An Arkies Musings

2014 is now behind us.  Here is a list of the top ten most viewed posts of 2014 on An Arkies Musings.  It is always interesting to me to see what topics other people are interested in. The most viewed post of the year is my post, Remembering Nick , from October 3rd 2014.  Nick was one of the boys that I had in my youth class at church a number of years ago.  He had been shot to death in Oklahoma City.  He was just 23 years old.  His death really shook me up and it also struck a chord with my readers.   You can read the post here . With a little help from the Fab 4, my post, The Beatles - All You Need Is Love , was the second most popular post of the year.  It was posted on the fiftieth anniversary of The Beatles appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, February 9, 1964.  It was the first time that The Beatles appeared live on American television.  73 million people tuned in that evening making it one of the most memorable mome...

While he was at a family reunion, my Dad was given a story written by my second cousin, Toni Ehrhardt. The story takes place during the Great Depression and centers around two little girls. Here is a photo of those two little girls today.                                   IRENE AND HENRIETTA Mother's Christmas Program by Toni Ehrhardt My mother,Irene Dannels Woolery was born in 1925 on a small farm near Altoona, Kansas. Times weren't easy at the Dannel's Place nor most other places for that matter. I remember my mother telling me that most of the time, the family had a nice Christmas dinner of baked chicken, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, hot rolls and pumpkin pie. Possibly, they had gingerbread, fudge and mady taff. I'm just guessing they had milk, water or home-made cider to drink. For Christmas, the kids, (my mom and her sisters and brothers), usually got a nickel, an...

This is a repost of the most read article of all time on An Arkie's Musings, with over 11,000 people taking the time to read the story.  It also happens to be one of my favorites. At Christmas time one of the things that most people focus on is gift giving.  We spend a lot of money and time finding the right gifts for people that are important in our life.  Sometimes we fail in our gift giving. One Christmas when my son was a young boy, we nearly ruined his Christmas with one particular gift.  One of the jobs that he was given around the house was sweeping the kitchen floor.  That Christmas we bought a stick vacuum cleaner and thought it would be funny to give to him as a gift.  When it was wrapped, the vacuum was the largest gift under the tree.  When my son saw that the largest gift had his name on it he was very excited.  His imagination went wild.  What could that present be?  His whole Christmas revolved around the largest...

X is for Xmas.  I must admit that I have never liked Xmas as an abbreviation for Christmas.  It just seems a bit flippant and unnecessary. In today's culture where many Christians perceive a war against Christmas, they see the use of Xmas as an attempt to secularize the season by taking Christ out of Christmas. I must admit that I agreed with those sentiments until I actually looked into the history of the use of Xmas.  Originally, Xmas was an abbreviation where the X represents the Greek letter chi, which is the first letter of Christ's name in Greek, ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ. However, because of the modern interpretations of the letter X, many people are unaware of this and assume that this abbreviation is meant to drop Christ from Christmas. According to R. C. Sproul in his book, Now That's a Good Question, the idea of X as an abbreviation for the name of Christ came into use in our culture with no intent to show any disrespect for Jesus. The church has used the symbol of the...

I've always wanted to be a shepherd.  No I haven’t really wanted to live alone with a herd of sheep; I have always coveted the experience of the shepherds on that first Christmas night. God could have chosen to reveal this most important announcement to anyone on earth.  But instead of assigning the angels to visit some of the most important people on earth, God sent the angels to speak to humble shepherds, who most people didn't consider important. The shepherds would have been watching over their flocks while the sheep and lambs rested or grazed on grass from the hillsides. While the shepherds were prepared to deal with any danger that threatened their animals, they were shocked and scared by witnessing the angels' appearance. That’s why the angels told them, “don’t be afraid”. The angels reassured the terrified shepherds that they had good news for them. Since the shepherds raised the lambs that were sacrificed to atone for people's sins each spring on Pa...

Seven billion people.  It’s a big number. I know that there are more than seven billion people living on this planet, but I can't comprehend what that really means. God doesn't see the number, He sees faces; behind which are personal histories and heartaches, individual predicaments and potentials. He sees actual people with names. Each one lives in a particular place, wakes up each day, faces their issues and deals with the obstacles that confront them. God feels everything each one of them feels. He sees every detail of every experience that has gone into making each of them exactly who they are at this very moment. He loves each one of these people so much that he gave his only Son as a sacrifice for them.  This is the time of year that we focus on the birth of Jesus.  What I am always amazed by when I think of the baby Jesus is His willingness to leave heaven and live the life of a human being. As we enter the Christmas season, are you amazed by the ba...