A SOBER NEW YEAR.   Watchnight service is a late-night Christian church service on New Year’s Eve.   It provides Christians the opportunity to review the year that has passed and prepare for the year ahead.

Following the lead of the Moravian Brethren who began having such “watch” services in 1733, the founder of the Methodist Church, John Wesley, originated watch night services in 1740, sometimes calling them Covenant Renewal Services…  Liturgy for this service is found in The United Methodist Book of Worship.

The powerful main prayer follows:

I am no longer my own, but thine.  Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.  Put me to doing, put me to suffering.  Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee, Exalted for thee or brought low for thee.  Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things, let me have nothing.  I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.  And now, O Glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.  And the covenant which I have made on earth, Let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

GREAT QUOTES.

America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle.  We as a people have such a purpose.  It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world.   – Pres. George H.W. Bush

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, and religion, and philosophy, is cause for withdrawing from a friend.   – Pres. Thomas Jefferson

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.   – Pres. Dwight D Eisenhower

WATER, WATER, WATER.   Consumers Reports magazine asserts that bottled water companies owned by Coca-Cola and Pepsi primarily use tap water from public water supplies for their bottled product.

PROBLEMS IN EDUCATION.   Michael S. Roth warns that 45 states spend less per student on public colleges and universities in 2016 than they did before 2008.

MIXED MARRIAGES.  Colbert King, writing in the Washington Post, comments that in the 50 years since the decision in Loving  v. Virginia, there has been more than a fivefold increase in the percentage of newlyweds getting married to someone of a different race or ethnicity.

 THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA.  Philip Roth’s novel invites speculation on what would happen if Charles Lindbergh – admirer of Nazism and no friend to- Jewish Americans – was elected president in 1940.  In his novel, Roth invents a Federal policy to disperse Jews from urban communities and into America’s heartland.   A wave of severe anti-Semitism only ends after the death of Lindbergh.  The New York Times reviewed the book, describing it as “… dreamlike… preposterous and, at the same time, creepily plausible.”

Some may see the novel as a foretelling of the Trump administration.  But when approached whether the novel revealed anything of the future, Roth denied any such allegorical interpretations.

TECHNOLOGY AND AGENT ORANGE.   A new law, signed June 25 by President Donald Trump, allows former service members who served on a ship that operated within 12 nautical miles of a line of demarcation to apply for health benefits and disability compensation.

IT USED TO BE A NO, NO…..   In 2020, new uniform regulations allow male Marines to carry small black umbrellas while in uniform.

… THIS IS STILL A NO TODAY. Paratroopers deploying to the Middle East were told to leave behind their cellphones, laptops, tablets and other personal electronic devices, according to 82nd Airborne Division officials.

SEXUAL ASSAULT.   An Army colonel has filed a Federal lawsuit alleging that the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sexually assaulted her multiple times while at U.S. Strategic Command.

STALKING.  Nearly 60% of women experience stalking while serving, according to the Army Times.