The Gift Of Presence

We don't have to spend our time skipping along
the surface of life, missing out on the richness of
engaging deeply with those around us...


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Can't Buy Me Love

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On a website called Craig's List, a young woman
wrote: "I'm a spectacularly beautiful 25-year-old
girl. I'm articulate and classy. I'm looking to [marry]
a guy who makes at least half a million a year.
Where do you single rich men hang out?"

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Question Authority

"Question authority."

That was the slogan of a generation disillusioned
by what they saw as the abuses of those in power.
A steady stream of foreign policy failures, presidential
scandals, and corporate abuses left an entire generation
skeptical of authority.

According to some educators, for example, the only way
to teach children to have a balanced view of the world is
to teach them to skeptically question everything in the
curriculum or the text. Nothing is to be taken for granted;
everything is to be examined as an antagonist.

And for some, "authority" is synonymous with "tyranny."
There is no essential difference between the exercise of
authority and responsibility for others and a repressive
boot pressed across the neck of the people.


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Experimenting With Human Dignity

In H. G. Wells's novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, the survivor
of a shipwreck lands on an island in the South Pacific. There
he discovers that the island's owner has been creating human-
animal hybrids.

Wells's novel grew out of his revulsion at what people were
doing to animals. Today, the real source of horror is what man
is doing to himself.

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The Dead Don't Bleed

For one family in Venezuela, the space between death and
life is filled with more shock than usual. After a serious car
accident, Carlos Camejo was pronounced dead at the scene.

Officials released the body to the morgue and a routine
autopsy was ordered. But as soon as examiners began
the autopsy, they realized something was gravely amiss:
the body was bleeding.

Without anesthesia, they quickly stitched up the wounds
to stop the bleeding, a procedure, in turn, that jarred the
man awake. "I woke up because the pain was unbearable,"
said Camejo. Equally jarred awake was Camejo's wife, who
came to the morgue to identify her husband's body and
instead found him in the hallway--alive.

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Don't All Religions Lead To God?

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There is a dizzying array of options when it
comes to religion, and the culture around us
says that they are all equally valid. It seems
absolutely bizarre to people that someone would
say, "This one way is the truth and the only truth."

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The Sovereign

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For years, I never used the word "sovereign" as a noun.
I knew it could be used in this way--"Like a sovereign,"
writes Shakespeare "he radiates worth, his eyes lending
a double majesty"--I just never did. But trial and tragedy
have a way of waking us to words and realities overlooked.


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Playing Favorites

A friend of mine describes coming to terms as a little girl
with the sad thought that she would never be God's favorite.
Knowing that God had so many children, knowing that good
fathers love equally, she knew her hope of being the favorite
was never going to pan out.

When I first heard her say this, I smiled at the idea of a little
girl worrying so seriously about God's fairness and how it
affected her. God is much more often accused of being un-fair.

But the more I thought about my friend's disappointment, the
more I think this is exactly the difficulty most of us have with
God-- although most of us will never admit it. Yet here, the
unguarded honesty of a child voices what we do not: If we
are being honest, no one really wants to be seen as equal
to all others.


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By Its Cover

In a recent study included in the Archives of Pediatrics
& Adolescent Medicine children were shown to over -
whelmingly prefer the taste of food that comes in
McDonald's wrappers. The study had preschoolers
sample identical foods in packaging from McDonald's
and in matched, but unbranded, packaging.

The kids were then asked if the food tasted the same
or if one tasted better. The unmarked foods lost the
taste test every time. Even apple juice, carrots, and
milk tasted better to the kids when taken from the
familiar wrappings of the Golden Arches.

"This study demonstrates simply and elegantly that
advertising literally brainwashes young children into
a baseless preference for certain food products," said
a physician from Yale's School of Medicine. "Children,
it seems, literally do judge a food by its cover. And they
prefer the cover they know."


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Theology of Choice

Click on Cartoon to Enlarge

There are some stories that move us whether we hear them
at five or 55. The 1965 release of the first Peanuts movie,
A Charlie Brown Christmas, was instantly loved by adults
and children alike.

Interestingly, it almost did not make it past the television
executives who hated it. The movie was criticized for every -
thing from being too contemporary in music, to being too
religious in tone. But audiences everywhere confidently
disagreed. Having aired every year since its debut in
1965, it is now the longest-running cartoon special in
history.

One of my favorite scenes, which I no doubt share with
many, finds Charlie Brown on a hunt for the perfect "great
big, shiny, aluminum tree--maybe even a pink one" as
instructed by Lucy for their Christmas pageant.

At the tree lot, Charlie Brown walks through row after row
of flashing, shiny spectacles of color, trying his best to choose
well and please his friends. But then he sees a small, natural
tree, nearly overshadowed by the flash and glitter of the rest.
It is pitiful and loosing needles, but it is the only real tree on
the lot. In a moment of confidence, Charlie Brown chooses
the unlikely sapling over all the others (and is thus the target
of laughter and mockery by all).

