“We have fallen upon evil times, and the world has waxed very old and wicked. Politics are very corrupt. Children are no longer respectful to their parents.” Those despairing words weren’t posted for the first time on Facebook last week. Archeologists found them chiseled onto a stone from ancient Chaldea that dates to 3,800 B.C. Virtually every generation has cherished… Read more »
Earlier this month the world lost an incomparable storyteller. Walter Wangerin Jr., who had been a professor at Valparaiso University in Indiana since 1991, was the author of more than 30 novels. He also wrote numerous children’s stories, essays and plays, not to mention scores of sermons from his days as a Lutheran pastor. Wangerin was especially focused on the… Read more »
Throughout the 1950s Mahalia Jackson, the Queen of Gospel, sang to packed-out church sanctuaries and public auditoriums. Numerous agents and producers beckoned her to do what is now called crossing over: She ought to go secular. She could be big. She could become the most powerful musical presence in America. She could make a fortune. But Jackson answered only to… Read more »
“There’s no crying in baseball!” That’s the most frequently quoted line from A League of Their Own, the 1992 feature film about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which opened the door for women to play pro ball when World War II sent numerous MLB players into combat. But the film’s most compelling conversation takes place between Dottie Hinson, the… Read more »
I was a student in college when affordable handheld calculators first hit the market. A manufacturer’s rep came to one of our classrooms and demonstrated his product’s dazzling array of bells and whistles. Were there any questions? A student asked why he should buy this brand of calculator over one that was priced a few dollars less. Without saying a… Read more »
Two summers ago more than two million people signed a petition. They intended to storm Nevada’s ultra-secretive Area 51 so they could, in the words of one signee, “see them aliens.” Conspiracy theorists have long held that the American government is hiding evidence that extraterrestrials have visited Earth – and that we even have a few bona fide E.T.’s under… Read more »
For a number of years, psychologist Henry Cloud led a support group for inpatients at a hospital who were struggling with addictions and other vexing life issues. In his book How People Grow, Cloud specifically recalls one of the group members whom we’ll call Joe. Joe was a pastor tormented by a sex addiction. He preached passionately about God’s grace. … Read more »
It may be hard to fathom, but the image above is one of the most famous paintings in the history of art. If you’ve ever strolled through a museum of modern art, you’ve probably thought, “My six-year-old could do that!” Or in the case of BlackSquare by Kazimir Malevich: “How is that different from my printer’s test pattern when I… Read more »
Carol Gardner was over a million dollars in debt from a failed real estate venture. She was 52 years old, divorced, and heartbroken. She had no job, no income, and no prospects. “My attorney just shook her head and said, ‘You need to get a therapist or get a dog.’” So she got a dog. Carol responded to an ad… Read more »
Sherlock Holmes, the world’s most famous fictional crime solver, died on December 1, 1893. That’s the date of the publication of “The Final Problem,” the last entry in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes expired dramatically, locked in arm-to-arm combat with his evil arch-enemy Dr. Moriarty. The two plunged into the frothy abyss of the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, never… Read more »
