November 4, 2026 a thought for today, The liar and thief are brothers. Welsh Proverb

Photos in my life yesterday

The first challenge was “a collection”. This is my house plant collection along with window boxes of miniature roses. 

The next assignment was “shallow depth of field”. I used one of the very large
lilies from my most current bouquet for the focal point in this image. 

The last upload was “purse”. It is my fanny pack which is heave and handy for photo opportunities

Life today. It has been a good day even though it is cloudy and rainy. The problems I ran into a couple of days ago are emerging as a learning experience. A learning experience for me and one of my bad habits, my big mouth to be exact. I had reason to touch on the subject with someone I love. She brought to mind of how I might have inherited the habit. My father was a wise man and he didn’t hesitate to suggest to ones around him when they were being foolish or honestly not knowing what they were talking about (some later thanked him). He didn’t feel he had any friends due to that but when he passed away the funeral home visits were standing room only. We also talked about my mother’s habit of speaking her mind no matter the circumstance, some may call that honesty. She was never proven wrong, but I guess that is no excuse. Anyway with the talk with the person who loves me and my stubbornness recognized maybe that is a step in a positive direction. Only time will tell for the long run. The after affects of the original situation seem to be smoothing out. 

The day has been productive. I have the newsletter ready for a test print tomorrow. I am expecting that after the “text print” there will still be some “clean up” work to do. My hope is that will only be clean up work and not a complete do over. 

The day has been one that has allowed me to get some work done on most of the things on my “daily to-do check list”. I am still working on the Christmas calendars then paper quilled snow flakes, the snow flakes are a later in the evening project after my daily devotional readings. Then there is also getting a page done in the book I am working on which may or may not ever be finished let alone be published, but fun and entertaining in the way of memories for now.

A word to ponder today is expression. The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity. Walt Whitman. The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object. Thomas Jefferson. Neither can embellishments of language be found without arrangement and expression of thoughts, nor can thoughts be made to shine without the light of language. Cicero. I don't play accurately-any one can play accurately- but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life. Oscar Wilde. Our expression and our words never coincide, which is why the animals don't understand us. Chazal. Expression is the mystery of beauty. Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton. Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets. Oscar Wilde. Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. Victor Hugo. Where painting is weakest, namely, in the expression of the highest moral and spiritual ideas, there music is sublimely strong. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Desire is possibility seeking expression. Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was a favorite expression of Theophrastus that time was the most valuable thing that a man could spend. Diogenes. Gracefulness has been defined to be the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul. William Hazlitt. Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility... It is the utmost expression of human passion. William Wordsworth. Expression… gives reality to things. Oscar Wilde. 

Article summary. In our church we have a place in the service where we have a “passing of the peace”. We go around shaking hands with each other, with a warm greeting. During the pandemic we did a fist bump instead. For some reason I have stuck to that habit, the fist bump, reach out and touch method, with love and appreciation. There is a connection made during the “passing of the peace”. This article caught my attention. The title is Abraham Lincoln, Joe Biden and the politics of touch. Mark M. Smith Carolina Distinguished Professor of History, University of South Carolina. At theconversation.com. The author mentioned that since politics are in the forefront he wanted to look back on how “past politicians learned to use touch not to molest, intimidate or cow but to connect, engage and inspire”. He began the article with Abraham Lincoln’s handshaking, he saw this as a valued touch and social etiquette. The article mentioned that by the early 19th century handshaking seemed “democratic” and more toward the idea of equality. The author relates that Lincoln probably learned that “glad-handing” was a way to communicate as he was a “young traveling lawyer”. As it became more a politically positive  being careful that it wasn’t taken as sending the wrong message”. There was an article written in 1870 about “Hand Shaking”. The article told of some of the ways to do the hand shake, refusing was a “declaration of hostility,” the pressure in the hand was to be considered. To tight indicated to much strength or “malicious intent”, but not allowing a “fair hold” was “odious”. In 1861 Mr. Lincoln had shaken so many hands that it left him with “hurt hands”. He finally decided to use both hands for a hand the shake. It is said that  “Lincoln’s hands were imprinted with politics” key ideas were written on his skin. His hands were so shaky on the day that the Emancipation Proclamation was signed that his writing was “unsteady”. He was concerned what people would think but he said “I was never surer of anything in my life.” There is a cast of Lincoln’s hands that are “inscribed with history of handshaking”. The cast of his hands showed the swollen muscles. Mr. Lincoln “used touch to connect with voters” but he had “rules”, no hugging. The article ended with “appropriate touching plays an important role in American political culture (and, in my opinion not only the “political” culture)”. 

