To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here “Efficiency is the hope of democracy.” That was the gospel according to Frederick Winslow Taylor, the founder of the Scientific Management movement that swept America early in the 20th century. Taylor was absolutely convinced that America could work smarter, better, and faster. And he was just the man who could make it happen. In his… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here In The Princess Bride, Westley, the humble Farm Boy, returns to reclaim Buttercup, his true love. But he no longer looks like Farm Boy. He is wearing a black mask and introduces himself as the Dread Pirate Roberts. In short order, however, we learn that Westley is not the real Dread Pirate Roberts. He’s… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here When the animated film Up arrived in theaters in 2009, audience members expected to be enchanted by Pixar’s movie magic. What they didn’t expect was one of the most poignant depictions of marriage ever seen on the big screen. It lasts four minutes and 21 seconds. No words are spoken. No words need to… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Sociologist Jean Twenge recalls the moment about 20 years ago when her nephew received a trophy. At two feet tall, it was pretty spectacular. Three words were prominently displayed: Excellence in Participation. In her book Generations, Twenge charts the post-World War II birth of an American cultural revolution – the notion that children will… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here In the summer of 1995, 26-year-old Cheryl Strayed solo hiked 1,100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. The PCT traverses some of America’s most daunting wilderness areas. Cheryl strode from the Mohave Desert through the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the Cascades of the Pacific Northwest. Her adventures are documented in her best-selling memoir Wild:… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here There’s no such thing as instant landscaping. But the Bradford pear sure seemed like an exception. This fast-growing tree with lush green leaves – native to Vietnam and China – was introduced to the United States in the 1960s. Lady Bird Johnson, the wife of then-President LBJ, was widely acclaimed as an environmental… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Halloween is our annual reminder that there sure are a lot of M&M’s in the world. Although the powers-that-be are reticent to share specific numbers, it’s conservatively estimated that at least 400 million multi-colored, candy-coated chocolate buttons emerge from Mars Inc. factories every day. M&M’s were a wartime invention. In 1941, Forrest Mars Sr…. Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here You are somebody’s disciple. Somebody helped you reach the place where you are today. Actually, you are the disciple of a great many somebodies. There are some people, no doubt, from whom you consciously chose to learn. Other people taught you key life lessons (both healthy and unhealthy) even while you hardly suspected what was… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here If you lived in Bible times and spoke Hebrew, you were compelled to say a lot with a very limited vocabulary. Scholars have identified just 8,679 unique Hebrew words in the text of the Old Testament. Compare that to the more than one million words available to modern English speakers. Nor did Hebraic communication… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here In 1988, moviegoers fell in love with a French film that has virtually no soundtrack and minimal dialogue. Human dialogue, that is. L’Ours (that is, The Bear) is the story of a young cub whose mother is killed by a rockslide in 1885 British Columbia. The orphaned cub now has no realistic hope for survival. Touchingly,… Read more »
