The meteoric rise of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has flummoxed the talking heads of the news media. How could this brash entrepreneurial business tycoon be attracting such “If the election were held today I’d vote for him” kind of support? After all, politics in America isn’t a television reality show . . . is it?

But for new students at Andrews University, perhaps there are a few lessons tucked away in Trump’s quest for the Whitehouse, lessons for your own pursuit of that “impossible dream”:

Sunday morning while still lying in bed, I decided to do the arithmetic. Perhaps it was the simple pleasure of sleeping in our own bed that triggered the notion. And so I counted the number of summer nights we slept in a bed not our own. I was surprised and so recalculated the number. It’s true. The total nights away from our favorite bed (from the last week of May to the last week of July) added up to forty. Brazil, Collegedale, West Virginia, Austin, San Antonio, Pugwash Nova Scotia, Vermont.

Don’t you love to hear, “Take a number,” when you’re already in a hurry! But have you noticed—it’s as if the headlines bombarding us lately are themselves stepping out of an interminable “take a number” line. Must be why something keeps telling us we have yet to hear from the last of them.

Here are a few of the ones we’ve already heard from this spring turned summer:

My heart is burdened for my homeland today. With the rest of the nation we await the Supreme Court decision on gay marriages—do gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry and can state bans against same-sex marriage remain in place? Thus far 37 states in our nation have legal provision for same sex marriage, with the other 13 states banning gay marriage (although in 8 of these states [including Michigan] gay marriage bans have been overturned and appeals are in process). What will the Supreme Court decide?

Bom dia! Nothing like a cheerful bit of Portuguese to launch another sunny day on the south Brazil campus of IAP. Karen and I were blessed to spend a week with the students and faculty of this college (and elementary school and academy), sprawling across rolling green cornfields as far as the eye can see.

Now there’s a thought! Ben Carson, the Seventh-day Adventist pediatric neurosurgeon of Johns Hopkins fame, announced to the world on Monday that he is running for the office of President of the United States (POTUS). At a carefully choreographed campaign kickoff rally in Detroit, Dr. Carson returned to his boyhood home for the media event. His book, Gifted Hands, describes his inner city boyhood providentially turned around by a praying single-parent mother (with a third grade education)—a mother who challenged her son to aspire to his God-given potential. It was the impetus he needed.

In front of this church where graduation exercises transpire stands a bronze statue of the university namesake, John Nevins Andrews. The skilled work of sculptor Allan Collins, this replica of the Seventh-day Adventist church’s first scholar and missionary is shaped with extended arm and hand pointing outward to a world beyond the church. For years now pinned to the wall of my study is this quotation from J. N.

On April 29, 1865, 50,000 people stood in line to pass through the Ohio Statehouse rotunda to pay their last respects to the recently slain Abraham Lincoln. As America mourned the assassination of its President, Ohioans reflected the gratitude of this country in that outpouring of affection.

Here’s a cheerful thought on this sunshiny Tax Day. According to the website usgovernmentrevenue.com, the governments (plural) of the United States will collect $6 trillion in revenue in 2015—$3.2 trillion for the federal government, $1.6 trillion for state governments, and $1.2 trillion for local governments. Those taxes will include income tax, social security tax, sales tax, along with fees and charges and other revenue. For a total of $6 trillion. Do you know how much that is? Neither do I.