To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here High on a Sierra Nevada mountainside in eastern California stands the largest tree in the world. The numbers associated with this sequoia, which was named for Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, are hard to fathom. It’s as high as a 28-story building. At its base, its trunk is 36.5 feet wide. Scientists… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here During a public ministry that lasted almost 60 years, Douglas Coe was one of the most influential spiritual leaders in Washington D.C. Known as the “stealth Billy Graham,” he impacted others through gracious, under-the-radar partnerships with Republicans, Democrats, and everybody in between, not to mention religious groups and denominations of every… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here “Let me play devil’s advocate for a few minutes.” Most of us have heard that before. Someone makes a point or proposes a plan. It definitely has merit, and listeners nod their heads in agreement. Then one person decides to push back – not necessarily because they disagree with what they’ve… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here As recently as 1971, astronomers wondered if there really was such a thing as a “black hole.” That was the colloquial name given to an ultra-dense mass predicted by Einstein’s general relativity equations. According to the reckonings of cosmologists, it might be possible for a massive star to burn through… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Most of the people you will encounter today fall into the fourth of Gordon MacDonald’s five relational categories. Almost 40 years ago, MacDonald proposed that it’s worth noting how various kinds of people affect our personal energy on a daily basis. Spending time with a VRP (Very Resourceful Person) is like… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here As summer heat gives way to crisp autumn days, Midwesterners typically throw open their doors and windows. Then as nighttime temperatures become downright chilly, most homeowners will notice some visitors at their front door. We’re talking about houseflies. Having luxuriated for weeks in the warmth of August, flies who survive until… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Almost every film adaptation of Stephen King’s novels has been a disappointment. At least for the author. The exception is Stand By Me, a coming-of-age drama that was based, in part, on King’s own childhood. When director Rob Reiner privately screened the film for the novelist before its theatrical release in 1986,… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here All of us are called to be stewards, or caretakers, of the gifts and resources we have been given. That includes our talents and abilities, our bank accounts, our calendars, and our physical wellbeing. What’s often overlooked, however, is our need to be stewards of our personal energy. Almost 40 years… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called it “as much an experience we live through as a film we watch on screen.” He was referring to Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg’s 1998 epic re-creation of the D-Day invasion of the Normandy coast and the costly days that followed. Spielberg was… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here When the boogeyman goes to sleep at night, he checks under his bed for Chuck Norris. That’s one of hundreds of so-called Chuck Norris “facts” that for the past 20 years have fed a logic-defying cultural phenomenon and Internet craze. In 2005, talk show host Conan O’Brien began to tell jokes… Read more »
