Lech Walesa was the Polish electrician who helped found the Solidarity Trade Union in 1983. This was the first independent trade union in the old Soviet Union and became the political movement that drove communism out of Poland. While visiting the United States after having become the 2nd president of a free Poland he commented…
It wasn't that I didn't try. I did try. I read how to do it. I got some good advise. I bought the right fertilizer. I weeded. I hoed. And the garden still crashed and burned! Hey, I guess I'm not very good at gardening. Kind of like I am at fishing. Oh well, some…
“She made me do it.” This was the “excuse of my daughter when I asked her why she hit her sister! Wow, that’s a lot of power to give to someone else!
It seems we humans have a particular gift for shifting the blame to someone else when we make mistakes. We also seem to…
Phillip James Bailey, an English poet of the late 19th century, once said: “Let each man think himself an act of God; his mind a thought; his life, a breath of God; and let each try, by great thoughts and good deeds to show the most of heaven he hath in him.”
One of the…
Shakespeare’s Hamlet has a character named Polonius and Shakespeare has him utter those now famous words “For the apparel oft proclaims the man.” And then, of course, there’s the famous business advice “Dress for the job you want, not the job you have!” All this focus on apparel makes one wonder if men are unaware…
“To everything, turn, turn, turn. There is a season, turn, turn, turn. And a time to every purpose under heaven.” The Byrds lyrics were taken, of course, from the Book of Ecclesiastes in the First Testament. It is the gift of time, granted to us by God, where our lives play out.
It is also…
“Make your words sweet. After all, you may have to eat them!” Great advice, and perfect for one who is embarking on a spiritual journey of disciplined and purposeful faith.
You see, our words are icons of our hearts. That’s why paying attention to our words is part of any spiritual discipline to become the…
I love the look on my daughter’s face when I tell her “You can do what you want to do AFTER you do what you have to do.” Training a child (or, for that matter me!) to delay gratification is one of the most important life lessons any parent can give a child.
This basic…
I really don’t know where it came from, but since I can remember, there were two great interests in my mind – politics and religion. Strange, since my traditional Southern upbringing discouraged the mixing of the two realms of human endeavor. But there it was, a passionate interest in both, so much so that there was…
I was sitting right next to it! And then it went off! And I nearly jumped out of my skin. It was an alarm that let you know when someone was “breaking into the house.” I didn’t realize I was that close when they were going to test it and it scared me to death.…