Waiting

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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Talk about a crazy job assignment. In 1835, a pair of pharmacists from the English town of Worcester were asked to recreate a fish sauce that a local dignitary said he had enjoyed on a visit to India. Lord Marcus Sandys entrusted the list of ingredients to John Lea and William… Read more »

Crossing Dividing Lines

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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here The Haskell Free Library and Opera House is one of the most interesting places on earth. The northern part of the building is in Stanstead, Quebec. The southern part is in Derby Line, Vermont. The building has two different phone numbers and mailing addresses, each of which represents a different country.  That… Read more »

A Good Word

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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here The late Richard Halverson was Chaplain of the United States Senate from 1981 through 1994. Prior to that he had spent years as a local church pastor.  A friend once asked him, “Dick, what was the most significant thing you did that brought vitality and spiritual strength to the people you… Read more »

Floored by Grace

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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here In his book Messy Spirituality, author and pastor Mike Yaconelli recounts the story of a home remodeling project.  He and his wife decided to redo the tile in their kitchen.  Their house, which was situated in a rugged part of California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains, was more than 60 miles from the… Read more »

Ode to Joy

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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Ludwig van Beethoven is back in the news – an impressive feat, given the fact that he died almost 200 years ago. Historians have long wondered why the composer was afflicted by so many chronic illnesses. During the last half of his life he suffered the gradual loss of his hearing… Read more »

Never Alone

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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here It’s easy to argue that there has never been a better time to be old.  Senior adults, in general, are the beneficiaries of more opportunities, better healthcare, greater disposable income, and longer life than any generation in history. During the heyday of the Roman Empire, average life expectancy was 28. Today,… Read more »

Black Flagged

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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Last May, Josef Newgarden won his first Indianapolis “500” – arguably the highest achievement in motorsports. Defending champs generally return to Indy 12 months later and savor a month of public adulation. Not this year. Newgarden recently admitted that he cheated earlier this spring during Indycar’s first race of the season… Read more »

Hope for the Future

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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Nuclear weapons, ominously, have found their way into both entertainment and the evening news in recent months. Oppenheimer, the story of America’s development of nuclear technology in World War II, recently took home seven Oscars, including Best Picture. Fallout, a post-apocalyptic TV series set in bombed-out Los Angeles, is a hit on… Read more »

A Mother’s Choice

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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Sooner or later, every mother has to face what Moses’ mother faced. She had to let her child go. The story of Moses’ birth is told in one of the Bible’s most dramatic texts – the opening 32 verses of the Old Testament book of Exodus.  More than a thousand years… Read more »

A Difficult Spell

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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Every spring the month of May brings us not only the Greatest Spectacle in Racing – the Indianapolis “500” – but the Greatest Spectacle in Spelling, also known as the Scripps National Spelling Bee. This year 245 contestants will gather in Maryland on May 28-30 to write another chapter in what… Read more »