Dana Owens

Some may ask, “what have I received to be thankful for in this life filled with challenges and problems?” To those people, Buddha may point out the importance of acknowledging the universal and essential gift that is shared with all living beings: life itself.

Among all of Jesus’s teachings, this might be the hardest: love your enemy. As far as I understand, it means neither to pardon all wrong doings of an evil person nor to force ourselves to have friendly feelings toward those who are actively hurting us. But like all of Jesus’s teachings, this concept has layers of meaning that are as relevant to people now as they were during his time.

For his final evening on earth, Jesus could have done any number of activities with his disciples, but he chose to have a meal with them. Through this last supper, Jesus lifts up the importance of eating together, or more precisely, sharing food together.

Thinking of the Bible as a rulebook for the functionality of a human community is a bit of a shallow interpretation. What is even further away is the belief that not obeying one or two of those rules could result in eternal damnation in hell.

In the beginning, most of us start a task with the intention of making a good change in the world. However, we may reach a point where we are willing to compromise our original intention for the sake of better production or profit.