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...

"I never think that there's something I can't do, whether it's beating my opponent one on one or practicing another hour because something about my game is just not right."

Earvin Johnson

"No one can ever end with being superior who will not begin with being inferior."

Sidney Smith

"One must be a wise reader to quote wisely and well."

Amos Bronson Alcott

"I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill."

Thomas A. Edison

"What stops people in their tracks is a small mental packet of energy. It is called a thought. They think "I can't.""

Rex Steven Sikes

"The freedom to fail is vital if you're going to succeed, most successful men fail time and time again, and it is a measure of their strength that failure merely propels them into some new attempt at success."

Michael Korda

"Determine to become one of the best. Sufficient money will almost automatically follow if you get to be one of the "best" in your chosen field, whatever it is."

Donald G. Mitchell

"Behold, we count them happy which endure."

The Holy Bible

"If you cannot win, make the one ahead of you break the record."

Jan McKeithen

"There is little hope for democracy if the hearts of men and women in democratic societies cannot be touched by a call to something greater than themselves."

Margaret Thatcher



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