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Several years ago, my sister and brother-in-law moved into an old Victorian home that was in rough shape and needed renovation. The day we helped move them in, I remember how old and worn out everything looked. They didn’t have a lot of money to do a complete remodel, but I’ll never forget coming into their home and looking around just a month or two after they moved in. It looked fabulous. I said, “What did you do?”“We just cleaned everything up really well.” And that’s all

I used to watch The Brady Bunch as a kid and longed to be in a family like that. They had parents who calmly led. They had each other when things were going well and not so well. They sometimes fought, but always came together. I’d almost forget that it was a TV show and wish that I could be in that family.My family wasn’t like that. We were often separated. There was a lot of anger and not a real sense of belonging. But truly belonging in a family was something I longed for

I am told that standing at the South Pole is like being in the eye of a hurricane––deceivingly calm. The quietness seems inconsistent with the fact that most of the earth’s wind originate from there. How? As warm air from the equator flows in over the southern polar region, it descends, becomes cold and dense, and sinks to the freezing surface. Since the ice-covered plateau tapers off toward the oceans, and no mountains or other obstacles stand in the way, gravity pulls the h

It’s been hard to stay connected with people lately apart from online conversations. In recent months, social media use has exploded.But so has its misuse. The seeds of affairs have been planted, as have the seeds of discord. We’ve learned that you can say anything online that you want, without accountability, and some will believe it and even jump on board. Conspiracy theories abound, dueling views on COVID, masks, schools resuming, racial issues, police brutality, etc. I’m

I cut my foot a while back and it would not heal. After weeks it was still red, a little swollen, and painful. It was one of those injuries that wouldn’t go away.Then I remembered how I had cut my foot doing baptisms in the Jordan River a couple of years ago. I was concerned that it would hold me back from all the hiking and climbing we still had ahead of us. So that night, I scrubbed it with soap, even though, that itself was painful. I also doused it with antibiotic. The ne

I know it’s our nation’s birthday this weekend. And while I’m grateful to live in this country, a bigger celebration for me, personally, is July 7. This Tuesday, Linda and I will celebrate our 36th anniversary.We honestly enjoy each other more today than even during our dating years. But ours would not make a good chick flick. We didn't have a storybook romance. However, I think our marriage can serve as an example for any couple.We aren’t still married after 36 years because

I had a shooting pain down my arm. I tried a lot of things. I bought an elastic band that was supposed to make it feel better. I used analgesic. My wife would massage my hand, forearm and elbow, where the pain was the strongest. I tried sleeping differently, so that I would no longer sleep on it, thinking that might be what it was. But after months of no relief, I went to the Dr. He did an X-ray of my back and neck. I said, "Dr. that’s not the problem. I’ve never had back pro

I had a conversation with a guy a while back, who had a defeatist mentality. His life wasn’t really that bad. He grew up in a stable family, had a good wife and a couple of happy kids. He had a decent job, drove a newer car, and lived in a nicer house than I had ever lived in, and he was healthy. But to him, everything was wrong. His parents were nags, his wife wasn’t perfect, his kids misbehaved, his job was stressful, his car used too much gas, his house needed repairs, and

In the last three weeks, I’ve made multiple phone calls to African-American friends around the country, as well as police officers among my friends and family. When this whole thing started by the senseless murder in Minneapolis, and before the demonstrations began, and the subsequent rioting and violence, what I heard repeatedly was, we need to have conversations.Do you talk to people you think you might disagree with or are uncomfortable with? It’s really the only way we ar

While stopped at an intersection, an automobile and a bicycle both attempted to sneak through a red light at the end of a yellow. The bike was going straight and the car was turning left, and they collided. The car was barely moving and fortunately, the woman on the bike was not hurt….but she was mad! She jumped up off the ground and picked her bike up, ripped her helmet off, and with bike in tow, ran after the car screaming at the driver. I asked Junior, who was sitting next

This has been a tough week for our nation. We all became eyewitnesses to the killing of George Floyd by a police officer, who was trusted by the public to protect civilians, not kill them. It set off race riots in Minneapolis and other major cities, where unrelated business and property owners were robbed of their property, by looting and burning. The nation is in the middle of attempting to come back from an all-out economic collapse, due to COVID-19 quarantine measures, and

Russel Cornwell used to tell the story of a Persian named Ali Hafed. He was a wealthy farmer who had fertile lands with orchards, grain fields, and gardens, that produced abundantly year after year. Hafed was content and known throughout his region as having it all . Then an acquaintance began to talk to him about diamonds. He said, “If you owned a diamond the size of your thumb, you could purchase the whole country. If you owned a diamond mine, you could buy the thrones of n