after his seven-year layoff, he shot an astonishing round of 74. 

Using only his mind, he slashed 20 strokes off his previous best score of 94.

While that accomplishment alone would pique the interest of any golfer today, the truly remarkable part of the story is that Major Nesmith spent those seven years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. During those seven years, he saw no one, spoke to no one, experienced no physical contact with anyone. And during those dark, dark days he realized he needed to occupy his mind or he would lose it. So he learned how to visualize.

In his mind, he had a vision of a splendid golf course and began playing a full 18 holes every day -- right down to the smallest detail. He mentally dressed, smelled the grass, and surveyed the trees. He experienced different weather conditions, and, in this creative mode, he followed the course from hole-to-hole. He felt the grip of the club. He practiced his downswing and his follow-through. It was as though he was physically on the course. And, it took him just as long to play the virtual course as it would in reality. Seven days a week, four hours a day, 18 holes, for seven years! In a very real sense, we can say Major Nesmith was a true visionary who spent seven years as a prisoner of war preparing for the day he would be released from captivity.

Shifting gears slightly, perhaps for some of us, one way to have prepared appropriately for the current Advent Season would have been to spend some time in the "penitentiary." I use the word "penitentiary" in its original sense, not in the sense Major Nesmith experienced it. 

For a long time in certain churches, there was a strong emphasis on the need for repentance. A person working on repentance in his or her life was given some form of penance to perform. It might have been fasting for two or three days or a lengthy period of prayer. It was understood that it would be difficult for the person to perform the penance amid his or her usual routine and consequently, the Church was equipped with a room where penitents could be apart from their busy lives and concentrate on the work of repentance. The place provided for this purpose was called the "penitentiary." It is obvious how our modern use of the word evolved. 

Perhaps we could use a penitentiary in today's Church.

Ordinarily, we think of the Lenten Season as the time to concentrate on repentance, but if we are true to the Gospels' spirit, we can see that it actually begins with Advent. 

It has been said that nothing in the entire Biblical Message is more thoroughly resisted and rejected by modern man than its insistence on the need for repentance. All the Biblical authors agree that repentance is the first step into the fullness of our humanity. 

Unfortunately, we have trouble accepting the need to repent because we have taken the bait of some contemporary psychiatrists and others who tell us that repentance is a form of illness or weakness. As a result we become adept in the art of burying the past before we actually claim it and come to terms with it.

All of which takes us back to my previous post on Wrights Lane, "You Can't Move Forward While Fixated on the Past" (see below).

YOU CAN'T MOVE FORWARD WHILE FIXATED ON THE PAST

While some of it does not knit all that well together, this post was an internal rationale in claiming the past in order to move forward with the future.

I think about the past a lot.

In truth, I have a lot of the past to think about!

To make matters worse, I am a nostalgist of the highest order and I deal with history in much of my writing.

But in all seriousness, it does not hurt to look back on our lives from time to time as a reminder of where we came from, and how far we have traveled to get to where we are today. I do so philosophically and careful not to beat myself up over some of the things that went wrong, or that might have been done differently if I had a chance to do some of it over again.

I once heard about a gifted doctor who talked about an operation he had performed on a young boy to remove a tumor from his eye. He said the tumor turned out to be an undeveloped embryo of the boy's twin. Apparently, as unusual as it may seem, that occurrence is not too uncommon and is a graphic example of the fact that each one of us, metaphorically speaking, may well carry a tumor inside of us that is part of the past.

It is interesting to note that the inventor of penicillin never revealed his findings until a colleague came upon them many years later and released the well-kept secret to the world. It seems that the father of the gifted Scottish research scientist Alexander Fleming kept telling him as a boy to "keep still!" and this so influenced the youngster that he found it almost impossible to speak out, even when he had discovered one of the great healing drugs of all time.

Had Flemming felt free to release his discovery when he first made it, many more lives could have been saved and I am sure in retrospect that must have weighed heavily on him.