I haven’t decided on what is for dinner yet. I will have to look around in the cupboard, freezer and frig.

Photos in my life today

My first assignment is “a lucky find”. It is a penny that I found on my black top driveway. 

The next challenge is “movement”. I chose this one from my archives, it is a water wheel that was at the Ohio State Fair. The wheel was in very slow motion. 

The last upload is “macro”. It is another smaller flower from my most current
bouquet. 

Joy

one of my Fine Art America contest uploads

Want to shop? fineartamerica.com search for joy rector (“view shop”) redbubble.com search for jarector

 November 2, 2026 a thought for today, Old age is a hundred disorders. Welsh Proverb

Photos in my life yesterday

The first challenge was “a place to sit”. One of my friends and church family sits in this pew most Sundays. 

The next assignment was “my choice” and one of my series of “still life”. Oneof my red carnations sitting on my red tale top covers. 

The last uploads was “reflection”. This is my neighbors car with a beginning of a buildup of autumn leaves with the bare tree branches in the windshield. 

Life yesterday. This has not been one of my better days and I was really looking foreword to a productive day. It got turned around. Now there are things to study and find answers too. With that event and a personal error, it looks like my time on getting the church newsletter done will have to be pushed back again. I’ll do what I can with some help from a Friend. It appears to be a woe is me day.

I got the bulletin information a little while ago. I have been able to get the bulk of it done. Between a trip to a doctors office and time to vote I will squeeze it in as well as most of the rest tomorrow. It looks like it is going to be a more active week than I had hoped and planned for. 

I need to work on my personality. Some times I think that I need to be a different person than I was created to be. On the other side of the coin maybe I need to settle for I am who I am.

The day is coming to a close and I have my check list with blank boxes in front of me. I am going to quit for the day. I didn’t have any lunch, think I will go make a scrambled egg with cheese and toast, maybe peanut butter instead of butter on the toast.

The word to ponder today is expect. Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed. Alexander Pope. As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly. Samuel Johnson. What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens. Benjamin Disraeli. When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece. John Ruskin. Endeavor to be always patient of the faults and imperfections of others for thou has many faults and imperfections of thine own that require forbearance. If thou are not able to make thyself that which thou wishest, how canst thou expect to mold another in conformity to thy will? Thomas a Kempis. Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause; He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws. Sir Richard Francis Burton. If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things. Plato. If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. Henry David Thoreau. Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish. Ovid. Those who cannot tell what they desire or expect, still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts and vast wishes. Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is men who wait to be selected, and not those who seek, from whom we may expect the most efficient service. Ulysses S. Grant. Do not always expect good to happen, but do not let evil take you by surprise. Czech Proverb. That is a good book which is opened with expectation and closed with profit. Amos Bronson Alcott. He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator. Sir Francis Bacon. A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open. Sir Francis Bacon. Life is largely a matter of expectation. Horace.  

