Is there a soul that doesn’t love a party? How about that surprise your mother threw for you long ago—remember? God bless her—how she pulled it off with holding down a job and keeping you and your siblings clothed and fed we’ll never know. But when you came bursting through the door after school that day, to your wide-eyed wonder the walls and ceiling above your family table were draped with brightly colored crepe paper streamers and festive skinny and fat balloons as far as the eye could see.

I watched a resurrection last Tuesday night. One of our viewers is a Pentecostal pastor with whom I’ve had the privilege of studying the Bible the last few months. It was my turn to visit his church this week, and no sooner had we sat down in his small sanctuary than he picked up a video and played it, “You need to see this.”

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).