When learning a language one must start with the basics in order to speak like someone from another country. Romance languages, based on Latin, are the easiest because we find so many consistencies. Spanish is probably the simplest. Once you learn its alphabet you can correctly pronounce any word in that language! The letter A …
“Thanks a LOT.” Perhaps this phrase is uniquely American, but if you’ve heard this sentiment spoken the way it’s written here, delivered without any hint of a smile, what vocal expression might you imagine accompanying it? If used in response to an obviously undesirable occurrence, the tone was probably sarcastic, right? One can say, “Thank …
Occasionally I find myself without a specific ingredient while cooking. At such times I look for a substitute. The recipe might not turn out exactly the same, but I’m not a purist so I don’t worry about it. Some substitutions are easy. For example, if I’m out of red onions I’ll substitute Vidalias, dried onions, …
Out of curiosity, have you ever counted how many Bibles you own? I just took a walk around our home, and found over two dozen Bibles and New Testaments. That doesn’t even touch my digital Bible collection, or the scores of translations accessible online. My most recent visit to Christian Book Distributors’ website listed over 11,000 …
If you are reading this, chances are you have electricity and indoor plumbing. If you live in a detached house, you likely have a lawn as well. Underneath that green turf (or brown turf, if you fail to water in Colorado) run an assortment of pipes and wires supplying water, sewer, natural gas, sprinkler systems, …
Decades ago, before space travel and technology flooded the American film scene, motion pictures about the Old West often included trains. The peak of tension in such action-adventure movies occurred when a train wreck looked inevitable because some bad guys had taken out the conductor. This left the locomotive with no one to control it …
Some old Disney movies contain surprising lessons. One in particular comes to mind. The evil queen in Snow White exhibited an overbearing personality that belied her lack of self-confidence. Maleficent depended on a magic mirror to stroke her ego, requiring perpetual updates to support her sense of self-importance. Each morning she approached the looking glass …
Sometimes . . . OK, often, I get caught up with “doing things right” or following rules I make for myself. Just the other day I caught myself once again getting up in arms about “the principle” of a thing. As intermediary in someone else’s financial conflict, I was wrestling with the other party’s unjust …
One difficulty in learning to drive is getting the hang of how to yield. Having helped teach six teens to drive, I can tell you that coaching others to “read” the traffic is tricky. (And while I could share some white knuckle stories from those days, those now-licensed young drivers could just as easily tell …
I’m not much of a foodie or a fashionista. My cooking style could be described as, “Throw it in a pot and see what happens!” And my fashion sense might be laughable to those “in the know.” Yet these are popular trends in modern culture. So it’s a good thing John the Baptist is no …
Do you have a dramatic egg story? I do! One day I wanted a nice, hot, hard boiled egg. Fortunately, I’d boiled and peeled a few eggs the day before and stored them in the fridge. Now, I reasoned, all I needed to do was heat one up. And the quickest way involved the microwave. …
Yesterday we celebrated Labor Day in the U.S.. I heard one person say that whoever named that particular holiday should be fired since it’s actually a non-labor day! We get a day off to rest from our work. And God is in full agreement with this idea. Hebrews 4:4 tells us, For He has said somewhere …