Article summary. I have wondered how people may have read the bible back when it was written. And how far we have come from a scroll to a cell phone where we can read our books. The title is What were books like in ancient Greece and Rome? Konstantine Panegyres, Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History, The University of Western Australia. At theconversation.com. In the opening chapter there was an explanation or description that suggested how “books” were read in the 2nd century CE. A Roman person named Anlus Gellius describes how he visited a book store with a friend. He saw a copy of the “annals of Quintus Fabius Pictor” that was in  “good and undoubted age, which the dealer maintained was without errors”.  As they were in the shop a new customer came in with a complaint, he “found in the book one error”. The customer found the error and proved the dealer wrong. There were bookstalls as he traveled along the Adriatic coast. Along the way he found “books” that were “marvellous” in tales from writers of “no mean authority”. The books were in “bad condition and unsightly”. But he was attracted to their “unexpected cheapness”. There “excited languages”, all sorts of stories of ordinary people and how the people of the times “engaged with a book”. The author related that many people felt that writing was “invented by gods or heroes”, as in Thoth used the first sign that represented a spoken sound. The earliest written book was written on a “wooden tablet radiocarbon dated to before 5000 BCE”. In this “book” there were “strange linear markings” that scholars believe are a form of writing. There is evidence of writing from different parts of the world including different scripts. In the earliest times it was written in signs. Around the 8th century the Greek people began using an alphabet in place of symbols. This alphabet was adapted fom the Phoenician alphabet coming with traders. There were only 22 letters. I learned that our English alphabet came from the Romans which also came from the Phoenicians by way of the Greeks. There were various materials used to write on, palm leaves, bark of trees, sheets of lead, sheets of linen, tablets of wax. The most popular in the Mediterranean for papyrus. Eventually the papyrus was glued together and used in rolls. If you wanted to write you would buy sheets or rolls of papyrus or write on other materials. Ink was made of burnt resin or pitch mixed with vegetable gum. Some pens were made of a reed. Then came the time that you could use a scribe to write your words. Libraries came along in Alexandria, Rome and Athens. Scribes made copies of the “books”

Photos in my life today

The first assignment is “a word I like”. I like many words. I have become very accustom to words and looking new ones up. This is one of my favorite due to what is behind the title. 

The next challenge is “blue”. This is one of the large foot rests in my house and one the young ones like to play on and Bobbi likes to test out every now and then. 

The last upload is “n is for...”. I used a small note pad at the image for “n”.I think is will be eggs tonight, I lost track of time as well as facing some errors that I needed to face.

Joy

all of my photo a day composites for the month of October 2026

 October 30, 2026 a thought for today, The strength of the bee is its patience. Welsh Proverb

Photos in my life yesterday

The first challenge was “words in a book”. This is from a very old cook book. The same title that my mom used over seventy years ago, The American Woman’s Cook Book. 

The next assignment was “my choice” and one from my series of “texture layover”.The image is one of the local metro parks in the area. I put a vintage cracked parchment layover on it. 

The last upload was “costume”. I didn’t have any costumes available and no children near by getting ready for the holiday. So I used a piece of one of the ornaments in the store. 

Life today. Printing yesterday went smoothly and quickly, I like this new format. I hope the rest of the congregation does too, the comments I have heard have been positive. 

What a day. Sue is getting some help from family for some paper work that is beyond my purview so there have been people in and out of the house this afternoon. My desk is right in the line of activity. 

I got several the items on my list checked off earlier. I also got the dishwasher loaded. We had a brief period that the electric was out in the neighborhood. I took that as an indication that I was lucky, giving me a change to get that done while my computer work was put on hold until the electric was back on. One of the big things I worked on from my list was the formatting the new newsletter, it is going slowly, it is all graphic test boxes and tables, both taking time to size, format and place.

I have the photos for today all ready for upload. This letter will be ready very soon. So I will determine which to do first the uploads or tomorrow’s curbside pick up order ready. 

We are having another as close as perfect that is possible autumn day, gorgeous sun, perfect temperature for this early in the season. 

