Well, it’s March again, and you know what that means? March Madness! You know; the annual NCAA college basketball tournament for which basketball fans, both young and old, longingly salivate. And when I think of this hallowed tournament, and college basketball generally, I can’t help but think of the late, great coach of the UCLABruins, John Wooden. Wooden is considered by some to be the greatest college basketball head coach of all times. His teams’…
Have you ever heard the phrase “killing with kindness” or perhaps used it yourself? This phrase in our personal experiences usually means that when we are confronted with someone who is critical, unfriendly, or unloving, we respond in an unexpected fashion with extreme love. This is performed in hopes of changing the other person’s attitude and actions. Whereas conventional wisdom calls for killing our neighbors with kindness, a thirty-year-old guy in Santa Rosa, Florida by…
In his book A Journey to Bethlehem, pastor, writer, and musician, Jason Soroski, offers the following definitions of a resolution: “Resolution. Webster defines the word as being ‘marked by firm determination.’ The word dominates every New Year’s Eve. To the musician, a ‘resolution’ is a harmony line moving from a dissonant tone (one that does not fit the melody) to a consonant tone (one that fits). Harmonies can dance and amaze us with varied complexities…
Every year on or around the Thanksgiving holiday, families across the USA begin decorating their homes with Christmas decorations, both inside and out. My family is no different. The Thanksgiving turkey was not yet fully digested this year and Tina and my oldest son, Brett, were busily putting up the Christmas tree and other yuletide decorations. For many, this is a cherished family tradition. For others, it is a cutthroat competition where neighbors crazily battle…
In a blog entitled “Thankful for the Fleas” at Christianity.com, pastor, author, and seminary professor James Emery White gives us good food for thought this Thanksgiving month with an illustration from the life of the heroic Christian, Corrie ten Boom: “The barracks where Corrie ten Boom and her sister, Betsy, were kept in the Nazi concentration camp, Ravensbruck, were terribly overcrowded and flea-infested. They had been able to miraculously smuggle a Bible into the camp,…
