God

Deborah R. Barnes, 60, of Winchester, wife of Lewis R. Barnes, passed away on Tues., Jan. 15, 2013, at the Clark Regional Medical Center. Mrs. Barnes was born in Winchester on Aug. 31, 1952, to the late Allen and Juanita McGlothen Rankin. She was a former mechanic for Raytheon and a member of the First Church of God - Colby Road.  In addition to her husband, she is survived by three children, Gary Barnes (Kara) of Nicholasville, Robbie Barnes (Hope) of Winchester and Kara Carter (David)

To take God out of any government meetings. How absurd!  And people ask why God allows disasters. You take prayers out of schools, bad things happen. You tell our leaders they can't have prayer at meetings, nothing good is accomplished. Seems now is the time to lift your head to God and ask his forgiveness for your actions. You need to pray for the souls trying to close God out of everything, when he could help us in these time of needs. I'm not from your county, but it still affects me the same.

Funeral services for Doris J. Blythe, 70, will be noon Friday at the Ark of Mercy Church of God at 240 Winn Ave. Visitation will begin at 10 a.m. Keith P. Clark & Son Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

The story of the birth of Jesus, as more often related from Luke's gospel, provides the well known details of an eventful time. Western civilization shares the common knowledge of this momentous happening, but the Asian world, while certainly aware of the history, is far less involved or intrigued with the birth of Jesus. The “Stable Story” has been pictured in many differing ways through the years and the manger scene has been deployed countless times on church yards, town squares, schools and private property.

On Dec. 14, 2012, pure evil visited Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. When news broke about the massacre that claimed the lives of 20 innocent children, I broke down. I wept long and hard until I had no more tears left. I have a big heart and a love for little children. This horrific event should never have happened. But it did. And things of this nature happen all too often in this country. I have asked this before. I ask it again now. What kind of nation have we become?

Gladys Marie Pumphrey Salyers, 35, of Hustonville, died Thursday, Dec. 20, at her residence.  Born Saturday, Aug. 20, 1977, in Somerset, Gladys was the daughter of James S. Pumphrey of Stanford and the late Dolores Ann Outcalt Pumphrey. She was a homemaker and attended Maxey Valley Church of God.  Other survivors include her husband, Glenn Edward Salyers, Jr.; sons, Eddie and Galen Salyers; daughters, Shelby and Erin Salyers; brothers, James W. (Doreen), Dennis A. (Melissa)

I, at the moment, am piled up in bed and mulling. It is one of my most favorite things to do. The thing is that when I mull for more than a few minutes, our precious cat Pierre thinks I'm either down for a nice nap or I am sick, both of which require his help. His help means he must lay his big ol' body on my chest, making any writing I am led to do really difficult. I will admit that I have pushed him off of me, thus freeing me to connect my pen to the paper. But again, I have to admit that “P” (my nickname for Pierre)

Recently I had a conversation with God and this is what we talked about. I told God, “Ah yes, America the beautiful.” “No, Susan, it is 20 beautiful American children dead,” God replied. “God Bless America - but let us keep our assault rifles! My country 'tis of thee …,” God heard me say. “No, Susan.” “Is that you, God? What? Love your neighbor? We fear our neighbors, so we need our Glocks?  “What? You haven't given us the spirit of fear?

There are some traumas that are so stunning and so crushing in their aberrant departure from logic, common sense, and expectation of behavior as to cause our minds to fall into neutral. There, we can only shake our head, stumble over the cascading facts of inhumane violence and wonder, as so many do, where God is. The recent slaughter of kindergarten babies became the immediate and constant report of television media personalities as they aligned a number of guests to provide some semblance of explanation.

Eons ago, long before the birth of Christ, there were people in Egypt who were the benefactors of God's grace. They kept asking for an identity. Who is this individual who instructs us to worship Him? Finally, perhaps aggravated, God told his servant to say: “Tell them I am that … I AM.”  “Just tell them that,” He said, “because if you tell them I am Jehovah, you won't tell them I am Creator. If you tell them I am the Feast of the Tabernacles, you won't tell them I am the Feast of Unleavened Bread.