NEWARK — Dixie Jerles walked across the stage hesitantly to collect her prize of $900 Sunday at The Advocate’s 2012 Bridal Show.

The master of ceremonies of the event in the Reese Center on the Newark campus of Ohio State University and Central Ohio Technical College drew her name from the large barrel of registered brides-to-be.

The 60-year-old Zanesville resident said she felt awkward because so many young brides were in the audience. After accepting the money, she cried backstage.

Jerles is getting married in August to Richard Wiseman, 71, also of Zanesville.

This will be the second wedding for both.

Jerles lost her first husband five years ago on Feb. 13, when he died from kidney and heart disease.

Wiseman lost his first wife to Huntington’s disease more than two years ago.

They never thought they would be able to be happy again, but that all changed after they met.

“I feel God has blessed us,” Jerles said, sobbing. “How many times in your life do you have the chance to find happiness with someone you love? I feel like God brought us together.”

Jerles had come to the show because her 15-year-old granddaughter, Kaitlin Jerles, was a model for Jillian’s Formal Wear at the bridal fashion show.

Jerles had walked around the show, sampled the cakes and talked to the photographers, not realizing there was something to sign up for.

The emcee offered brides-to-be a last chance to register. Jerles gave her registration to someone on stage, and before she knew it, her name was called.

“It was just a shock,” Jerles said. “What a nice surprise. My granddaughter was as excited as I was.”

Jerles and Wiseman knew of each other for years, while they were married to their former spouses.

They had run into each other many times in the community, but didn’t really meet until friends introduced them. They immediately hit it off, Jerles said.

Wiseman proposed to her Oct. 1. The couple will use the $900 for the reception they are planning to have for family and friends.

“Everything is moving so fast,” Jerles said. “We just want to share the happiness we have with our family. That is what it is all about.”

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life…indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

                                                                                           – Romans 8:38

It is hardly a matter of wonder that the country that gave the world instant tea and instant coffee should be the one to give it instant Christianity. And it cannot be denied that it was American Fundamentalism that brought instant Christianity to the gospel churches.

The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us…we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all. If we would find God amid all the religious externals, we must first determine to find Him.

                                                                                           – A. W. Tozer

MIDDLE EAST, February 20, 2012— There is no voice like Whitney Houston’s.  Whenever she comes on the air, one cannot help but to be still and listen. It is the rare individual, like Whitney Houston, that is God’s gifted musical instrument and gives us a glimpse of heaven.

Whitney Houston was extravagantly fortunate to be a blessing to others, but somewhere she lost her spiritual foothold.

She has left behind a legacy of phenomenal worldly achievement many will aspire to – but her success ultimately may have cut short her life.

She could have been a role model for millions of desperate young people for many years to come, but she chose a lifestyle of addiction and compromise that took her far away from the Christian convictions she grew up with.

With a voice like hers, she hardly needed the typical sexy showbiz image, but she seemed unconcerned about the impact that diluting her Christian values had on herself and others.

It seems that perhaps for Whitney the “gospel” left the music.

If Christianity is the real thing, then Christ has to be counterfeit – they can’t both be true.

Much has been made of Whitney’s church upbringing, but often a traditional, churched background is a sure recipe for someone becoming an apostate. Fortunately that did not happen to Whitney, from her media interviews her faith appeared to be authentic. Unfortunately, she may have left the genuine for the fake; and her choices cost her dearly.

This extract from Whitney’s 2009 interview on the Oprah Winfrey show offers sad insights into a life gone awry, even as she struggled to hold on to her convictions.

Oprah: There’s a wonderful quote by the L.A. Times. They said, “The pain, and frankly, disgust that so many pop fans felt during Houston’s decline was caused not so much by her personal distress as by her seemingly careless treatment of the national treasure that happened to reside within her.”… You were not like any of the others. You really were given the voice. You were given that treasure. And people felt, how could you not know that that was to be treasured?

Would you just sit in your room and do drugs? 

Whitney: Yeah. Talk on the phone. Watch TV. Listen to gospel. I would still read my Bible, amazingly enough. I would still read my Bible. I still had it in me. I knew God was there. I knew the light was there and I was just trying to get back to it. I just kept trying to get back to that spirituality.

Oprah: How long were you in rehab? 

Whitney: I did my stint. You do your 30 days. I went to one where I could take my child with me. Everywhere I just had to have her with me. I wanted her to understand. I didn’t lie to her. I couldn’t. 

Oprah: Really. Did you explain to her about the drugs? 

