To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. For something like a quarter century, a furniture store in my hometown of Indianapolis aired TV commercials that always began with the same 15 words. The announcer breathlessly rattled off these four sentences: You work hard for your money.Now spend your money smart.Be smart.Buy now! Each ad began with a video clip of someone… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Needing to be right can sometimes be oh-so-wrong. I learned that more than 50 years ago while on a canoe trip down Sugar Creek in north-central Indiana with some of my high school friends. It was a beautiful spring day. The river was alive with insects, birds…and snakes. Every now and then we… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here The European adventurers who sailed west across the Atlantic in the 15th and 16th centuries discovered a new hemisphere. But on April 24, 1676, Anton von Leeuwenhoek, without leaving his home in the Netherlands, discovered a whole new world. Leeuwenhoek’s innate curiosity went far beyond the fabrics he peddled as a cloth merchant. … Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Is there anything about the God who is worshiped by Jews and Christians that is different from other notions of God available on the global religious smorgasbord? The answer is yes. There are a number of things that are uniquely attributed to Yahweh, the Father of Jesus. Perhaps the most startling claim… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. The Dead Sea is one of the earth’s most extraordinary natural features. This large lake, located on the border of Israel and Jordan, is the lowest point on the surface of the planet – a full one-third of a mile below sea level. It’s not shallow, either. At one spot it’s 997… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Some people wear Superman pajamas. Superman wears Chuck Norris pajamas. That’s one of hundreds of so-called Chuck Norris “facts” that for the past 17 years have fed a logic-defying cultural phenomenon and Internet craze. In 2005 talk show host Conan O’Brien began to tell jokes about the martial arts fighter and actor whose… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here. During the past five decades, Morton Kondracke has been one of the most recognizable American political commentators. The independent-thinking journalist appeared as a panelist on The McLaughlin Group and co-hosted the lively televised conversations known as The Beltway Boys. Now at age 83 he continues to write for the non-partisan Capitol Hill… Read more »
Jesus said to his disciples: “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:31). On this Labor Day, our quiet place may not include spectacular scenery. But we can always stop for a few minutes. To breathe out a word of thanks for God’s gift of life. And to thank him for the privilege… Read more »
You received this email because 51 years ago Ray Tomlinson spent a few hours messing around. Tomlinson was a computer programmer working with ARPANET, the predecessor to the Internet. In 1971 a whopping 15 computers had been linked to each other. Ray thought it might be useful one day to send messages between computers. The trick was to figure out a way… Read more »
Real men don’t use parachutes. That, at least, was the official position of America’s military commanders during World War One. The “Great War” (1914-1918) was the first time that airplanes were used in combat, or that anyone even imagined they had strategic military value. When Captain Eddie Rickenbacker – America’s “ace of aces” with 26 confirmed aerial victories – first squeezed into the… Read more »