The word to ponder today is exact.  It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact. Edmund Burke. The way to procure insults is to submit to them: a man meets with no more respect than he exacts. William Hazlitt. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. Sir Francis Bacon. Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites. Edmund Burke. In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government. Thomas Carlyle. True patriotism sometimes requires of men to act exactly contrary, at one period, to that which it does at another, and the motive which impels themthe desire to do rightis precisely the same. Robert E. Lee. For we both alike know that into the discussion of human affairs the question of justice enters only where the pressure of necessity is equal, and that the powerful exact when they can, and the weak grant what they must. Thucydides. Our observation of nature must be diligent, our reflection profound, and our experiments exact. We rarely see these three means combined; and for this reason, creative geniuses are not common. Denis Diderot. Where does the violet tint end and the orange tint begins? Ease and speed in doing a thing do not give the work lasting solidity or exactness of beauty. Plutarch. Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Exactness in little things is a wonderful source of cheerfulness. Frederick William Faber. 

Article summary. I am hooked on texts and email. As I see it it is useful and effective in that the person that is being contacted may or may not be able to take part in a conversation at the same moment as the sender. There are “cons” I suppose, like written evidence in the case of a dispute, but then it can be there for review when necessary too. I am also a letter writer as shown here.  So lets see what what we can learn from this story. The title is I wrote a book about email – and found myself pining for the days of letter writing. Randy Malamud. Regents' Professor of English, Georgia State University. At theconversation.com. In the first paragraph the author explained that he was interested in “hidden” things in the “ordinary”. So he wrote a book about writing.  He also felt that email was a correspondence method that “evoked” energy and attention being “sucked away” like a “tsunami” in a missive that required little formality. He found instead along the way “how much richer old-fashioned letters are”. Email does not offer a paper and pen feelings of the touch of the paper, the unique smell of paper, the print of a letter head and closing signature. He went on to say the “.com” voided out the “historical and social value” of a hand written letter. Then there is the cost of postage. With that addition to writing and sending mail, he believed that could have encouraged people to be attentive in time and effort in the correspondence. As the article moved on, he recognized that email is convenient but there is the fact that letters can be storytelling, they “spread” Gospel, they express peoples feelings. There are famous letters to be recognized as a letter to President Lincoln from children and his response. According to the article that letter was sold for $3.4 million in 2008. There was a time when a complaint about letters and delivery timing prompted a “fad” of post cards in place of letters. (Maybe a step toward “email”?). As a technical point it is mentioned the there has been in the close past there were 300 billion emails sent every day. It was then elaborated with will it, email, ever be “valuable” as in to sell, as famous letters are or celebrated as some have been. In moving toward an end to this article the author says email is “paltry ...and...grammatically challenged”. It is sometimes ignored or deleted and may require a response. It ends in what was a little harsh, I think in saying, “maybe it’s just the mirror held up to life, and we are precisely as trite as our email suggests.”

Photos in my life today

My first challenge is “a quotes you like”. This is one of my favorite and I hope I reach it each years. It is
one of Ansel Adams’. “Twelve significant photographs in one year is a good crop”.

The next assignment is another “my choice” and another of my series of “texture layover”. This is a one of my still life’s of white flowers in a black vase with a cloth like layover. 

The last upload is “pumpkin”. I used another one of the decorations from McDonalds for this one.

This is pizza night from DoorDash. 

Joy 

the Find Art America upload for today is a black and white of another still life

Want to shop? fineartamerica.com search for joy rector) (“view shop”) redbubble.com search for jarector)

 October 28, 2026 a thought for today, A lazy shepherd is the wolf's friend. Welsh Proverb

Photos in my life yesterday

The first challenge was “your name or nickname”. I have had these three pieces of the alphabet for several years and have used them before in my photography. 

The next assignment was “my choice” and one of my series of “texture
overlay”. This is my father’s fire department hats with a cloth overlay. 

The last upload was “moon”. This is one from my archives when I stayed up late some nights. Those nights are long gone. 

Life today. This has been one of those days moving quickly and with interesting side bars. I got the letter started and worked on a Fine Art image then side tracked my self to work for a bit on the calendar, the bills, finished church mails for tomorrow printing. I got back to the letter for a few minutes until I moved to another bit of work on something else, the food pantry cards I am trying to make along with a few minutes on the new newsletter template. 