Whitney: Yes. 

Oprah: What did you say? How do you tell your child? 

Whitney: I kind of associated it with our lifestyle. Our lifestyle. And what could happen. 

Oprah: You can see yourself in Bobbi Kristina? 

Whitney: Oh, all over her. She writes creatively all the time. She writes. And she sings. She’s really starting to sing really well now.

Oprah: Is she good? 

Whitney: Yeah, she is. I want her to take her time. I don’t want anybody to touch her. I want to groom her. 

Oprah: So if she chooses to be in this business, that’s okay with you? 

Whitney: Yeah, but I will be there. Like my mom was there with me. When I was just getting in the business, and they came for me when I was 14 and wanted to sign me, my mother said: ”No way. Whitney’s got a lot more to learn.”

Oprah: Who do you love? 

Whitney: The Lord. I do. I’m so humbled and so thankful. By his grace, his goodness. And for never giving up on me. I love my mother. My daughter. My relatives. My sisters. My brothers. I love you. Because I knew somewhere in the background you were there praying too. 

Despite her own abysmal personal life, with all the money in the world for her daughter to choose any career she wanted, Whitney intended to guide 18-year old Bobbi Kristina into show business, knowing all the inherent risks.

Do the lyrics of her hit song ‘The Greatest Love of All,’ betray her lack of a sense of purpose?

She got it wrong – self-love is an important psychological trait, but –“Learning to love yourself,” is not “the greatest love of all.” Love is other-centered and acts, like the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore wrote: “I slept and dreamt that life was Joy. I woke and saw that life was Duty. I acted, and behold, Duty was Joy.”

David F. Wells in his book Above All Earthly Powers, points out: “One hears the belief expressed in different ways that each must create one’s own meaning or that it is morally permissible for everyone to do one’s “own thing,” provided no one gets hurt – a strange proviso which has no moral legs upon which to stand on in an empty universe!”

It appears Houston could not clarify for herself who is sovereign, God or her audience? What was her authority in real life, scripture or culture?

And what is important, faithfulness or success? Again when singing, “I Didn’t Know My Own Strength,” she seems to have forgotten Psalm 46: 1, God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble, and Jesus’ startling statement in John 15:5:  “… for without Me, you can do nothing.”

In reviewing the research on church life between 1996 and 2002, researcher George Barna stumbled upon a most disconcerting fact. Why is it, he wondered, that baby boomers were initially so opposed to religion but now make up fully half of the born again movement?

The answer, he concluded, is that they are practiced consumers who were offered a deal that they simply could not turn down.

For “a one-time admission of imperfection and weakness” they received in return “permanent peace with God.” The result was that “millions of Boomers, who said the prayer, asked for forgiveness and went on with their life, with virtually nothing changed.”

And Barna adds, that they “saw it as a deal in which they could exploit God and get what they wanted without giving up anything of consequence.”

Until the facts are known we can only speculate about how Houston died, whether the prescription drugs found in her hotel room or the alcohol CNN reported she was seen having a few hours before she died had anything to do with it. 

But there had to be a reason she was called away at 48 – for her grieving fan base it will remain a mystery, but in God’s mercy for his wayward offspring there are meaningful spiritual connotations for a premature exit, when three score years and ten is the median.

For Whitney, we can speculate it had more to do with God’s favour rather than his wrath.

Frank Raj is based in India and the Middle East where he has lived for over three decades. He is the founding editor publisher of ‘The International Indian’ (www.theinternationalindian.com) the oldest magazine of Gulf-Indian society and history since 1992. Frank is co-author of the upcoming publication ‘Universal Book of the Scriptures,’ and author of ‘Desh Aur Diaspora.’ He blogs at: www.no2christianity.wordpress.com

Read more of Frank’s work in No 2 Religion, Yes 2 Faith in the Communities at the Washington Times.

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Some weird things were going on with the Timberwolves in Sunday night’s game against Philadelphia before Kevin Love hit his dramatic free throws with 0.1 seconds to play.

Ricky Rubio had no assists in the first half after scoring 14 points in the first quarter.

Nikola Pekovic got double-teamed for the first time in his two-year NBA career.

Love was having a miserable shooting night, making just 2 of 14 shots through the first three periods.

None of these issues, however, kept the Wolves from pulling out a 92-91 victory before a crowd of 18,759 at Target Center that saw them even their record at 16-16 and reach .500 for the first time this late in a season since the team was 22-22 in 2006-07.