Anyone who has engaged in an adventure of self-discovery will come to realize that nowhere will you find a better resource than in your past. There is a vast treasure there and it can be mined and made to work in one's favor.

It is so easy, however, to get caught up in our successes and achievements and memories of happy(er) times. But we ere if we rest too much on our laurels. In fact, it is also a mistake to label the past as either good or bad...All of our past can be useful to us. We learn especially from the things we have done to, and for, other people. We do not need to be condemned by such old memories, but we can explore them in building our lives as they are meant to be.

In my mind, the shape of our present and our future does indeed lie in claiming the past. In so doing, we may somehow let go of those things from the past that are both painful and oddly enough -- dear to us. The late Karl Olsson frequently said that one of the great acts of faith in the Bible is found in Genesis where Abraham buried Sarah. There we hear Abraham saying, "give me property among you for a burying place that I may bury my dead out of sight."

So often we do not bury the dead "out of sight." We keep them alive in our memory in an unhealthy way. We keep living with the dead to our own detriment.

Abraham was able to place his beloved Sarah in the cave of Machpelah and to say "our life together is over," and move on. This was how he honored Sarah. The past was claimed by allowing it to go.

As difficult as it was at the time, I have been there and done that...More than once!

And I am left with memories, neither good nor bad. Just memories.

They do not define me.

JUST IN CASE YOU HAVE A MINUTE...

WRIGHTS LANE : FROM ME TO YOU...NO FACE MASKS REQUIRED:   Full-screen view recommended

ON BEING BORN AGAIN, SPIRITUALLY SPEAKING

Here's the thing...We were all born innocent and completely dependant on the world to educate us, for better or worse. As babies we knew nothing of hate and prejudices, rather we were exposed to them from the environment in which we were raised. 

In the beginning, we also inherited all kinds of things that we can do nothing about. We inherit our identity, our history, like a birthmark that can't be washed off. It is as if we have to earn our own innocence all over again. In essence, it is what being "born again" is all about.

Essentially, being born again refers to spiritual birth. It describes what happens when you commit your life to Jesus and become his follower. All of us came into this world by natural, physical birth. Being born physically makes us human beings. Being born spiritually (born again) makes us children of God, members of God’s family, part of God’s kingdom.

Think of it this way: just as when a man and a woman come together in an act of love that gives birth to a physical baby, so when the Spirit of God comes together with the spirit of a man or woman in an act of love, a spiritual birth takes place. At that point you become a new person.

Choosing not to quote scripture to support my thesis (a little dab'l do ya anyway) but on this, another quiet Sabbath of coronavirus withdrawal and putting in idle time, my friend I simply ask: Have you earned your innocence?

You don't have to go to church for that!

WE'RE ALL COLLECTORS, YOU HAVE MY WORD FOR IT

I'm a collector of things from away back. And I have crammed files, boxes, drawers and shelves to show for it.

I furthermore believe that every Human Being on this planet is a collector. Each of us stepped into the World, ready and eager to collect. We began our First Collection, not long after we were born. And we all began by collecting the same thing: WORDS!

We started collecting words as soon as we could talk. And each of our collections has continued to grow, throughout our lifetime. Like any major collection, it grew very fast, at first. But as our collections became more advanced, new words, rare words, and words we had never heard before, became harder to find to add to the collection.

And we store our collection of words in our heads. I sometimes wonder how they are organized in there. I can't quite visualize it, but I have tried. The arrangement must be quite efficient, for, most of the time, I know exactly where each word I want is stored, ready to use at a split second's notice. Sometimes, I will misplace a word, and I must dig around to find it, not always with success. I thought I knew where I had put it. In fact, the last time I looked for it, it was on the tip of my tongue.

The person, who had the world’s biggest collection of words, might well have been Noah Webster. He displayed the words in his collection in a rather unimaginative way, neatly lined up in alphabetical order, on shelves of equal size, in something called a Dictionary.