Today was the second food pantry day of the week. It was slow but it ended with over the number we had yesterday. 

They are still working on our street. I think it will go to the end of the week. The weather is perfect, a perfect fall day. 

I am running late on my “schedule” so I will stop for now, I have a couple more things to get done before fixing my supper. 

The word to ponder today is everyone. Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. Oscar Wilde. Everyone is as God has made him, and oftentimes a great deal worse. Miguel de Cervantes. Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing. Let everyone know that you have a reserve in yourself; that you have more power than you are now using. If you are not too large for the place you occupy, you are too small for it. James A. Garfield. Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. Plato. Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are. Niccolo Machiavelli. Everyone ought to worship God according to his own inclinations, and not to be constrained by force. Flavius Josephus. Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him. Cicero. Everyone is the age of their heart. Guatemalan Proverb. Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire. Jean de La Fontaine. Everyone is kneaded out of the same dough but not baked in the same oven. Yiddish proverb. Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world. Arthur Schopenhauer. When it is a question of money, everyone is of the same religion. Voltaire. Everyone is wise until he speaks. Irish Proverb. Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. Leo Tolstoy. Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart. Rumi. Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences. Robert Louis Stevenson. Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Article summary I was looking for an article about using AI for fact checking and came across this one. I wanted to see the explanation for this idea. The title is AI behaves more like a brain than a database – cognitive science’s role in its origin story helps explain why. Michael Hout, Associate Dean of Research and Professor of Psychology, New Mexico State University. Arryn Robbins, Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Richmond. At theconversation.com. The opening paragraph explains a bit about ChatGPT, one of the forms AI. It goes on to say one may think of it as a database or “logical series of steps” to “provide a response to your query” like responding to a computer finding and presenting a “sensible line of thinking”. As I moved on it explains that understanding the “central” point in the science of AI is that it was “brought about by people whose goal was to understand the human mind”, not necessarily to help with homework or travel arrangements. So it went back too about the time that “artificial intelligence” began. In 1956 there was a workshop at Dartmouth College that considered a thought that a “machine could be made intelligent” if it were constructed with rules. Later in 1958 a machine was built that learned from examples. The man who built this one wanted a machine that was “intelligent” in more a “human way”. It was built to use computer algorithms that were “loosely” modeled on the “architecture of the brain”.  I am a bit lost in the technology here so I’ll do my best. There were more advances in this field in the 1980's when psychologists attempted to “explain how people perform complex cognitive tasks” like learning words and forming memories. Persons, “cognitive and computer scientists”, named Rumelhart, Hinton and Williams found ways to “train” artificial neural networks” called “deep learning”. These new “machines” and technology kept growing. These are the “tools” and ideas and “fundamental insights”, coming from study of the mind, that are allowing AI to become more and more able to possibly grow to “hold realistic conversations in natural language”. The thinking is that it would be seen as an architecture that “should be based on the human brain”. In the human memory it doesn’t “look up” answers. In AI’s growth at this point there is a question of “false memories” and responding to “a finite set of questions”. The article says that “human minds don’t work that way, and neither does AI”. The article progressed to mention  that “reconciling that AI systems are more akin to brains than databases” will help AI be more accurate. In coming to an end it is said that computer science “draws on cognitive science’s questions” and “cognitive science draws on the accessibility of AI models” to refine “theories of the mind”. It is mind boggling and a bit scary, in my personal opinion it is like fire. Fire is necessary for warmth and cooking and more but can also destroy, it has to be used with intelligence and common sense.

Noodles in beef gravy sounds good for dinner with corn on the cob. 

Photos in my life today

The first assignment is “a sentence”. I looked around for any greeting cards I may have kept but couldn’t find one. So I chose this “sentence” in a book I have on the table.

The next challenges is “my choice” and yet another of my series of “texture overlays”. This is my current store bought bouquet with a fine texte overlay. 

