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...
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...
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...
Even though it happened twelve years ago, I remember it like yesterday. Receiving that phone call—"your son is hurt"—frantically rushing home, wondering...
My work pays me to stand by while people fling mud at my product. Okay, maybe that's a little melodramatic, but no less true. As a writer, I get paid to work hundreds...
Sometimes work is difficult. Tensions can run high between supervisors and employees. We may feel helpless. We may dread the future. Sometimes we feel underutilized or unappreciated, and it affects...
Somebody—probably a preacher—has said, "Don't put a period where God only puts a comma." ...
A friend of mine—I'll call him Jack—got knocked down, run over, and ground into the dirt by everything the world could throw...
The Christian answers to those three questions are not "companion" and "boss" and "employee." Such working relationships do appear in the Bible. For instance, Jesus speaks of the centurion's...
Part of excellence in any pursuit is knowing when to quit while you're on top. The sports world is filled with stories...
When a small leak in the roof took me into the attic, I found my son’s two-foot sailboat leaning on its side. The plastic hull is red. The deck blue. The sails are...