Others display their collection of words in more creative ways, arranging them in infinitely unique combinations. Their displays can move, inspire, enlighten, entertain and delight. They can make the viewer see things that they have never noticed and think thoughts that they never thought before

William Shakespeare is a good example of someone who displayed his collection well. He illustrates the premise that how a collection is displayed matters! The commonest words can appear beautiful when well displayed. And by the same token, a poor arrangement can make even the rarest and most beautiful words seem dull.

I always found it fascinating to hear an old politician of my acquaintance, talk. As he brought out the biggest and best words in his collection, some of which had, obviously, been broken, and amateurishly restored, he seemed to savor each word slowly, carefully pronouncing it, and enjoying every syllable, as if he was discovering it for the first time. 

I'm kind of funny this way, but I recapture the joy I once felt the first time I beheld a favorite trinket in my diversified collection, and relive that all too fleeting feeling of initial delight and excitement, each time I bring it out.

Thank God for my collection of trinkets in life, and words too. I never get too old to play with them, much to my delight...and occasional satisfaction in pride of authorship

ON DEALING WITH THE UGLY TREND OF INFLUENCING THE PUBLIC MASSES IN TODAY'S WORLD

I was thinking earlier today, in a moment of self-introspection, that it is nearly impossible to maintain a calm, rationality about the world in which we live. I suppose that honest admission should have upset me...But, strangely, it didn't!

I, like so many, have rather reluctantly come to accept life in today's world as it is, and as confusing and mind-boggling as it has become. It is like co-existing with a monster destined to devour us if we are not careful.

Personally, if after a lifetime of trying in earnest to figure things out, I can now make a concession of that nature, it is just as well that I accept the fact that a lot of life will continue to be a psychological challenge in the short time I have left on planet earth. The key will be in a healthy attitude toward it all and intelligent relegation on merit.

It seems to me though that life in general was so much easier when we could believe conclusively in things, our institutions in particular -- media, business, government, science, religion. Back then, we had clear-cut enemies. There were perceived enemies like communism vs. capitalism. There was mutual assured destruction. Fascism was bad and democracy was good. The world generally made sense, and you could understand it. Everyone knew the balance of power. Before character assassination reared its nasty head, we actually had leaders we respected and who were worthy of our trust. It appeared to be a much simpler world.

Bottom line, society today is the way it is because it is being overexposed to a steady diet of influence-peddling in several, closely related, forms.

Sadly, we are becoming victims of something I call deliberate public mass confusion. George Orwell referred to it as a necessary task for the rulers in a totalitarian society: “to dislocate the sense of reality.”

The mainstream media contribute to this daily. Think of their reporting of some recent news and ask yourself what exactly have they said? Gibberish piled upon gibberish, that’s what they’ve said. A salmagundi of contradictory verbiage that leaves a half-way sentient person shaking one’s head in astonishment. Or leaves one baffled, devoid of any sense of the truth.

We have now entered a new phase of propaganda where sowing mass confusion on every issue 24/7 is the method of choice. We have only to look south of the border for evidence of that.

But therein lies hope if we can grasp the meaning of Oscar Wilde’s paradoxical statement: “When both a speaker and an audience are confused, the speech is profound.”

Reduced to having to accept someone else's word for virtually everything we know, or questions that resultantly come to mind, the challenge now, as I see it, is to make the best of what lies ahead, come what may. And taking most of what we see and hear under advisement.

We must remember that, ideally, we live in an age of enlightenment, in the belief that the entire universe is open to our inspection and more than this, that it is theoretically all intelligible to us if we just apply enough science and enough rationality.

That we can wrest a comfortable life from the Earth is nothing special. Plants and animals do this without resorting to colleges, symposia or research laboratories. And, humans used to do it without these things as well. Ancient Greeks, if they survived childhood diseases, war and the occasional plague, regularly managed to live into their 60s and 70s among balmy Mediterranean breezes. It’s not that there hasn’t been any progress; it’s just that we may not have made as much progress as we think.

And yet, in the age of Big Data we have become ever more enamored with the representations of the world that we gather in the form of numbers and words, believing (wrongly) that the map is the territory.

