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Hello Mighty Men of God!

I’m glad you’ve taken some of your valuable time to read John: the magazine. This is the third online volume of the magazine and my belief is that John will be a bi-monthly publication, both online and in print. Having written that, let’s review January and February of 2008.

Two things always come to my mind in January.

The first is “Resolutions” or planning for the New Year. Ideally any resolution or plan should be thought out thoroughly and then recorded with objectives, goals, milestone, etc. Anything short of this is a recipe for failure.

The second is the Martin Luther King Jr holiday; I have to ask myself, are we as a country celebrating a Nobel Peace prize winner or the civil rights movement he started?

Let’s move on to my thoughts for February.

The first day is my oldest daughter Michelle’s birthday.

The month of February is also declared African American (Black) History month. Why, do we have Black History Month? According to the Library of Congress, Carter G. Woodson and Jesse E. Moorland co-founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) in 1915. The organization was the platform that launched Woodson's mission to raise awareness and recognize the importance of Black history. He believed that publishing scientific history about the black race would produce facts that would prove to the world that Africa and its people had played a crucial role in the development of civilization.

Seeing the need to spread the news about Black history to the general public as well as scholars, Woodson and the ASNLH pioneered the celebration of "Negro History Week" in 1926, which has since been extended to the entire month of February. I believe Woodson’s goal has been met and that it’s time to make Black History Month American History Month that we may celebrate all Americans (African, Latino, Asian, Native, etc) who have made this a great nation.

The month of February also holds my favorite celebrated day of the year, Valentine’s Day. For those of you who don’t know the history of Valentines’ Day, here is a brief synopsis. Valentine was a priest, who ignored Emperor Claudius’ decree on not having any marriages. He was captured after performing a secret marriage, imprisoned and scheduled to be put to death. During his prison stay, many of the couples he had secretly married visited him, wrote him notes, and brought him flowers. On the day of his death February 14, 269 A.D., he wrote a thank you note to the jailer’s daughter who had befriended him and signed it, "Love from your Valentine."

Based on the following scripture, He who finds a [true] wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. (Proverbs 18:22.) I believe every husband if he doesn’t now, should give Valentine’s Day another look and give it the same importance as your wife’s birthday and your anniversary. I’m sure she does. Of course we also have Presidents’ Day, in which we celebrate Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays. I propose a new tradition for Presidents Day: whereas both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were Christian men, we as Christian men get together on that day and celebrate two famous Christian men who were Presidents.

Lastly, we observe February 29 in the leap year of 2008. Why are leap years needed? Leap years are needed so that the calendar is in alignment with the earth's motion around the sun.

- Robert Miller

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