Letters 01-12-2015

Jan. 11, 2015

HIT SEND!

Love what we’re doing here?

Disagree with something you’ve read on these pages? Share your views with a quick letter to the editor by shooting us an email.

Our simple rules: Keep your letter to 300 words or less, send no more than one per month, include your name/address/phone number, and agree to allow us to edit. That’s it. Email info@northernexpress.com and hit send!

Thoughts on Aging

Sometimes I write about topics that a lot of us think about, but nobody writes about. Today, the topic is aging, and how we feel about it. Taboo topic, right? Nothing is off the table in my Baby Boomer mind, so here goes.

First, I think that women handle aging from a different perspective. We just returned from our annual visit to Florida to visit with our two daughters and their families. My grandson recently got married, and has two of my great-grandbabies. After listening to my wife and daughter talk about his new wife, I developed this saying: "Advice for Husbands: When the ladies are pecking, make sure that you don’t look like birdseed."

Men are expected to keep their mouths shut on how we feel. To fail in that regards is to feel the fingers of misguided estrogen closing around our throats.

My urologist said to me: "Why are you worried about that? Are you planning on making more babies?" His time will come. It happens to all of us.

Please write your own ending to this letter. Have a nice day and stand tall until the end.

William Scott, Traverse City

Jesus Was Real

My interest was piqued upon reading your Crossed column in the November 10 issue entitled, "Jesus: God Man or Good Man?" featuring Pastor Nick Twomey and Gary Singer. Like Gary, I was raised a Catholic. However, I will be forever grateful for the grace, strength, and direction that Catholicism has given my life for over 60 years.

In this article, Gary’s response to Pastor Nick was "The only confirmed written material from 30-70 CE are the epistles of Paul from the 50’s with little mention of Jesus."

Because this is not what I have believed and taught in 20 years of teaching Catechism, I decided to do a cursory review of the 14 Epistles of St. Paul. By my count, and I may have missed a few, I found 298 mentions of the name of Jesus or Christ. "Jesus Christ, Our Lord" was mentioned 55 times, 11 references to Jesus as "Son of God" and 6 references to "the God and Father of Our Lord, Jesus Christ." That’s a total of 370 mentions of or reference to Jesus.

Gary also wrote that there was no mention of any of Jesus’s miracles. According the New American Bible, the first letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, Chapter 15 states, "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures; that he was buried; that he was raised on the third day." What greater miracle can there be than to rise from the dead? Also, throughout these 14 Epistles, St. Paul makes repeated references to the miracle of being converted overnight from a zealous nationalistic Jew breathing murderous threats against disciples of the Lord to one of the greatest Christian missionaries of all times! Sounds like a miracle to me!

Jill Anderson, Cedar

Charity as Marketing

Tactic In Thomas Kachadurian’s recent guest opinion, "Real Charity," he explained how big businesses use charity contributions and community programs as marketing and public relations tools. I fully agree with his assessment, and feel the use of charity as a PR self-promotion for big companies is a disgrace.

Furthermore, I resent the idea of many big chain stores, such as Walgreens, Kmart, etc., asking customers for charity contributions at the register. Customers are asked to contribute to the store’s chosen charity either by direct contribution or by rounding up their change to the nearest dollar. If multi-million dollar chain stores want to contribute to a charity, they are free to do so. Therefore, why ask customers for money? The store gets the tax write-off and the credit for the contribution. Plus, customers have no proof of how much, if any, of their portion goes to the stated charity. Moreover, some customers feel put on the spot by this practice, and are too embarrassed to decline, though they may not want to contribute or can’t afford it.

Jean Wynn, Petoskey