This is the conundrum of the modern world. The world is so complex that it seems hopeless to try to understand how all things human and natural work together. We live in an age that calls out for explanations of nature and society that provide something genuinely revelatory to the layperson. What we mostly get, however, is hucksterism and public relations, information designed to mislead rather than clarify. Under the circumstances, we are lucky if we occasionally discover a small and perhaps fleeting truth.

This is the other ugly side of deliberate mass confusion that I was talking about.

We often believe that the explainers know what they are talking about because they speak with such conviction. The economists, the analysts, the technical geniuses, the captains of industry, the billionaires, the airwave pundits, they must know something we don’t or they wouldn’t be that successful. But what they know isn’t necessarily what they are telling us. And, what they are telling us is, in any case, almost always designed to advance interests of others, not ours.

We're continually sold bills of goods, biases and self-serving personal opinion, all under the guise of news of the day perpetrated by clever, professional media manipulators.

In such a complex, contradictory world that on the surface seems to be stacked against any rational reasoning then, how shall we get through the day? In my mind, it is best to start from humble premises:

-- Our social relations, our loves and friendships, are more important than anything else because they are our true anchors in an uncertain world. Embrace the reality of it!

-- The longer a practice or design has been around, say, a book versus an e-reader, the longer it is likely to be around. It has endured the test of time, if you know what I mean.

-- Just because the world is uncertain doesn’t mean it is implacably hostile. Sometimes good things come from an uncertain future if we are wise enough to have patience and to be on the lookout for them.

-- Avoid gullibility. Take into consideration the source of all  information. It is okay to be skeptical until an issue is proven to have merit to your satisfaction.

-- Know BS for what it is and relegate it to the nearest garbage dispensary.

-- Be diligent. Do your homework.

-- Pray a lot!

None of these principles will deliver you from all of life’s difficulties and annoyances. But they can help you counter the exploitation we've been talking about.

We should never stop asking questions and looking for reasoned answers. Turning down the dial is not indicative of a loss of interest, rather it can be a go-to measure of self-preservation. 

Sometimes too, we just need to have faith that truth and common good will prevail, as it usually does.

BRONZED BABY SHOES COMMEMORATE MY FIRST STEPS

I've been on a nostalgia kick the last few days, telling tales and posting photographs from my growing up days. primarily in the 1940s. I'm not making any rash promises but this item will be the last in this series -- for now.

I'm not sure when I took my first tentative baby step(s) but it was probably in the spring of 1939 and I wore the very shoes shown in the above photo. It was only a matter of months before I outgrew them and that was a signal for my mother to promptly send them away to the United States for bronzing, thus preserving them for posterity.

Obviously well worn, the bronzed baby shoes remain just as they were when I last wore them -- complete with broken laces tied together and both keeling slightly outward (the left one more than the right). One even had a ripped seam.

When it comes to sentimental value, few novelty items carry as much weight as bronzed baby shoes. These adorable little pieces of footwear, immortalized in a rich patina, commemorate not only a child’s first steps, but one of the first major accomplishments in the formative years, much to the delight of very proud parents. Actually the monumental occasion may be tied with the first spoken word as the highlight of a child's first dozen or so months of life. 

Though the process of bronzing items started around 5,000 years ago, it wasn’t until 1930 when Violet Shinbach noticed a pair of bronzed baby shoes in a department store and inspiration struck. By 1934, her company, the American Bronzing Company, began producing bronzed baby shoes and marketing them as the ultimate keepsake. She went door to door, targeting homes that looked as though they had small children and pitching her product to young mothers. Demand for these novelty items boomed as word-of-mouth traveled. By the 1970s, the American Bronzing Company was bronzing 2,000 pairs of shoes a day.

It wasn’t how cute the little bronzed baby shoes at the department store were that struck Shinbach; it was the sentiment they embodied. Baby shoes, as I say, lend a nostalgic nod toward a significant childhood event. While all firsts are significant in a child’s life, the first steps mark the beginning of a new era. The moment that first step is made, they’re no longer babies. Bronzing their shoes captured this moment in time and freezes it forever.

