What is there about a rumor that gives it a life of its own? In this hyper season of politics and elections the talking heads of television thrive on rumors, innuendos and unsubstantiated stories. Why? Because rumors are the staple of our very human curiosity, the stuff of our fascination. And we often cling to them as hopeful corroboration for our personal convictions or strongly held opinions. “That’s what I believe—don’t confuse me with the facts!” The world loves a rumor.

“A small crisis of my faith” is how the student put it. His email to me included an attachment of a letter he was writing to the campus paper. Turns out his young heart and mind were troubled by what appeared to him to be a contradiction of faith and life at a public event not long ago. So he exercised the very proper and academic right of public expression to voice his convictions. It is the stuff of university life—this free-for-all exchange of thought and belief. Whether this young adult’s opinion is the minority opinion these days is really immaterial, isn’t it?

There is an old Swahili proverb:  “Travel with open eyes and you will become a scholar.”  Our recent journey to the Horn of Africa was certainly an eye-opening experience for me.  For two weeks we were able to slip behind the headlines of conflict and violence (of which we encountered none), and quietly observe the fingerprints of God upon two very diverse spiritual movements.

Having just returned with Karen from two weeks in the Horn of Africa, I’ve had the chance to ponder the meaning of a word we don’t use much in daily conversation.  But as we spent time in the company of two very different communities of people there, the word has taken on a new meaning for me.

Ever wonder what God’s “State of the Union” would be?  The President addressed both houses of Congress and the nation Monday evening, delivering his seventh and final State of the Union address.  Fifty-three minutes of speech interrupted seventy times by applause—both partisan and bipartisan.

Aren’t you glad God isn’t like the stock market?  What a ride this week is turning out to be for investors the world over!  The unraveling mortgage crisis here in the U.S.

Details, details—they really do make a difference, don’t they?

“The Church of the Non-Believers.”  The title would catch anybody’s eye.  A few months ago Janine Lim, our webmaster, sent me an issue of Wiredmagazine carrying this cover story (11-06).

Sitting in my snowbound study a day before the much ballyhooed Iowa caucuses, I wonder what difference it all makes in the end.  True, the New Year has dawned, fresh and snow-blown with promise.  And the adventure of a journey uncharted looms large and inviting.  But Iowa’s unrelenting stream of political sound bites that has been our daily fare for months now (and we live in Michigan!) will in a few hours crescendo into deafening campaign noise from New Hampshire and South Carolina and the rest of the compacted primary states eagerly awaiting their turn in the national spo

According to the CIA World Factbook (proof, I suppose, that spy agencies have a positive role to play on earth), around 27% of the world’s population is under 15 years of age.  And according to the constantly escalating World Population Clock, at the time of this writing earth had 6,638,512,622 inhabitants.  Which means that approximately 1.7 billion residents of this planet are under 15.  Twenty percent of them live in China, 17 % in India, and 4.6% of them are here in the United States. What’s that have to do with Christmas and the approaching of a new year?  Bey