Even as children, we know intuitively that there is something
remarkable about being chosen--perhaps something even sacred--
long before we understand the implications of choice at all. That
someone saw anything worth choosing in this sickly little tree is
a turn in the plot that quiets us. Charlie Brown claims the tree
as his own, and there is a part of us that feels chosen too.


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Defining Secularization

One of the symptoms of modern and postmodern change
is the large stock of new words, or certainly the new use
of old words--terms such as "user-friendly," "downsizing,"
"multiculturalism," "politically-correct," "homophobic,"
"postmodern," "poststructuralism," and "deconstruction."

If the cartographers of our time are working away furiously
to draw up new maps as empires get further subdivided each
day, our neologists (those who invent new words) are living
at a boom time for their preoccupations. One such word that
we are all now accustomed to hearing repeatedly is "secular,"
or "secularization."

I would venture to suggest that we might find ourselves
stumbling when asked to define what this word really
means. The word itself has a broad sweep, and in differing
contexts brings a different spin to the central idea.

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Turning The World Upside-Down

The greatest danger to Islam comes from Chinese Christians

looking westward towards Jerusalem.

What's remarkable is this vision is taking shape even as Chinese

Christians undergo persecution. Then again, Christianity's initial

explosion took place under even worse conditions. So it probably

shouldn't surprise us that there are more Chinese worshiping in

"house churches" than belong to the Communist party.

The "fearless" Chinese evangelists may do more to transform
their nation and the world than all the armies and diplomats
combined. That would be an earthquake worth experiencing.

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The Song Of Fools

In the early 1900's, a man by the name of D.R. Van Sickle
set out to prove that one does not have to be Christian to
author a Christian hymn. Though he did not believe the
message, he knew he could still mimic it. Despite its some -
what irreverent origins, the hymn was published and the
words came to resound in churches everywhere...


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Worlds Apart

Anyone who has ever walked through the halls
of the great philosophers, early church fathers,
or ancient rhetoricians or ethicists has inevitably
stumbled upon the person and work of St. Augustine...


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Little Did They Know

As I observed the animals, they were behaving rather
amusingly--some were sticking out their noses sniffing
away, while others were trying to peek out curiously as
they experienced the new smells, sights, and sounds that
were quite different from their usual farmstead. Little
did they know...


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Weed Or Plague

In the 1930's, a vine native to Japan was introduced
throughout the United States as a highly effective
means for controlling erosion. Forty years later,
the USDA officially declared this miracle-vine a
weed. While visitors to the South are immediately
taken by scenic glimpses of kudzu-blanketed lands -
capes, natives keep their doors shut to keep the
creeping plant from taking over their houses.

Growing better in the South than it does even
in its native environment, kudzu can grow as
much as a foot per day, climbing trees, barns,
telephone poles--and anything else that gets
in their way. And while these vines actually
do help prevent erosion, they also destroy
entire forests, wrapping themselves around
every inch, smothering every tree from needed
sunlight...

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Echoes Of Eden

It is hard to describe the intensity
of boredom I experienced working
at...


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Seeing Spots

There are two ways to look at a mirror. This fairly
unoriginal thought crossed my mind as I stood before
my bathroom mirror focused on the spots I was wiping
away, when my gaze suddenly shifted to a dark smudge
under my eye. With one hand still cleaning the spots on
the mirror, I tried to remove the spot under my eye with
the other. It didn't work; or at least, as I attempted to do
both, I didn't do either job well. You can't look in a mirror
and at a mirror at the same time...

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Has The New Testament Changed And Become Corrupted Over Time?

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Some people have the idea that the New Testament
has been translated "so many times" that it has
become corrupted through stages of translating.


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A Wonderful Opportunity

Europe online '24 hours a month'

More than 122m Europeans aged 15 and above
use the internet each day at home, school or in
work, says a report.

The average European accesses the net 16.5 days
in a month, and spends 24 hours viewing 2,662 web
pages, according to tracking firm comScore.

The UK had the most active online population,
spending more than 34.4 hours online each month
and a peak of more than 21.8m people online in
any given day.


EURO NET PENETRATION
Netherlands 83%
Norway 70%
Sweden 70%
Denmark 68%
Finland 65%
UK 62%


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Who Are You, God?

Throughout history, artists, writers, musicians,
scholars, and all who have read the life of Jesus
have wondered what He looked like...


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I Didn't Know

It's been a while since I've picked up a dictionary,
literally at least. I do most of my looking-up online.

But my computer was already shut down for the day
and for once it seemed faster to use a book for the task.

I can't remember the word I was hunting for now, in fact,
I think I stopped hunting soon after opening the book.

As I pulled the giant dictionary off the shelf and opened
its pages to the general vicinity of the S's, I was stopped
in my tracks by a piece of paper that fell out...