Bronzed baby shoes were wildly popular when Shinbach brought the idea to the public, but the excitement of these tiny keepsakes peaked in the 1970s. However, their popularity began to wane. Door-to-door sales and retail catalogs sent by mail carried these novelty items until the 1990s, where they all but became a lost art.

It wasn’t until recently that bronzed baby shoes started making a comeback, in large part due to social media. Parenting groups on Facebook and creative digital marketing of these perfectly Instagrammable little keepsakes, helped revive this sentimental tradition, though it came a little too late for the American Bronzing Company, which closed its doors for good in 2018. However, there are plenty of companies that still provide the service today. And, the popularity is growing, despite the minimalist mindset that seems to have taken over in many homes.

A quick online search revealed several different companies with varying price ranges for the service today. Bronzery charges $65 for a single, unmounted baby shoe to be bronzed. Memories in Bronze charges $130 for a pair of children’s shoes to be bronzed, up to 6″ in length.

The prices can go up from there, as most companies who offer bronzing also offer to plate the mementos in silver or gold as well (at a higher price of course).

I wish I knew how much my mother paid to have my baby shoes bronzed 80 years ago. To me though, they are priceless.

SELLING SHOES NOT DEMEANING FOR JOHNNY EVANS

How many people do you know today who are disciplined enough to work hard at a job they do not particularly enjoy, or which they did not personally select, or are not professionally qualified for?

Not many, I suspect...

Well, I'm here to tell you about a guy named Johhny Evans, a pretty good football player. It's the kind of story that appeals to me because it epitomizes character.

Johnny was an all-American punter and quarterback who played college football at North Caroline State University. When he graduated, he was drafted by the Clevland Browns of the National Football League. He played three seasons with the Browns before being traded to the Buffalo Bills who released him after only six weeks with the team.

Naturally devastated, Johnny spent the first Fall in 17 years not playing his beloved football.

Johnny Evans

At the time of his release, he was married and had family responsibilities. While his college degree equipped him for a good career, he could not immediately find a job in the field. Instead of feeling sorry for himself or accepting handouts from friends, or refusing to work at a job well below his qualifications, Johnny went to work selling shoes at a sporting goods store for minimum wages.

His wife said that in the evening when she would pick him up at work she would find him vacuuming the store's floor or down on his knees at the feet of an eight-year-old, fitting the child with a pair of soccer shoes.

Within a year, however, Johnny received the opportunity to continue his football career with the Montreal Concordes (1982-'83) and Edmonton Eskimos (1984'85) of the Canadian Football League. He would play a total of four seasons in the CFL, utilizing both his kicking and quarterbacking skills. He not only got back the football job he wanted and trained so hard for, but he had the satisfaction of maintaining the support of his family through his dedication to holding down a job, no matter how menial, during a low point in his life.

While friends may have felt it demeaning for someone of Johnny's stature to work as a shoe clerk, he knew it was an honorable position. And he believed it was much more desirable than to disregard God's pattern for the discipline of his life by not working at all.

You see, since 16 years-of-age Johnny had been a committed Christian. After his football career ended he became a color commentator for North Carolina State football games, but more importantly, he also became the Eastern NC director for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Johnny and his wife, Beth, still co-lead an FCA Adult Chapter Bible Study for nearly 800 people in the Triangle community of Durham, North Carolina.

The Evans have four adult children—quadruplets—and three grandchildren.

Now you know the other side of the Johnny Evans story.

WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A TOO-FRIENDLY SHY GUY?

Just a reflection to start out. Beyond that, this post will develop itself as I write it. I do not have an ending in mind.

Back when I was about four years of age, I used to sit on the front steps of our home, beside two empty bottles with 75 cents  in them, waiting for our milk to be delivered by horse and wagon. The delivery man was a fellow by the name of Grant Whitmarsh.

One day Grant met my mother at the front door and in a hushed tone said "Too bad about your boy!"

"What do you mean?" was my mother's surprised reaction.

