Verses for the New Year
by Mike Oravec

Each year, as January approaches, I try to discern a scripture verse or verses that will serve as a centering prayer for me in the New Year.  I write it on the flyleaf of my date book and often in another well-trafficked place in my life, where I will surely encounter the words and needfully remember their meaning.  As sometimes happens, life’s events turn wildly, and here then an opportunity to pause and reflect (a personal “Selah” if you will) in order to restore the truth of God’s control and start forward again. 

Attendee uses artistic gifts to inspire others
What does it matter to Mike Matter whether he’s staged on a Paris sidewalk sketching the Louvre or leading a collaborative oil painting with A-Team members that depicts Christ protecting his sheep?   “As long as it serves God,” says Mike, an Egyptian-born artist who has attended West Shore for three years.

Getting Courage to Care

Death gives us more to be concerned about than just leaving the planet.  While most of us acknowledge that our days are numbered, none of us have any idea how, when or where our own death will occur.  Few of us acknowledge this certain event but do all we can to avoid anything having to do with it.  In his commencement address to Stanford University students five years ago, Apple icon Steve Jobs informed students what most of us know, if we are honest,—that no one wants to die and that even people who want to go to heaven (that would be us) don’t want to die to get there.