The last upload is “boo”. I found this little guy in a neighbors yard as I was
coming home from church. 

Joy

my Fine Art America upload for today 

want to shop? Visit: fineartamerica.com search for joy rector click on “view shop”  and redbubble.com search for jarector (and take a look at flickr.com search for rectorjoyce)

October 26, 2026 a thought for today, A tongue is not necessary to declare love. Welsh Proverb

Photos in my life yesterday

My first challenge was “y is for....”. I used one of my yellow daffodil image for this one. 

The next assignment was “frosty or icy”. I used another from the
archives. This one is a snow pile on my neighbor’s gate. 

The last one for yesterday was “scary”. Yet another from the archives. I haven’t been too attentive to the Halloween decorations this year. This on was taken last year in one of the neighborhood yards. 

Life today. First off, I have been trying for a virtual visit with two of my grandsons that I have been unable to date to “see” as much as I would like. I was able to finally get my tablet to work so I had sound and made contact with them yesterday. It is so good to be able to see their face and hear their voices. I have had contact two of my other great grand children when we all have time at the same time. The other two great grand children of my sextet are in town so I can see them in person now and then.

Another happening yesterday was the introduction to the new “bulletin” at church. It seems to have been well accepted generally. It is a totally new format. I worked on generating a new template to match the old one. It looks like with a little more work it would be an option to use. The program I used for all my church work was “discontinued” so I had to come up with something. Now I am working on a template for the newsletter, that will determine if I will continue with it monthly or give it up. A friend at church suggested that she thought that Copilot could generate a template that would be as workable as the original, so I did some research. AI says that is not possible. Copilot doesn’t completely duplicate the original. 

Tami came over today to help Sue with some badly needed paperwork. It looks like it is going to take some time to get it all ironed out. 

I have been able to get several things on my list done today, with a couple put off until tomorrow. I have the bulletin for this week completed, some more work done on the newsletter template and the photos for today ready for upload. 

There is some “street work” going on in the neighborhood that is suppose to last all week. There are several heavy duty trucks involved so they are going up and down the street. 

The word to ponder today is eternal.  Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart. Victor Hugo. I live in company with a body, a silent companion, exacting and eternal. Eugene Delacroix. Energy is eternal delight. William Blake. "Know thyself," said the old philosopher, "improve thyself," saith the new. Our great object in time is not to waste our passions and gifts on the things external that we must leave behind, but that we cultivate within us all that we can carry into the eternal progress beyond. Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Hatred does not cease in this world by hating, but by not hating; this is an eternal truth. Buddha. Unjust dominion cannot be eternal. Seneca. I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. Thomas Jefferson. To wisdom belongs the intellectual apprehension of things eternal; to knowledge, the rational apprehension of things temporal. Saint Augustine. Nature is the most thrifty thing in the world; she never wastes anything; she undergoes change, but there is no annihilation, the essence remains - matter is eternal. Horace Binney. If a man's eye is on the Eternal, his intellect will grow. Ralph Waldo Emerson. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal. John Philpot Curran. Hope springs eternal in the human breast. Alexander Pope. Our activity should consist in placing ourselves in a state of susceptibility to Divine impressions, and pliability to all the operations of the Eternal Word. Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon. The problem of restoring to the world original and eternal beauty is solved by redemption of the soul. Ralph Waldo Emerson. There is only one thing better than tradition and that is the original and eternal life out of which all tradition takes its rise. James Russell Lowell. 