"Am I wrong in assuming that he is deaf and dumb?" Grant replied hesitatingly, going on to explain that every day he made it a point to speak to me but I had yet to acknowledge him in any way. "He never answers me back, never says a thing...It's as if he does not hear me."

"Oh, he hears you alright," my mother assured Grant..."He's just terribly shy!"

Me and my mom.

My mother's remark was an understatement. I WAS painfully shy! No one could pull me out of my shell. That was a job for me alone and it took almost a lifetime. I'm still pulling to a degree.

Perhaps it was destiny that I would be the only child born of parents in their late 30s and early 40s. I really do not know. What I do know is that I have always been my own best company (worst enemy?) and have learned to consistently step out of my comfort zone in order to be sociable and to function in a chosen communications environment which otherwise demanded the utilization of personal skills and interests.

Certainly, I have found out the hard way that shyness is a psychological state that causes a person to feel discomfort in social situations in ways that interfere with enjoyment or which cause avoidance of social contacts altogether. I have fought it and compensated for it all my life. Evidence also suggests a genetic component to shyness and studies on the biological basis of shyness have shown that shyness in adults can often be traced as far back as the age of three, as in my case.

As my life unfolded, I learned ways of overcoming shyness and feeling comfortable in my own skin but it was a slow process, along the way often being seen as aloof and stuck-up. Through it all, however, was a strong inner desire to be accepted and liked but often left with a feeling that I was falling short of expectations -- mine and others. I longed to be outgoing like other kids and was conscious of my awkwardness. Something as simple as greeting others on the street was a big issue for me and I would practice privately at saying a convincing "hi" as opposed to the stiff and formal "hello" which was often the best I could come up with.

After strained conversations, I would think of a dozen things I could have said and would rehearse responses for possible future applications. Spontaneity did not come naturally. It was hard work overcoming personal shortcomings in the unnatural yet chosen environments of retail clothing sales, newspaper reporting, and ultimately professional communications and public relations.

I understand now (too little too late perhaps) that my formative modus operandi may have been faulty and ill-conceived. Because I lacked siblings in real life (for some reason I would have given my eye teeth for a big sister), I began to accept others as the brothers and sisters I never had and approached them from that perspective. And for a period that actually worked for me. That is, until a new issue presented itself...I frequently bridged the relationship gap too quickly and before the other party(s) really got to know me sufficiently. In short, I became too friendly too fast, saying and doing things that were not necessarily accepted in the manner in which they were intended.

Along the way I had to realize that "I am kind of a funny guy" and that humor was a great ice breaker. To this day, however, I have to remind myself that there is a fine line between teasing and sarcasm, and a little of both goes a long way.

Succinctly, I didn't know how to be half friendly any more than I knew how to be a brother.

I too frequently lose potential friends because of the things I say, or the way I say them, and I die a thousand deaths with each would-be relationship that falls by the wayside. Facebook in particular has been a source of grief and unfortunate misunderstanding for me. And again, I am left second-guessing myself and wondering how I might have said something better or differently. Worse yet, a new twist question has been added to my conundrum...Would it have been better if I had not said anything at all?

But that takes me full circle, doesn't it? Not saying anything at all, like when I was four years of age.

Some of us, I guess, are destined to go through life not completely understanding -- and not completely being understood.

It is a lonely reality.

But why can't we all just be brothers and sisters? Or friends, at least -- concessionary, caring, comfortable, supportive and 'hug' conducive.

What’s The Single Best Thing You Can Do For Yourself Today? Try Letting Go Of Yourself Just a Little Bit

The Egoic Mind is a state of mind in which the ego is in control of your thoughts and emotions. The inflated ego or self-image is one thing, but the problem with this is the Egoic Mind is characterized by negative self-talk and unhelpful thinking patterns. It can lead us to feel dis-empowered, hopeless and pessimistic about our future.

This morning my attention was drawn to a piece written by fellow blogger David Gerken in which he answers the question "What can I do for myself today?"

An interesting thought that challenges one's perception of a rarely discussed subject.

