To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. In 1965, guitarist Stephen Stills noticed an ad in Variety magazine. A casting company for a new music-oriented TV show was seeking “four insane boys, ages 17-21.” Stills decided to audition. His music skills were excellent, but his misshapen teeth and ratty hair were not what the producers were looking for. He returned… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Every day we have two choices. We can hope that things will get easier. Or we can handle life’s hard things better. That’s the perspective of Kara Lawson, one of this generation’s most accomplished female basketball players. Her resume includes 15 seasons as an All-Star shooting guard in the WNBA, including… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. When America’s ragtag revolutionary army faced one of its darkest moments, George Washington brought out his secret weapon. His eyeglasses. Things had gone unaccountably well for the colonists in their struggle against the British army, the world’s most elite fighting force. By the spring of 1783, treaty negotiations would soon guarantee America’s independence. But… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Wayne Cordeiro, founding pastor of the New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu, was once invited to compete in a traditional Hawaiian canoe race. The wa’a is a large, ocean-going canoe that features a balancing arm and seats six paddlers. As Cordeiro puts it, “Although navigating one of these ancient canoes may look… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Life is tough enough without making mountains out of mole hills. In her book Fierce Conversations, corporate trainer Susan Scott recalls the family job assignment given to her brother Sam. Every Saturday during his teen years, Sam awoke to the task of tackling the Mole Problem. “Our yard was mole central,” she writes. … Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Saturday Night Live, the one-of-a-kind comedy show that launched its 48th season earlier this month, has aired more than 10,000 sketches. Critics and fans agree that if there’s ever an authoritative Top 10 list of the best skits, it will have to include the April 8, 2000, sketch that’s come to be… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Most of us have seen, if only in the movies, the drama of a “hostage statement.” Unseen kidnappers force their hostage to sit in front of a camera and speak – perhaps assuring the world that he or she is alive and well, or to state the philosophy or demands or… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. More than six decades ago, an engineer from the Boeing company boarded a passenger plane driven by propellers. After introducing himself to the man sitting next to him, he began to talk excitedly about the project to which he had given much of his life – the development of the Boeing 707… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Like most kids, I grew up hearing that Christopher Columbus was the man who bravely stood up to the religious superstitions of the Dark Ages. Ignorant people – deceived by Catholic priests – were certain that the world was flat. If you sailed all the way to the edge of the Earth,… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here. A number of years ago, author and sociologist Tony Campolo was a keynote speaker at a world missions conference in the Midwest. The audience included more than 10,000 collegians and twenty-somethings who had gathered to hear inspiring calls to change the world. Campolo stood at the platform and shouted, “Isn’t this conference great?” … Read more »
