To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here A half-century ago, the Ford Motor Company was embroiled in a national controversy concerning the Pinto, a compact car that sometimes burst into flames when struck from behind. One of the landmark accidents took place not far from my home in Indiana. A Chevy van ploughed into the back of a Pinto and… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Twenty-eight days from now, every American citizen age 18 and older will be free to do what approximately half the world can only dream about. We will have the opportunity to choose our own leaders. But this astonishing privilege once again seems to be compromised by a pervasive fog of disappointment,… Read more »
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 »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here According to a recent edition of Smithsonian Magazine, it “stands as the single most important piece of 20th century futurism.” The authors weren’t talking about Brave New World, 1984, The Hunger Games, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, or one of Israeli historian’s Yuval Noah Harari’s hair-raising prognostications. America’s most memorable glimpse into the future was… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Throughout the month of August, we’re looking at Ecclesiastes, that strange and seemingly “modern” Old Testament book that depicts what happens when humanity searches for ultimate meaning apart from God. When it comes to the subject of death, it seems that everybody has something to say: “Do not try to live forever. You will… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Over the course of a ministry that spanned more than four decades, Tim Keller taught people how to live. After he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in June 2020, Keller began to focus on teaching people how to die – a mission that he completed last Friday morning when he left this world… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Noted marriage therapist John Gottman, who has observed thousands of couples in his Love Lab at the University of Washington, claims he can predict with 94% accuracy which relationships are headed for divorce. What’s the number one predictor? Gottman votes for contempt. Contempt is anger mingled with disgust – the settled conviction of someone… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. “Hope is good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies” (Andy, wrongfully imprisoned in The Shawshank Redemption). “Let me tell you something, my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane” (Andy’s skeptical friend Red, who’s been in that same prison for… Read more »
Once again, laryngitis has prevented me from recording today’s podcast. Thanks for your understanding. Anxious But Blessed Steve Young is one of those guys who just seems to have it all. Blessed with a 6-foot-2-inch frame, a powerful left arm, and deceptive speed, he played pro quarterback for 15 seasons, twice being named Most Valuable Player of the NFL. In 1994… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. “Nothing buttery” sounds like a winning diet strategy. It’s actually slang for a philosophical perspective called reductionism, in which apparently mysterious realities are reduced to “nothing but” this or that. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the iconic father of psychoanalysis, pursued scientific reductionism with what can only be described as relentless zeal. According to Freud, human… Read more »