Article summary. I try to stay away from discussing religion and politics as much as I can but the title interested me in that it indicated how religion can help the rest of your life in a positive way even if there is a reason that visiting a place of worship regularly for one reason or another stops. I feel a foundation is the best beginning for a happy and successful life. I wanted to take a look at this opinion. The title is  Faith still shapes morals and values even after people are ‘done’ with religion. Philip Schwadel, Professor of Sociology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Sam Hardy, Professor of Psychology, Brigham Young University. At theconversation.com. In the opening of the article it is mentioned that in 2019 44% of American claimed “belief in God is necessary for ‘moral and good values’”. It builds on morals and values in “multiple pathways”. Some are, it shapes how we think about the world, it “fosters” good habits and is a “web” to social connections. Then it asks what happens when some “fall away” from going to church. In the article it calls them “religious dones”. The two authors of this article got together to test “religion residue effect” among Americans. They concentrated on how the “dones” keep the morals and values of religion. The “dones” are two groups, some have never been religious and those who are “religious” in thought and feelings and behaviors. One of the studies was based on how many maintain things like volunteering and giving in charity after they have dropped away. Here they measured “care/harm, fairness/cheating, ingroup loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion and purity/degradation”. They found in this test that the religious folks supported those just mentioned “five moral foundations”. They found that the currently religious were more likely than the “dones” and the “dones” were more likely that the “consistently” non religious to “endorse” the five moral foundations. A second test or study measured the values that are “core” to “organizing principles in people’s lives, and religion is positively associated with the values of security, conformity, tradition and benevolence”. In this test they measured by age, from 10 to growing older. In young adults the “dones” were more likely to support social values in security, conformity and tradition than the non religious. The authors/testers feel the projects “show that the religion residue effect is real”. In other words the “dones” values and morals were more “similar” to the religious than the nonreligious. One interesting fact they provided that “religious observance on values appears to be strongest among former evangelical Protestants”, more so than “done” from mainline Protestantism, Catholicism and other religious traditions”. The longer the “dones” are away from the church the less and less they feel the residual affects. As the article progressed it pointed out that there is a growing number of nonreligious. By 2020 the percentage of nonreligious had quadrupled, as in “3 in 10 Americans having no religion”. That made it more nonreligious than anyone single “religious tradition, including the two largest: Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism”. As it is ending, they say that it seems that “those who leave religion are not the same as those who have never been religious”. At the last the authors say “this distinction will become increasingly important to understanding the morals and values of the American people.”

Photos in my life today

The first upload is “z is for ....”. Zipper, there are six of them in this image. 

The second challenge is “my choice”. It is one of my series of “overlays”. This is a set of books with a vintage style aged texture. 

The last assessment for the day is “fence”. I like ‘different’ styles of fences
and gates. I found this one as I was driving through the neighborhood. 

Creamed Chicken on Biscuits sounds good for dinner. 

Joy

my upload to Find Art America ..... a luffa on a multi colored scarf

want to shop? Visit: fineartamerica.com search for joy rector click on “view shop”  and redbubble.com search for jarector (and take a look at flickr.com search for rectorjoyce)

 October 24, 2026, a thought for the day, Every desire has wings. Welsh Proverb

Photos in my life yesterday

The first challenge was “w is for...”. I used one of my well used whisks with an egg as accompaniment fo this image.

The next assignment was “my choice” and one of my series of “mirror
image”. This one is of an old and worn wooden gate with “wild flowers” at the bottom adorning it. 

The last upload for yesterday was “orange”. For this one I used the partial bottle of orange juice from my frig.

Life today. So far it has been a good Saturday. I worked some more on a new template for the church bulletin. It’s new and different. I started out trying to replicate the old one. After some thought I decided to go with a full sheet with mainly the Order of Worship. When I got that to the point it could be used I decided on some additions like the weekly calendar, the prayer list, and colorful cover. I am going to use that one to see if that will fit for the congregation. I am considering if I can manage the newsletter anymore. I don’t get input for items for it, most of it is from my own research and decisions. Much of what is “standard” in it is repetitive from month to month. I find that getting older means slowing down, physically and in the thinking process. I have reached a point where I feel stressed with how the newsletter comes out completely on my shoulders. To add to that beyond what I discover which is outside our church directly, it is not Hoge Memorial wide “newsworthy”.  I am grateful and thank God daily that He guides me with the chance to be mobile and as active as my body and mind will allow. Someone new to doing the newsletter may be able to add some spark and “newness” to the news. I have to give it more thought. At any rate, there is no way I can get one complete for this month while building a new template for it. 