The crowd also saw Love persevere through a tough night and perform like an NBA all-star when it mattered most. Before he sank his two game-winning free throws, he had made 5 of 9 shots in the fourth quarter to keep the Wolves in position for a key win against the third-best team in the Eastern Conference.

“That shows where Kevin has come as a player,” Wolves guard Luke Ridnour said. “He believes in himself. He knows when we need him. Fortunately, his shots started going down in the fourth quarter.”

The Wolves also executed the inbounds play that resulted in Love getting to the free-throw line. How many times this season has Wolves coach Rick Adelman moaned about lack of execution in clutch moments – or a play that never got started because of a turnover?

Only

one of the Wolves’ 10 turnovers was committed in the fourth quarter, a sign that the players are getting Adelman’s message about taking better care of the ball.

“When you play close games, you have to make plays,” Adelman said. “We’re figuring out what we need to do in certain situations. At the end, we were just trying to make an aggressive play and see what happens.”

The first step in the process was putting the ball in Love’s hands. After taking the inbounds pass from Rubio with 3.6

seconds remaining, Love managed to find a path to the basket and draw a foul on Sixers forward Andre Iguodala just before time expired. In most cases, referees are tempted not to make a call in that situation, preferring to let the players decide the outcome.

Love made such a definitive move to the basket that Iguodala and forward Thaddeus Young had to close in to keep him from making a layup.

“That’s the first one like that we had all year that went our way,” Adelman said of the foul call, with a trace of sarcasm.

Love’s free throws made up for his poor shooting through the first three quarters.

“I wasn’t going to let my teammates down,” he said. “I was the weakest link out there earlier. It only takes one quarter to get going. The main thing is I wanted to keep playing hard and making the right plays, especially on defense.”

Love finished with 20 points and 15 rebounds, but he made only 7 of 23 shots from the floor. On this night, he didn’t mind seeing Rubio take over some of the scoring responsibilities, particularly when the Sixers seemed intent on not letting Pekovic have another big night.

Pekovic, who averaged 18.0 points and shot 61.3 percent in the previous eight games, drew considerable attention from the Sixers’ defense from the outset. Guards Jrue Holiday and Jodie Meeks occasionally rotated to Pekovic when he got the ball, leaving Rubio open to shoot or drive to the basket.

If there were concerns about Rubio’s scoring potential, he dealt with that issue in the first quarter, making 2 of 3 three-pointers and three other baskets on mid-range jumpers or layups.

“If they let me shoot it, I’m going to keep shooting,” Rubio said. “Sometimes I make it. Sometimes I miss. It’s a bad shot if I don’t take it.”

Rubio led the Wolves with 22 points. It was only the second time he has led the Wolves in scoring, but that could change if he continues to display that kind of mentality.

“Ricky was another guy who stepped up for us,” Love said. “It wasn’t just me.”

Follow Ray Richardson at twitter.com/twolvesnow.

More seniors find love in latter years

Written by Joan Lownds

Sunday, 19 February 2012 10:00

February is the month devoted to love, but is romance limited to the young? “Actually, it is more important to find companionship as we age,” said Kristin Carpenter, a clinical social worker with Visiting Nurse Hospice of Fairfield County, at a workshop last week at the Wilton Senior Center.

At the workshop, which was entitled “Love in the Time of Old Age,” Ms. Carpenter said despite the need for it, love between seniors is “something that we rarely see on television or in the movies.”

Ms. Carpenter said this myth is perpetuated by Hollywood, despite the fact the 50-plus age group is the fastest growing demographic in the country. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the 78 million baby boomers now represent 28% of the population. The aging of the American population is expected to continue, with people 65 and older expected to grow from 12% to 19% of the population by 2030.

Currently, approximately 30% of baby boomers are single, according to the U.S. census.

So how should this growing population of senior singles approach their search for romance?

“Be open,” said Ms. Carpenter. “Don’t pigeonhole a potential partner … you might find someone completely different than you’ve ever dated before … change your expectations a bit.”

“Open yourself to technology and maybe try online dating,” said Lizabeth Doty, Wilton’s coordinator of senior activities, although she said that caution and safety must also be emphasized for this kind of venture.

This is another arena in which the ranks of seniors is rising. The popular website match.com, an online relationship site with 15 million members, recently reported 14% of its members are over 50. Another dating site, OurTime.com, which is designed for those over 50, said its membership has grown by 400% in the two years since it was launched.

Ms. Carpenter said seniors should also consider shaking up their daily routines a bit.

“Go to a concert or sign up for class instead of just following your same routine every day,” she advised.

