Throughout July we’re taking an in-depth look at Proverbs, the Bible’s one-of-a-kind book about our never-ending need for wisdom. Lexia Campbell is a young mission worker who grew up in the congregation I served. She was on an overseas trip when she learned that her father had taken his own life. The ache and the yearning that she had… Read more »
Throughout July we’re taking an in-depth look at Proverbs, the Bible’s one-of-a-kind book about our never-ending need for wisdom. “The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel…” With those opening words, the reader of the book of Proverbs is immediately transported to the Golden Age of ancient Israel. Things were never better for God’s people than about a… Read more »
Throughout July we’re taking an in-depth look at Proverbs, the Bible’s one-of-a-kind book about our never-ending need for wisdom. A lot of smart people do really dumb things. A fairly large slice of any day’s headlines – what we call “news” – turns out to be a recitation of the missteps, miscalculations, and mistakes of people who probably should have… Read more »
Nursing homes can be dreadful places. Dr. Bill Thomas describes what he calls the Three Plagues of nursing home existence: boredom, loneliness, and helplessness. And that was before the extraordinary levels of isolation imposed by the pandemic. When Thomas arrived in 1991 at the Chase Memorial Nursing Home in the hamlet of New Berlin, New York, Thomas decided he would… Read more »
The notion that people can “train fleas” is just an urban legend, right? Every now and then, however, urban legends turn out to be true – and it just so happens that one of the smallest entities that might lurk in our carpets can be taught a fascinating trick. There are more than 2,500 species of this tiny, wingless insect. … Read more »
Two weeks ago, after a moderate earthquake shook the small towns and farms of southern Illinois, geologists reminded us that the Midwest is an active seismic zone. Even though we’re used to thinking that the upcoming Big One will feature swaying skyscrapers in Los Angeles or San Francisco, it’s just as likely that Memphis or St. Louis will be the… Read more »
Church is one of the best places in the world to hide. No, not from vampires, werewolves, and the walking dead. That’s Hollywood stuff. Church is where people can avoid faith and avoid God by becoming religious. Churches are often filled with respectable people, or people who are doing their utmost to look respectable. And it was the respectable people… Read more »
In 1954, psychologist Muzafer Sherif and his colleagues conducted what is now regarded as one of the most famous experiments concerning the origin and nature of conflict. The researchers invited two dozen boys to a special summer camp at Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma. The boys, who were 11 or 12 years old, were randomly assigned in advance to one… Read more »
All of a sudden, everybody is dancing. Fans who are excited to be back at sporting events are dancing in the stands. Protesters who show up for rallies are dancing in the streets. People are dancing in TV commercials when their pizza is delivered on time, when they’re excited about their new couch, and when their car loan is approved. … Read more »
“You can’t have everything,” says deadpan comic Steven Wright. “Where would you put it?” The hunger to somehow have it all is nevertheless a central human fixation. And we are endlessly fascinated with those who seem to have gotten pretty close. Take the Rothschild family. Over the past 250 years the descendants of Mayer Rothschild of Germany accumulated the modern… Read more »