It’s a funny-named hometown. But could it be we’re all from there—that little berg with its lonely water tower? Known for miles around, the water tower was fed by an aqueduct from hot springs a few miles away. Naturally, the water started out piping hot, but by the time it spilled into the water tower it was lukewarm. So it’s no surprise that when the risen Christ sends a communiqué to the church in that town of Laodecia, he seizes the city’s trademark lukewarm water to shape his appeal to all of us.

What if God repeated himself every forty years? Then this university campus would be poised on the brink of a mighty spiritual revival! Last week Martin Kim, one of our graduate students, passed along a fascinating story by Beatrice Neal entitled “When God Came Down” (published in the Fall, 2004, edition of Adventists Affirm). In this article Neal, a religion professor at Union College at the time, has carefully pieced together an historical examination of the revival that spread across numerous Christian college campuses in 1970.

“Minister to burn Quran.” The media have been tracking this story about terry Jones, evangelical pastor of the fifty-member Dove World Outreach Center (Gainesville, Florida), who is threatening to burn copies of the Quran this Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

Is there another earth in the universe? Last Tuesday at an international conference in France, scientists reported the discovery of a star or sun—HD 10180—one hundred light years or 587 trillion miles away (not exactly our next door neighbor, to be sure). But what was fascinating was their announcement that this sun is orbited by at least seven planets—most of which are 13 to 25 times the mass of our home planet Earth. However, one of those planets is only 1.4 times our size—making it the smallest planet ever spotted outside our own solar system.

If you’re claustrophobic, don’t read on. I’ll be the first to admit that the very thought of being trapped with 32 other men in a tiny 600 square foot chamber a half a mile underground . . . in pitch darkness inside the bowels of a collapsed mine . . . for seventeen days and nights . . . without any con- tact with the outside (above) world . . . is the stuff of nightmares!

“Freshmen: What’s a wristwatch?” That headline to a report about Beloit College’s annual “mindset list” caught my eye this week. For thirteen years now two officials at this small private school of 1400 students in Wisconsin have compiled a list of reminders for teachers that the incoming freshmen class is from another time and space than its elders. For example, few of the Class of 2014 have ever worn a wristwatch (can you believe that?). And most of them don’t know how to write in cursive (some of us fall miserably short, as well).

What kind of people choose to work in Afghanistan? All summer long the press has debated the war in that land-locked Islamic kingdom. But with one stunning headline last weekend, the world was reminded of a radically different mission quietly advancing inside that war-ravaged nation—a humanitarian medical mission to the impoverished villages of the remote northern province of Nuristan.

The sign read, “We’re grounded [sic] 4 stealing & sneaking out—HONK if you agree with grounding.” And there they stood, in the front page picture of the South Bend Tribune this week, with a truly forlorn expression on both their young faces—April, 12, and Patrick Kraniak, 13, grounded by their mother for the above-mentioned offenses for the rest of the summer. Grounded, in this case, meaning sitting at a picnic table in their front yard in Mishawaka, Indiana—with a neon poster board inscribed with their “HONK if you agree with our sentencing” sign.

A few weeks ago the famed English astro-physicist, Stephen Hawking, certainly grabbed the headlines! On his new TV show, “Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking,” this brilliant scientist issued a warning that earth inhabitants ought to avoid making contact with intelligent aliens in the universe. You may recall that there have been numerous scientific efforts—such as the SETI project (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence)—that have attempted to communicate with intelligent life forms elsewhere in our universe.

Perhaps the game was perfect after all. How can I let the hottest story in sports a week ago get by without at least a comment? If you’re not a baseball aficionado, let me set the story up first.