Betty Johnson, one of the participants in the workshop, said she signed up for a square dancing class, for example.

Although it can be “risky to open up and love someone,” it can be very rewarding, especially for older adults who may have more time to concentrate on relationships, Ms. Carpenter said.

In an OurTime poll, 85% of those surveyed said they considered companionship more important than it was when they were younger.

Ms. Carpenter quoted the writer Anais Nin, who wrote, “Age does not protect you from love, but love, to a certain extent, protects you from age.”

Ms. Doty said the workshop successfully explored the “many levels of relationships …. which serve to enrich our lives.”

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Online dating … the love game-changer.

It’s easy to play Cupid when both parties are motivated to find love, writes Nicky Phillips.

In the winter of 1959, two Stanford University students used the institution’s room-size IBM 650 to build a computer program that paired 49 young men, mainly classmates, with 49 local women.

Prospective couples answered 30 questions including their age, religion, hobbies and number of children wished for in marriage.

The results were fed into the computer which, after nine hours of processing, selected pairs based on the similarity of the responses. The first attempt at computer dating was launched.

An end-of-term house party, replete with an adequate amount of home brew, functioned as a group first date.

The experiment resulted in one marriage and a top grade for its inventors.

The world wide web has since transformed online dating into a billion-dollar industry, and it is now the most common way love seekers meet prospective partners bar introductions by friends.

Gone are the days when parents picked suitors for their sons and daughters or couples met in the smoking room of a seedy nightclub. Cupid’s bow now strikes via cyber space.

But have internet dating sites – which have grown from catalogues of singles to algorithm-based match sites – fundamentally changed the way Homo sapiens meets partners? And has this been for the better?

There is no denying that attitudes to internet dating have improved since inception.

People no longer view it as a last resort for the socially isolated and awkward and successful online couples no longer feel the need to concoct a more acceptable story to explain how they met.

A 2011 survey by the Australian online dating website RSVP, owned by Fairfax Media, publisher of the Herald, found 30 per cent of adult Australians had tried online dating, a technology that did not exist here 15 years earlier.

A satisfying relationship is one of the most significant predictors of a person’s happiness and emotional health, so measuring the success of online dating was something American psychologist Harry Reis and his colleagues felt was important.

While internet dating has not altered the nature of intimacy, it has fundamentally changed the way people initiate relationships, says Reis, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester.

In conventional dating, a couple meet and get to know each other gradually, but online dating works by browsing computer profiles and relationship seekers often know a lot about their date before they meet.

The main benefit of dating websites is the instant access to hundreds, sometimes thousands, of potential partners beyond a person’s typical social network, says Reis, whose study reviewed more than 400 psychological studies.

There are also advantages to making first contact via the internet, says co-author Paul Eastwick, as couples can carefully craft their communications and get ”off on the right foot”.

The danger lies when people spend too much time conversing over the internet and expectations for the first face-to-face meeting are not met, says Eastwick, from Texas AM University.

Online dating clearly has its pitfalls. The study found too many dating options overwhelm love seekers, and they often navigate away from people they would usually find appealing if given less choice.

Computer profiles also prompt people to ”shop” for dates, focusing more on features such as physical attractiveness that become largely irrelevant once a relationship develops, says Eastwick, whose study is published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest.

Not surprisingly, they also found ”modest misrepresentation widespread”. Many online dating sites claim to be able to unite a singleton with their perfect match based on sophisticated algorithms that assess compatibility based on everything from genetics to a pair’s immune system.

But Reis and his team found no published evidence to support the claims by many websites that their matching capabilities are superior to traditional ”met-them-in-a-bar” dating.

The main problem with matching, says Eastwick, is that it is based on the false assumption that similarities in personality and attitudes play a major role in whether a relationship will be successful long-term.

Relationship research shows that the way two people communicate, handle conflict and manage stress are of greater significance to a couple’s longevity.

”But these things are very hard to assess before two people meet,” says Eastwick.

The team suggests the perceived success of online dating is partly explained by the fact randomly pairing highly-motivated love seekers is bound to result in at least a few successful partnerships.

And, while they believe many more lonely hearts will continue to find love online, they say online dating sites can be improved markedly by using the large amount of genuine, peer-reviewed relationship science.

While internet dating has not altered the nature of intimacy, it has fundamentally changed the way people initiate relationships, says Reis, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester.

In conventional dating, a couple meet and get to know each other gradually, but online dating works by browsing computer profiles and relationship seekers often know a lot about their date before they meet.

