With a Ph.D. in organic chemistry and a good teaching job at an Ivy League medical school, John Castelli felt like a winner. He had a dependable income, prestige in his neighborhood, and his father’s undying admiration. For ten years, Castelli did his job well and enjoyed a comfortable routine. And then, the man at the university who sponsored his …
A man once dreamed of building a playground in a ghetto neighborhood. He approached the owners of an apartment complex, who gave him permission to build, but offered no help. As he walked through the complex one day, he met a little girl. He shared his dream with her and she immediately ran to her apartment and returned with a …
In an upscale neighborhood of Chicago, a young married woman – popular, intelligent, wealthy – found herself overwhelmed by the headlines she read every day. Finally, she went to a neighbor and said, “Mary, you can laugh if you like or say no if you want, but would you consider meeting with me once a month, just the two of …
This month, I’m actually going to be calling back to something that was said in one of Pastor Mike’s sermons from a couple of weeks ago. I can’t remember the exact title of the sermon, but I do remember it was in the Worship series. It’s an answer to the question, “Why do we go to church?” All of this …
Ecology is the endlessly complex network of how every living thing in the world interacts with each other, lives with each other, gives birth, dies, and feeds each other. It describes the way plants and creatures survive in and are shaped by the non-living world. It outlines the lives of the very largest of animals and the most colossal of …
Mary Smith went to church one Sunday morning and winced when she heard the organist miss a note during the processional. She noted a teenager talking while everybody was supposed to be in prayer. She also couldn’t help but notice that several blooms in the alter bouquets were wilted. She felt the usher was scrutinizing what every person was putting …
The young people at Shively Christian Church were fiercely competitive with their neighboring church, Shively Baptist, especially in softball. They were also serious about attending the summer Bible camp led by their youth pastor, Dave Stone. After teaching a Bible lesson about Jesus washing His disciples’ feet, Pastor Stone divided the kids into groups and challenged them to find a …
This month, I’m going to cheat a little bit (yeah, I know, cheating is never good). With this article, I am going to be spinning off from something I wrote at the end of last month’s Msquared’s Musings. It’s that we can’t do anything without God’s help. Last time it was in the context of getting back into a new …
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. ~ preamble to the U.S. Constitution The United …
Allow me, if you will, to put in your mind the image of a great big clock, or if you prefer, some other type of big, complex machine. There are so many different parts, so many different functions and structures, all designed to click with one another to make the whole operation work seamlessly. The person building it would therefore …