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Night Of Fire

Shortly after the death of Blaise Pascal in 1662,
a housekeeper was sorting through closets and
clothing and happened to notice something sewn
into Pascal's coat. Beneath the cloth was a parch -
ment and inside this was another faded piece of
paper. In Pascal's handwriting, on both the parch -
ment and the paper were nearly the same words.
Beside hand-drawn crosses, Pascal had carefully
written:


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Pleasure Misplaced

Any pleasure--whether good or illegitimate--
will enslave us when we turn it into our life's
utmost pursuit...

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C'mon, Get Happy!

Thirty years ago, 36 percent of Americans said that
they were "very happy" and another 53 percent called

themselves "pretty happy."

In 2006, only 32 percent called themselves "very happy"

and 55 percent said they were "pretty happy." Our sense

of happiness has barely budged despite increased prosperity

and even greater improvements in our standard of living.

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Faith & Fathers

In study after study, the absence of fathers is linked
to a host of what social scientists call "adverse outcomes"
in the lives of children. These adverse outcomes affect
all of society—increased crime, substance abuse, and
dropping out of school, to name but a few.

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Exploring The Neighborhood

The literature I have loved most has taken me to windows
of other worlds and other countries. Whether a Hobbit in
the Shire or...

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What Do You Think Of Slavery?

I suspect most readers would immediately denounce
slavery as a scourge on humanity. But in the eighteenth
century, much of western society accepted slavery and
the slave trade. It took heroic efforts by dedicated leaders
to turn the tide...


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Does the phrase "rest for the weary" evoke in you
feelings of longing? In our society, although our
conveniences are always increasing, our obligations
and worries seem to increase at least twice as fast.

We may get adequate physical rest, but many find
themselves with nowhere to go to find rest for their
souls. Although our fast-paced lifestyles may add
to our exhaustion, soul-weariness is symptomatic
of a universal human need for rest.


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Hero Hunting

You may have to look beyond the silver screen
to find the truly great heroes.


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The Wildness Inside

There was a movie a few years ago called "The Horse
Whisperer." I thought it was about a man with laryngitis,
but it's actually about this man who has an amazing ability
to gentle horses - horses that it seems no one else can tame.

In fact, the main character was modeled after a real man
whose skill in gentling and training wild mustangs is almost
legendary. In the past, people have used some pretty brutal
methods to force a horse into submission. But the real horse
whisperer doesn't "break horses." He uses body language and,
yes, some quiet talking as his tools to gentle a horse that other -
wise would be uncontrollable.

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The "MORE" link only works

correctly for 24 hrs. however

the "LISTEN" works forever!

Is Our Future Determined Or Free?

The issue of free-will and predestination is one that has
raised its head in every generation. Do we exercise choice,
or has everything already been decided? The resultant
mental gymnastics leave many feeling confused, and others
feeling disappointed. Did you choose to read this article,
or...

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Moving The Equator North

Like other northern European countries, Denmark has
historically been a homogeneous society. Also like its
neighbors, this has changed in recent years with the
arrival of immigrants from what's called the "Global
South."

The religious fervor of some of these immigrants, like
that of immigrants to other European countries, has
shaken things up among the "notoriously staid" Danes.
But if you're thinking this is "another story about Muslims
in Europe," guess again.

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Whatever Happened???

Whatever happened to Jesus' Disciples???


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Coming To Ourselves

There is a line in the story of the prodigal son that is
easy to miss. It comes as the transition in the story,
but it also seems to mark the transition in the son.

Not long after the younger son demands the right
to live as he pleases, after he leaves with his father's
money and gets as far away as possible, and after
he loses everything and is forced to hire himself
out in the fields, the story reads that the prodigal
came to himself and, at this, he decides to turn
back to the father.


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The Me-Centered Family

The lead in a recent Washington Post article paints a disturbing
picture: "Children rank as the highest source of personal fulfillment
for their parents but have dropped to one of the least-cited factors
in a successful marriage, according to a national survey."

What's the matter with that sentence? Too much to unpack entirely
in a few minutes, but let's zero in on those two enticing words:
"personal fulfillment." The emphasis on that idea tells us a lot
about what's really wrong with marriage and family today.

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Lead Our Age

Throughout history, 20-somethings have made
remarkable leaders. Will you be one of them?


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In Office

The word "pardon" finds its roots in the Latin "perdonare,"
which means to give wholeheartedly. In countries all over
the world each year, such pardons are given by sovereign
powers to accused persons, conveying the forgiveness of
crimes and their associated penalties.

In the United States, the authority for granting pardons
for federal crimes lies with the president. It was on his
final day in office that George Washington granted the
first high-profile federal pardon. Today, U.S. presidents
receive upwards of 600 petitions for forgiveness a year.
The percentage granted varies from president to president.


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