Many of us have followed with sadness the story of the California woman who was captured by sexual predators as an 11 year old and held for 18 years before she recently escaped. As details of her horrific ordeal have surfaced, some have wondered why she didn’t take opportunities to elude her captors sooner. In […]
Over the past year, we have been working with some courageous men who have been willing to talk about their escape from pornography. In a compelling video presentation of broken and restored lives, several men told their stories in an empty warehouse that provides a visual backdrop for the lonely, secret obsession that had been […]
Over time, we all come across ideas that change the way we think about ourselves. For me, one of those thoughts is that a well-lived life is more like a symphony than a solo. The point takes nothing away from a solo. I love hearing Willie Nelson sing “September Song,” or LeAnn Rimes do her […]
One of the thoughts that has intrigued me over the years is that, “We see things not only as they are, but as we are.” I’ve wondered whether that could be one way of paraphrasing Paul’s words to Titus when he wrote, “To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled […]
A Madrid AP news item caught my attention over the weekend. It reported that the emergence of Swine Flu has necessitated a new rule: “Don’t Kiss the Saint.” For hundreds of years visitors to one of Roman Catholicism’s holiest shrines— claiming to hold the remains of the Apostle James—have hugged or kissed a statue Spain’s […]
Some of the most gruesome events of the Iraq war involved the beheading of enemies by terrorist cells. Yet long ago, David did it to the Philistine giant, Goliath (1Samuel 17). The Philistines later beheaded King Saul and hung his headless body on the city wall of Beth Shan (1Sam 31:9). John the Baptist suffered […]
Don Richardson, author of Peace Child and Eternity in their Hearts, is known for a discovery that he and his wife, Carol, made among the Sawi people of Dutch New Guinea. At the time (1960s) the Sawi people were headhunters, at war with rival tribes, and absorbed in a culture of aggressive self-protection. To the […]
According to Buddhist folklore. Two traveling monks reached a river where they met a young woman. Wary of the current, she asked if they could carry her across. One of the monks hesitated, but the other quickly picked her up onto his shoulders, transported her across the water, and put her down on the other […]
Do we associate wisdom with Confucius or Buddha rather than with Jesus and Paul? If so, we might miss the significance of what Solomon recommends when he writes, “Happy is the person who finds wisdom and gains understanding. For the profit of wisdom is better than silver, and her wages are better than gold. Wisdom […]
A recent online NPR article summarizes some provocative research on the emotional and physical impact of money. According to a report by David Kestenbaum titled Study: Your Brain Thinks Money is a Drug, researchers report their surprise in discovering that, “Counting money — just handling the bills — can make things less painful.” The article […]
