Do you remember learning to count? What kinds of things did you count? What kinds of things do you count today? What kinds of things should you be counting? This summer I started recounting some things. Our family went to Italy this summer. My daughter was taking a college class (yes, my little girl is now in college), my husband and I were spiritual leaders on the trip. I experienced the collision of two worlds. Although I had had my reservations, I was not prepared for the visceral, emotional, physical, and spiritual reaction I would have.

I was visiting after the conclusion of another seminary class.  I was sharing with one of my friends how I enjoyed the diversity of Andrews University.  Our conversion turned to how much progress our country has made in civil rights.   I asked what has been her experience as an African American growing up since MLK and the civil rights movement.  She was a little younger than myself so I expected a pretty mild testimony, especially as my friend came from the North.

This morning we are going to examine a story that took place long ago in the village of Bethany.  It’s a story you may have heard many times; however, it is full of meaning for us in the 21st century.  Something profound took place that day in Bethany.  Luke tells the story in his gospel, chapter 10, verses 38-42.  Now let’s join Martha as she tries to go to sleep.

This one’s a no-brainer, even if it was a hot, steamy afternoon. Twenty-year-old Sean Schmidt from Buffalo, New York, was racing down I-190 this week with a friend, when the open sunroof proved a temptation too strong. Suddenly standing up on the passenger seat, Sean pushed half his body through the opening into the glorious rushing air. And there he remained. Until a state trooper raced up behind him with cruiser lights flashing. Doomed, Sean crawled back into the car, grabbed a small bag of marijuana and tossed it out before being pulled over.

So how much is $100 trillion?  In an interview this week, Bill Gross, head of Pimco (an investment firm that, according to CNBC, “manages $1.2 trillion in assets and runs the largest bond fund in the world”), suggested that “the US is actually in worse financial shape than Greece and other debt-laden European countries” (www.cnbc.com/id/43378973/).

The books are beside my bed and collecting around my desk - and I love it. Bill Hybel’s Just Walk Across the Room that I am hoping to finish is propped up next to my desk along with a collection of Robert Frost’s works and the History of the Reformation by J.H. D’Aubigne, who E.G. White quoted extensively in her volume The Great Controversy. The Great Controversy in turn is sitting by my bed on top of a stack that I am currently reading including Sanctified Life (that is just a great book to have handy), one of C.S.

“JESUS IS COMING TODAY!” If you’re reading this on May 21, 2011, then that is precisely what the followers of Harold Camping are declaring today—Christ is returning to this earth at 6 p.m. (presumably Pacific Time, since Camping lives in Oakland, California). With his return approximately two per cent of this world’s population will be immediately raptured to heaven, leaving the rest of earth’s inhabitants to be destroyed.

A dripping, blood-red X over the face of Osama bin Laden is the cover for the May 20, 2011, issue of TIME. Only four times in its publishing history has the magazine chosen to red-X the face of a notorious human being: Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi and now Osama bin Laden. The press is still abuzz over the stunning surprise and speed with which “the world’s #1 terrorist” was hunted and killed last week.

Did any of you graduates get up at 4 a.m. yesterday to watch the royal nuptials take their vows in Westminster Abbey? The whole world has gone gaga over the wedding of handsome Prince William and lovely Kate Middleton. And I suppose the Nielsen statistics will reveal that a billion-plus people on earth were glued to their televisions to oooh and aaah over this spectacular third millennial version of the ancient fairy tale. (Confession—I was sound asleep—I’ve already married the princess of my dreams!) God bless the queen and the prince and his new bride.

“FEAR FACTOR OPENS NEW MARKET FOR SEEDS” That headline two days ago caught my eye. What in the world do seeds have to do with fear? I read on. “The news is unquestionably frightening: political turmoil at home and abroad; worries over oil, gas, and food prices; earthquakes, tsunamis, nuclear meltdowns . . . And that’s just in the last few months. Marketers are on high alert. Doomsday is nigh! they shout online and on late-night TV as they hype ‘survivalist seed banks’ and ‘apocalypse gardens’ to the nervous and fearful.