There are, of course, a myriad of things we can do for ourselves each day, but Gerken believes that the healthiest thing you can do for yourself is to let go of yourself. What does he mean by that?

"First, by ‘yourself,’ I mean our egoic self. That’s the you that you’ve cobbled together for decades under the false assumption that it would protect you from the vagaries of life. It’s the you that feels the need to feel superior to others, that feels slighted at a verbal dig, that has to feel ‘right’ while everyone else is ‘wrong’," he emphasizes.

By contrast, spiritual seekers often believe they need to add to themselves. The truth is, we don’t need to add anything to ourselves. All we need to do is subtract from ourselves, namely subtract or let go of, our egoic selves. Simply stated, the beautiful, peaceful, compassionate conscious self within us all just needs all the egoic gunk smothering it to get out of the way.

Take it from people like the Buddha, whose central aim was elimination of the self, otherwise known as reaching a state of nirvana. Eckhart Tolle, Mickey Singer and a host of other spiritual heavyweights, past and present, also placed elimination of the egoic self at the top of the pyramid.

Recognizing when your egoic self is rearing its insidious head is the most important step in the whole process because we are so used to reacting to the demands our all-powerful egoic selves exact upon us that we don’t even realize when it’s happening. We’ve been acting like this our entire lives so it’s hard to catch ourselves. Bottom line: We have to devote significant attention to becoming aware when our egos act up.

Because it’s only then that we can get to the all-important step where we relax our minds and bodies for a short time and then let that small bubble of egoic self rise up and out of us, making us a little bit lighter, a little more awakened and just plain happier.

This all calls for a closer look at the matter of the egoic self.

Superiority and the Egoic Self: True power comes from your connection with the formless, non-temporal realm of pure consciousness, not the ego. It will not matter how much you achieve or acquire in life, when you're in the pursuit of power for the sake of feeling superior over others, you will only be living out the desires of your pseudo self. 

There is no denying that the feeling of superiority is euphoric to the egoic-minded. We see this all the time in the workplace when someone is suddenly put into a position of authority and as a result, a completely different personality emerges. The super humble co-worker of yours gets appointed to boss, and the ego, sensing power, comes out of hiding. The new power position goes completely to his or her head. In its extreme, egoic-minded superiority in people can be deadly because it elevates the ego to the point where the individual stakes their entire identity on what he or she has achieved.

Many egoic-minded individuals have been known to commit suicide after suddenly losing worldly forms such as success, power, or fame. Since all form is temporary, when you identify completely with forms, surfaces, or appearances, you have wrapped your entire sense of “I” around nothing more than dust in the wind.

In many world religions, the renunciate is an individual who renounces all earthly pleasures and becomes an ascetic, living an austere, simple life devoid of material things. But just because this individual has given up all material desires, it does not mean they have transferred the ego. Contrarily, the renunciate may even have an ego larger than a Wall Street banker.

What appears to be on the outside is not necessarily indicative to the size of the ego on the inside. Egos come in all shapes and sizes, and as the acronym version of the word suggests, “Everyone's Got One.” 

Don't get me wrong, ego is not all bad; it can serve as a tool. But if the tool is guiding the hand instead of the hand guiding the tool, that is where we can get in trouble. And a lot of humanity has gotten in serious difficulty by letting this tool run the show. This makes it particularly imperative that we take the time to go within and let go of our unconscious ego.

Many times people will adopt a particular lifestyle or belief system so that the ego can live out its need of feeling superior to others. Identification with a particular religion or even atheism can also serve the ego's desire to feel superior. As long as there is a group or tribal identification, the “I am right and you are wrong,” stance will support the feeling of superiority in the ego.

The ego pervades every field, religion, philosophy, science, art, nationality, race, class, profession, and social status. As long as the need to feel superior over anyone in any way is present, one will still remain trapped in the egoic mind.

Memo to self: Get over whatever is left of your ego! It can be a good thing to do for yourself today -- among other things. Certainly, none of it is worth killing yourself  over.