Chapel of Optimal Life



A traditional Bible-based Christian church
A Bible-based Christian church for the modern age
A church based on the teachings of all the great thinkers
A new age church for the inquiring mind
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SERMON: Ten Ways To Improve Your Relationships

No one person is an island. We all need friendships. Decide with whom you can share fellowship and devote yourself to those few regardless of feelings, setbacks or circumstances. How can we survive life's setbacks without the affirming fellowship, support and mutual protections of our friends?

A man once asked Henry Ford, "Who is your best friend?" Ford said, "Your best friend is he or she who helps you bring out of yourself the best of that which is in you."

An awkward statement but read it over again carefully and slowly. More...

EDITORIAL: Do Drugs Kill More Than Pain?

How much do drugs to kill pain, destroy our brains? If you smoke long enough you will probably get lung cancer or emphysema. If you drink enough alcohol and long enough your kidneys and your liver will probably let you know they are troubled.

Nicotine and alcohol are both relaxants, killing the pain of living in this difficult world. But what about the drugs we take for real pain? A dental procedure, an in-office internal exploration? How exactly do these necessary drugs dull or kill our pain? More...

OPINION: What If Hitler...?

I love what ifs. And for people who believe in a powerful, focused and merciless God, how good was Hitler for the world?

What if Hitler had been assassinated in 1936? Would we all be better off today?

Let's start supposing. Hitler is killed and millions of deaths in Europe are what?
Himmler takes over? He's meaner than Hitler but has no panache, no public personality, no mystical unifying force. More...

GOOD NEWS: Acceptance

Nothing, neither acceptance nor prohibition, will induce a child to stop swearing overnight. Teach your child respect for himself and others, that profanity can hurt, offend, and disgust, and you'll be doing the best you can... Jean Callahan

Acceptance of one's life means accepting it as it comes, with all the handicaps of heredity, of suffering, of psychological complexes and injustices. Paul Tournier

I’ve gone from reluctance to acceptance to gung ho. Grace Bumbry

The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one. Russell Lynes More...

FICTION: Micah's Miracle, Part Two Of Three

Young Micah was Mrs. Fishkins's real problem child. He was the youngest child, only five, and not old enough to go to school, Jonah was ten and in the third grade. He sold newspapers after school rather than work in the butcher shop, because he said he didn't like meat. He planned to be a vegetarian when he grew up, but I don't know whether he became one or not.

Jonah was a very bright boy for his age, though, He got all A's in school. The oldest Fishkin child was Esther, who was sixteen. She had quit school, not being very bright, and worked in a small factory, making rosary beads. More...
ADVICE: Dear Angel

My husband is fighting in a war and has been for over eighteen months. This Sunday at church, my minister quoted scripture to support the war. This shook my faith to think we are fighting and killing in the name of God. I am so confused. Can this be right?



More...

"Ask God's blessing on your work, but don't ask him to do it for you."

Dame Flora Robson

"An emotional man may possess no humor, but a humorous man usually has deep pockets of emotion, sometimes tucked away or forgotten."

Constance Rourke

"We must dare to think unthinkable thoughts."

James W. Fulbright

"The question is not "What can I get?" but "What can I give in life?""

Robert Baden-Powell

"You know, sometimes, when they say you're ahead of your time, it's just a polite way of saying you have a real bad sense of timing."

George McGovern

"There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now."

James Baldwin

"Heaven and hell is right now.... You make it heaven or you make it hell by your actions."

George Harrison

"Intelligence is nothing without delight."

Paul Claudel

"It is a toss up whether it is worse to be old and bent or young and broke."

Anonymous

"Imagination is the true magic carpet."

Norman Vincent Peale



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