Dave Hogsett

When I was a Boy Scout, our troop had camping trips to work on our merit badges and Scouting skills. One of our tasks was to locate ourselves in an unfamiliar setting without a compass. The place to begin was finding north. Then east, west, and south fall into place. As I remember, during the day it was possible to have a pretty good idea which way was north by looking at moss growing on trees. It generally grew on the north side.

In 1947, a Bedouin boy found in a cave, jars full of ancient scrolls. Two years later, Father Roland de Vaux explored the cave where the scrolls were found. Father de Vaux also found other caves with scrolls and the ruins of a community that dated to the time of Jesus. Today, the scrolls are known as the Dead Sea Scrolls and the nearby community Qumran

The epistle reading for the Sunday morning worship service on Aug. 18, at Plymouth First United Methodist Church was Ephesians 4:25-5:2. In part it reads, “So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear (Ephesians 4:25-29).”

Labor Day is a yearly reminder of the story of the American labor movement and the importance of laborers to the development and growth of the United States. The holiday also lifts up the importance of work and labor as an important part of a well-rounded person. All of us like to experience the completion of a job well done.

Professor John R. Hale, in his final lecture about exploring the roots of religion, makes the following observation: “Not only does religious belief seem to be hardwired into human consciousness, but very specific manifestations seem to appear in widely separate times and places.” (Course Guidebook, “Exploring the Roots of Religion,” The Great Courses, p. 116) Professor Hales says that there is a hardwiring in the human mind of a very specific nature that goes beyond what one might think was necessary for simple survival that is somehow part of our mind to seize upon certain symbolic things.

Thursday, Sept. 5, I drove to South Bend from Plymouth for my scheduled check-up with my rheumatologist. I took highway 31 and when I got to South Bend, I continued on Michigan. At the corner of Michigan and Sample I turned right and proceeded to the South Bend Clinic. When I first started taking Michigan, when I moved to Plymouth in 2005, it was a one-way street north. Now it is two-way with bicycle lanes. The stoplight at the corner of Chippawa and Michigan has been replaced with a roundabout. Most of the stoplights have flashing yellow arrows.

In his first lecture about Sacred Texts of the World (The Great Courses), Professor Grant Hardy invites his listeners to look through the lens of a window rather than a mirror. When we look through the lens of a mirror, we see reflected back to us our own way of looking at the world. Professor Hardy is particularly concerned with what he describes the “Protestant bias.” By this, Grant means “looking at other faiths through the lens of the Christian Reformation: assuming that Scriptures are at the heart of a religion, that the oldest texts represent its purest form, and that those documents can best be understood through textual criticism, historical analysis, and translation.” (Lecture #2). Such a bias would give a rather skewed view of Hinduism.

The theme for the annual meeting of the Marshal County Community Foundation and the United Way of Marshall County on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, was “The Power of Collaboration.” The setting for event, the Bremen Community and Performing Arts Center, was an illustration of the theme. The center had been funded in part by Seller Funds which had been distributed on a regional basis and had been obtained with community help.

In the beginning the Earth is described as a hurricane at night at sea. The whole creation is chaotic. “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit (Wind) of God was hovering over the waters (Genesis 1:2).” At the end of September those living in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, experienced the furry and power of nature as Hurricane Helene brought havoc and destruction. The hurricane ravaged the states with winds, rains, floods, mud-slides and untold carnage.

“Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,' he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?' He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?' He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord you God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.' And He said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”