To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. In 1789, the newly formed U.S. Senate wrestled with a difficult question for almost a month. How should American citizens address their new president? The nation was only a few years old, born of an armed revolution against the tyranny of English monarchs. Surely, therefore, we wouldn’t want to perpetuate the lofty titles normally… Read more »
Praise the Lord, O my soul!My inmost being, praise his holy name.Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits.Who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,Who redeems your life from the pit.And crowns you with love and compassion.Who satisfies your desires with good thingsSo that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.Praise the Lord, O… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. We seem to be in the middle of a plague of plagiarism. And it’s far more pervasive than a few high school students copying articles out of Wikipedia and submitting them as original term papers. Several works of highly regarded historians, including Stephen Ambrose and Joseph J. Ellis, have been shown to be at… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. What’s the most dangerous place in your house? That’s easy: It’s the stairs. The number one cause of accidental death in the United States is driving mishaps. Falling down the stairs ranks second. In At Home, Bill Bryson’s magnum opus on the history of the house, the author points out that “huge amounts of money… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Economists Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner – famous for their Freakonomics books – wonder if you think you can out-perform a group of British schoolchildren, ages five through nine. First, listen to this story. Then answer four questions: A little girl named Mary goes to the beach with her mother and brother. … Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. How do you know what’s going on inside someone’s chest? Dr. Rene Laennec treated thousands of patients during the Napoleonic era in France, a time when medicine was just beginning to tackle that question. Some doctors tapped on their patients’ chests to determine the proportion of fluids there, not unlike the way brewers rapped… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. What makes the world go round? Vocal artists and astronomers provide different answers. The Stylistics sang that people make the world go round. Soul crooner Deon Jackson and the rock group KISS proclaimed that love is what keeps things spinning. For the cynical, the musical Cabaret hits just the right notes: “Money makes the… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. If your name is Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright IV, you need a good nickname. For most of his life, the tall, thin Wainwright, a career military officer, was called “Skinny.” He liked it. His greatest honor – being named supreme commander of the Allied troops in the Philippines early in 1942 – was also equivalent… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Author Martha Grace Reece once interviewed a woman who had sat in the front row of her church choir every Sunday for 30 years. “Why do you go to church? What do you get out of it?” Her husband of 35 years had just died slowly and painfully. Horror stories pocked her memories of… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. What do you hope to do before you die? Inspired by the 2007 comedy-drama The Bucket List, starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, as well as a growing mini-industry devoted to generating new and interesting answers to that question, millions of people are taking the time to identify what dreams they hope to… Read more »
