For people who are disconnected and distant from God, there is good news: Jesus offers a map back to God. John 14 begins with Jesus teaching his followers about heaven ...what it will be like. I don't know about you, but I've noticed that heaven is a topic that comes up at every funeral I've attended. As much as we don't like to talk about death, heaven is another matter. Talk of heaven gives us a sense of hope. For Christ-followers, we believe that hope comes through what Jesus did for us. It is Jesus who provides hope and offers reassurance. It's founded in a belief that Jesus will come back for them. All this talk of heaven prompts Thomas to ask this question ... "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" (John 14:5) That is essentially the question of our day. …
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An interesting op-ed in the New York Times over the weekend: The Gospel of Wealth by David Brooks. It's essentially a review of a book called “Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream" by David Platt. A few snapshots from the column: Maybe the first decade of the 21st century will come to be known as the great age of headroom. During those years, new houses had great rooms with 20-foot ceilings and entire new art forms had to be invented to fill the acres of empty overhead wall space. People bought bulbous vehicles like Hummers and Suburbans. The rule was, The Smaller the Woman, the Bigger the Car — so you would see a 90-pound lady in tennis whites driving a 4-ton truck with enough headroom to allow her to drive with her doubles partner perched atop her shoulders. Jesus, Platt notes, made it hard on his…
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As the light changed from red to green to yellow and back to red again, I sat there thinking about life. Was it nothing more than a bunch of honking and yelling? Sometimes it seemed that way. Jack Handy
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Our family spent the Labor Day weekend in Manitou Springs, where I was privileged to perform a wedding on Sunday. The weather cooperated wonderfully and the rehearsal and wedding ceremony went well. As an added bonus, the wedding couple had put our family up in a hotel in Colorado Springs, allowing us to explore the area in our free time. We went Sunday night to Seven Falls, a waterfall with seven different bends and turns. At night it is lit-up with color and is beautiful to see. The colors even made the 222 steps to the top seem bearable. On Monday, we checked out of the hotel and headed south to the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park. Billed as America's highest suspension bridge, it is quite a sight to see. We walked across the bridge itself, stopping to take pictures by different state flags. Then we rode the airtram back…
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If you've read my blog before, you know that I'm a big believer in small changes. A small change done consistently over time has the potential to bring about big results. In that spirit, I'm passing on to you the following article about small changes. ****************** Smarter lunchrooms lead kids to eat more salad Laura Smith, a researcher at the Cornell Food and Brand Lab, presented the findings of the study "Convenience Drives Choice in School Lunchrooms" at this week's Experimental Biology conference in Anaheim, Calif. In a year-long study in an upstate New York middle school, researchers examined the effect of moving the salad bar to a more prominent location in the cafeteria. Results show that sales of certain salad bar items increased by 250-300%. "It wasn't a big move," Smith explained. "From its original location against a wall, we moved the salad bar out about four feet, in…
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