The main benefit of dating websites is the instant access to hundreds, sometimes thousands, of potential partners beyond a person’s typical social network, says Reis, whose study reviewed more than 400 psychological studies.

There are also advantages to making first contact via the internet, says co-author Paul Eastwick, as couples can carefully craft their communications and get ”off on the right foot”.

The danger lies when people spend too much time conversing over the internet and expectations for the first face-to-face meeting are not met, says Eastwick, from Texas AM University.

Online dating clearly has its pitfalls. The study found too many dating options overwhelm love seekers, and they often navigate away from people they would usually find appealing if given less choice.

Computer profiles also prompt people to ”shop” for dates, focusing more on features such as physical attractiveness that become largely irrelevant once a relationship develops, says Eastwick, whose study is published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest.

Not surprisingly, they also found ”modest misrepresentation widespread”. Many online dating sites claim to be able to unite a singleton with their perfect match based on sophisticated algorithms that assess compatibility based on everything from genetics to a pair’s immune system.

But Reis and his team found no published evidence to support the claims by many websites that their matching capabilities are superior to traditional ”met-them-in-a-bar” dating.

16 February 2012
Last updated at 04:55 ET

By Karishma Vaswani
BBC News, Jakarta

A higher proportion of Indonesian internet users tweet than in any other country

The film #republiktwitter is a tale that reflects Indonesia’s love affair with Twitter. These days, as one of the characters in the movie says, the people’s voice is Twitter’s voice.

It is a modern Indonesian romantic comedy about two young people who find love through social media.

The film also helps explain why Indonesians are so obsessed with communicating with each other online.

This is one of the most Twitter and Facebook-friendly nations on Earth. A higher proportion of Indonesian internet users sign on to Twitter than in any other country. Indonesia is also home to the world’s third-largest number of Facebook users.

Indonesian Facebook and Twitter users have managed to push for social justice online and embarrassed misbehaving government officials, as well as helping businesses market their products.

That is why popular computer game Angry Birds held the global launch of its tie-up with Facebook in Jakarta this week.

The launch was held in a suburban Jakarta mall in front of fans who turned up in the hope of winning a prize. Children as young as five or six attended the launch.

Young Indonesians are engaging with social media at an early age

Holding the launch in Indonesia was part and parcel of the Asian strategy of Rovio – the company behind Angry Birds.

“It’s to ignite the whole market of Indonesia,” Rovio Asia’s Senior Vice-President Henri Holm said. “To get them to like Angry Birds on Facebook and then play the game online.”

He said that Jakarta was the top choice for the official launch because Indonesia was the social media capital of the world.

“It’s a creative market. People here are entrepreneurs, they have that built-in creativity to them,” he explained. “Indonesia is very close to our objectives – and the cultural heritage here and tradition of story-telling is very deep and exciting for us to explore.”

‘Many conversations’

It is thought there are 40 million Facebook users among Indonesia’s 240 million-strong population – no small feat, given that only 21% of Indonesians between the ages of 15 and 49 have access to the internet, according to a 2011 report.

Many in rural areas struggle to get connected, but the social media phenomenon is widespread amongst Indonesia’s urban elite.

Everyone who is anyone is on Twitter these days – and one way for young Indonesians to feel connected to some of the famous and powerful people is by following them online.

Desi Anwar, one of the country’s most popular television hosts, has more than 100,000 Twitter followers.

“Indonesia is blessed with lots of young people,” she said. “If you look at the demographics of the users, a lot of them are young – and young people like to chat!”

Desi Anwar said the social media explosion had sparked new conversations

Tweeting has been so successful for Desi that she has recently released a book of her tweets – which often focus on life tips and how to be happy – because they were retweeted so often.

It is a sign of the times, she says, and recognition of the fact that social media is becoming an increasingly natural and normal way for Indonesians to communicate.

“It’s because of the sort of democratic environment that Indonesia is now and has been in the last decade. People here are very critical of government and society,” she said.

“And there are so many things going on here… It gives rise to all sorts of conversations at all sorts of levels. Everyone has an opinion on everything – and this is what creates this tremendous noise.”

That noise is beginning to have an impact off-line too. A recent protest against hard-line Muslim groups was organised entirely through Facebook and Twitter.

But not as many people turned up as organisers had hoped, despite a huge outpouring of online support.

Social media is still in its infancy in Indonesia – but using it to effect social change has become a growing trend.

Indonesians are no strangers to protests – this country won its democracy through people power. But now they have a whole new tool, one that is right at their fingertips.