Before I left for grocery curbside pick up, I got this letter started. While I was out I got a couple of the photos I need for today. So when I got home I worked between putting the groceries up and back to computer “work”. As I worked, I took small breaks to watch Bobbi’s antics. She was stalking and chasing a fly around the window by my desk. She really doesn’t seem to want to kill it, it is more like she wants it to play. When she does that I picture in my mind how one of her very large wild cousins may “play”. Silly me, it seems almost majestic. 

I am enjoying this part of the autumn season, leaves falling, people raking, ball games going on, colors changing and the weather not too cold yet and none of the intense heat of summer. It is a beautiful season.  

The word to ponder today is establish. To establish oneself in the world, one has to do all one can to appear established. Francois de La Rochefoucauld. There are two modes of establishing our reputation: to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the former, because it will invariably be accompanied by the latter. Charles Caleb Colton. He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. Thomas Paine. He who establishes his argument by noise and command, shows that his reason is weak. Michel de Montaigne. Thoughts give birth to a creative force that is neither elemental nor sidereal. Thoughts create a new heaven, a new firmament, a new source of energy, from which new arts flow. When a man undertakes to create something, he establishes a new heaven,as it were and from it the work that he desires to create flows into him. For such is the immensity of man that he is greater than heaven and earth. Philipus Aureolus Paracelsus. Without an acquaintance with the rules of propriety, it is impossible for the character to be established. Confucius. A state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange...Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship. Aristotle. In stirring up tumult and strife, the worst men can do the most, but peace and quiet cannot be established without virtue. Cornelius Tacitus.  

Article summary. I think all of us would like to hear the importance of “leisure” and its affects. The title is Why leisure matters for a good life, according to Aristotle. Ross Channing Reed Lecturer in Philosophy, Missouri University of Science and Technology. At theconversation.com. In opening the author relates to how in our “modern society” people have an attitude that it is “imperative to achieve”. He goes on to say that “even leisure risks becoming another kind of work”. Here is one point I have a difference with, he says that taking and posting photo to be viewed by others can be adding to exhaustion, for me that habit is the opposite of “exhaustion”. It is relaxing and a “get away” as well as a stronger observation of life around me. As it moves on the article sites some of Aristotle’s sayings. Like mentioning that in the search for happiness. That search may be for “pleasure, wealth, honor and power” and in that search we may be “confused” on how to get there. Meaning that we must make “reasoned choice”. These choices may lead to developing “ habits that, over time, become character traits such as courage, temperance, generosity and truthfulness” (which photography had for me). The author goes on mentioning takes time off the clock and it is the  to quote Aristotle  “power of our choices”. These choices or actions “also motives and (forms) character”. The author says that as we form good habits we are leading to self-development. The author says that “true leisure” is a time to “reflect” on our priorities, our friends, ourselves and to “step back”. Both Aristotle and Plato shared that leisure is a step toward achievements and, in Plato’s view, “ inner harmony of the soul. The article seems to iterate that leisure is crucial as it gives time to develop habits that are intricate to our well being, health and ultimately happiness.  So in ending the good “choices we make in our free time” lead to “eudaimonia”, a “good (and happy) spirit”.

Photos in my life today

My first assignment is “x is for...”. This is the only “x” I could find in my house today. It is an xray of my hip replacement. 

The second challenge is “a tree at dawn”. This one had to come from my archives since I wasn’t awake at dawn today

The last upload today is “abandoned”. It is part of a shopping mall
near my home. 

It will be poached fish for dinner tonight. 

Joy

an upload to “flower power” contest at Fine Art America

 want to shop? Visit: fineartamerica.com search for joy rector click on “view shop”  and redbubble.com search for jarector (and take a look at flickr.com search for rectorjoyce)