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Once, as I drove through a part of our city, I was taken aback by the number of tattoo parlors that had sprung up to meet the obvious demand for what some call "body art." Some were upscale storefronts with catchy names; others were seedy looking establishments.
As I travelled with my family along the highway winding through America's heartland, we were struck by the natural beauty of the landscape; mile upon mile of fields and forests, spotted with occasional towns. And then we saw it. In this of all settings it looked so out of place.
Pull two cents out of your pocket or purse. What is a cent or penny worth? It is only 1/100th of a dollar. But what are your “two cents” really worth?
We might hear someone say “That’s not worth two cents!” in describing some item they regard as almost worthless. This idiomatic expression is also illustrated when one offers an opinion when it wasn’t requested....
“If it bleeds, it leads” seems to be the rule that newspapers, television and other news sources use today—and they have no shortage of heinous crimes and tragic occurrences to write about.
Rape, robbery, murder, extortion, corruption in political and business circles and other acts of crime and violence seem to permeate all strata of our society. Abductions,...
As we parted ways from a meaningful conversation, a friend once bid me a cheerful farewell by saying, "Don't work too hard!" As I began to think about his statement, I wondered, what is wrong with hard work? And how did hard work become vilified in our modern society? Isn't hard work the means of achievement?
"Did you hear about so-and-so?" Ears perk up, heads turn and attention is grabbed when we hear those words. We know we are about to hear something private and scandalous about someone we know. Psychologists say gossip has evolutionary origins with our prehistoric ancestors and enabled cavemen, and even their supposed primate ancestors, to survive. What are the...
It can be cold and wet in December in the scenic valleys of Tennessee, but it is a beautiful setting nonetheless. Not much has changed here in a generation. It's not crowded. The old neighborhoods seem to be unchanging, a pleasant, quiet, small town, unhurried, unbothered in a time when most folks are bustling about.
The average American would love to have a happy marriage to the right individual. Most people who divorce come to the conclusion that they were simply terribly unlucky in getting stuck with the wrong person. There is much to be said about being wise and choosing the right person to commit one's life to.
Apparently, there is a growing topic of concern in Christianity these days: "Should children be in church?" One morning, as I sat going through the day's news, I read an interesting article on the matter in the Wall Street Journal—"Seen and Not Heard in Church," by Laura Vanderkam.
A recent headline in the "Faith and Values" section of a major newspaper asked this question, and it is a very good one. How do you decide which church is teaching and practicing the truth? As Pontius Pilate asked long ago, "What is truth?" Sadly the article, though well written, came to a wrong conclusion and may serve to mislead the readers.