Have you ever been fired? It's not fun. ...
We know the story of the Prophet Deborah, the only woman judge mentioned in the Book of Judges. She administered justice in the scrubby foothills of Ephraim, listening to the complaints of the...
Sometimes my work is ordinary. Boring tasks pile up like dusty, old field rocks. And it seems that somebody wants me to...
The apostle Paul understood what it meant to be on "the corporate fast track." Read his letter to the churches in Galatia. Before his encounter with the risen Christ, he was advancing in Judaism...
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When I was about six, my father built a small cabin for me in the woods behind our house. My memory of...
With the clanging of a bell, the children stream out of the classroom onto the playground for recess. Immediately clumps of kids start their playtime together. The class bully simultaneously...
I am like any other woman out there—I hate being wrong. That's probably true of many men, too. But being a woman, I will often be emotionally passionate about completely irrational things even...
How does the rest of the retail world win against Wal-Mart? What can Wal-Mart teach other companies—and individuals—about analysis and competition? For thinkers of every stripe, a new book by business author Bill...
When I taught high school English, we always started the spring semester with goals. ...
Call me old-fashioned, but I get nervous when my plumber talks about basketball. He seems more concerned about how Kobe Bryant did...
In the late sixties, Pete Seeger recorded a hit song called "Turn! Turn! Turn!" The words are from the Bible. The third chapter of Ecclesiastes says, "For everything there is a time and...
There are two books my family reads together at Christmas time. One is Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas in Wales; the other is Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. ...
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Gal. 5:22-23)It's morning. Early...
In the winter of 1994, I left my apartment in Carbondale, Illinois, and drove to the Baptist Student Center on the campus of Southern Illinois University. My wife, Molly, was not feeling well and...
When Jesus was eight years old, his parents took him to the Temple and gave two young pigeons as their offering, the sacrifice prescribed for the very poor. Thirty years later, Jesus entered the...
"Ants pick a carcass cleaner than a lion." ...
I sliced my thumb a couple of weeks ago. Nothing dangerous, just painful and slightly bloody. Dull knife, big apple, a few seconds of distraction, and the next thing I know I am...
When I was growing up, in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, I used to go to the family cedar chest, kneel on the floor, and lift the lid on the sacred family...
August was odd for me. Pleasant things happened, of course, but I also had two inconvenient mishaps. First, while attending a week-long fiction workshop on the St. John’s College campus at Santa...
