Life at 3 miles an Hour

Tonight we celebrate an event from thousands of years ago. What happened then was foretold in whispers through the ages prior to that mysterious night. And the reality of it has echoed ever since. It happened in a non-descript place called Bethlehem. It’s not all that significant of a town today unless of course you live there and it was even less so 2000 years ago. It must have held some value though as God chose this place of insignificance for the most significant event of all time. The lowly were called there by angels. The learned were led by a star. Some began close, others far away, but each, at a given point, could say that they were not that far from Bethlehem. Tonight we are drawn together to celebrate the event. All of us, the lowly and learned, the meek and the mighty, all relatively insignificant in the whole scheme of the world’s existence, but yet all seemingly have great value in God’s sight. For tonight, in the Bethlehem of our lives, God wants to demonstrate the most

Tonight we celebrate an event from thousands of years ago. What happened then was foretold in whispers through the ages prior to that mysterious night. And the reality of it has echoed ever since. It happened in a non-descript place called Bethlehem. It’s not all that significant of a town today unless of course you live there and it was even less so 2000 years ago. It must have held some value though as God chose this place of insignificance for the most significant event of all time. The lowly were called there by angels. The learned were led by a star. Some began close, others far away, but each, at a given point, could say that they were not that far from Bethlehem. Tonight we are drawn together to celebrate the event. All of us, the lowly and learned, the meek and the mighty, all relatively insignificant in the whole scheme of the world’s existence, but yet all seemingly have great value in God’s sight. For tonight, in the Bethlehem of our lives, God wants to demonstr

Ever heard of the phrase "loose lips sink ships"? I think it comes from one of the World Wars. Whoever came up with it was a genious. The more I deal with people in larger social contexts such as work environments, school environments, church environments, and anything involving groups of more than two people, I expereince the wisdom of this phrase. It seems as if no matter the stakes, confidential information is all up for interpretation. It's as if by telling someone that some bit of information is confidential, you are giving them the opportunity to validate themselves by spilling it. In my profession, if I'm in conversation with someone and they ask that it be kept between us, I am bound to do just that. Now I admit that occasionally some seemingly justifiable loophole springs up which helps me justify "sharing" information that, although may not have explicitly been deemed confidential, it was at least implied. All of us fall into that at one ti

Once upon a time, in a dark land far far away, there lived an old king. This King liked living in darkness. It wasn’t actually that he liked living in darkness, rather it was the fact that the darkness hid the things that he was really afraid of. The people of the kingdom didn’t really enjoy the darkness, but over time they had gotten quite used to it. They too could appreciate the fact that there were things more scary than darkness around them and as long as it remained dark, these things went mostly unnoticed. They were only rumors, only memories. To be sure, getting around in the dark could be difficult. In fact, if you could see much in that kingdom, you’d see that pretty much all of the people living there had collected some pretty nasty looking bruises from bumping into things in the dark. But it was generally accepted that the bruises were far less of a problem than that which lie in the dark, giving them bruises. They had grown quite content living in the dark and the

I read another article the other day about the latest trend in teaching math out here in the great Northwest. Basically the idea is this, which I'm sure is the same in most areas of our country where we have become to smart for our own good; We teach students to appreciate the concept of math. We don't teach them problem solving. We don't teach them basic principles like addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. We teach them relationships between numbers, like they're some new social dynamic in need of counseling. We teach them to "feel good" about math. I may not be the smartest guy on my block, but it seems to me that I would feel good about math if I could actually succeed at it. I would feel good if I could actually get an answer right on a test. In this new version, there isn't necessarily a right and a wrong answer. It's a right and wrong concept. How does one grade an objective subject like math when everything is subject to the students