LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Dear Editor: This Christmas season it might be good for all of us to work on being kind, compassionate and empathetic toward all others. Words can be powerful motivators and here are some that move me: Saint Teresa of Calcutta said: “A life not lived for others is not a life.” Pope Francis said: “You pray for the hungry and then you feed them. This is how prayer works.” Anonymous: “Unpacked our nativity scene yesterday. I removed all the Jews, Arabs and other foreigners. I ended up with a Jackass and a handful of sheep.”

Anonymous: “God is not dead. God is lost. He’s wearing a felt hat. It’s raining.

He’s sitting under a piece of cardboard, under the awning at Woolworth’s. The exhaust from a passing bus shrouds him in blue. He hasn’t shaved tor a week. His hair is matted. You pull your raincoat tight around your throat, step over his legs and hurry by. At the street corner you glance over your shoulder. He’s looking down at his hands. His head is bowed.

He’s praying to you.” In my favorite book in the Bible from the Book of James, verse 26: “Be assured, then, that faith without works is dead as a body without breath.”

Our country is very divisive now and too many have resorted to violence. However, I believe we have many more good Americans than bad. Have a blessed Christmas and please be one of the good Americans!

Tom Heffernan Ridgway