Did you hear about the Pittsburgh man last week who went in to a Giant Eagle supermarket and paid for a head of lettuce with a $1 million bill?  That’s right—one million dollars.   And he asked for change!  The wide-eyed but suspicious clerk notified the manager, who promptly confiscated the bill.  Whereupon the customer promptly flew into a tirade, smashing the electronic funds-transfer machine beside the cashier and grabbing the scanner gun.  Police arrested th

If you’re a firstborn, did you know there was a price on your head?  This headline is a tad old (about 3,500 years or so), but nevertheless it’s true.  On that dark and fateful night that the slave kingdom of Israel fled Egypt in the mighty Exodus, God declared that the firstborn of every Israelite family (and flock and herd) belonged to him, “It is Mine” (Exodus 13:2).

Even if you’re afraid of heights, this is one pinnacle I wish you could stand upon.  Many consider it one of the most sacred sites in all of Dark Ages history.  Today I’ve invited my young friends from the School of Architecture here at Andrews University to share with you the story of that unforgettable day when together we stood atop the Castelluzzo, that infamous rock tower high above the alpine valleys of northwest Italy and immortalized in John Milton’s sonnet, “On the Late Massacre in Piedmont”:

Would you like to know what a group of students, faculty and community members identified as God’s top four agenda priorities for our world and our university?  For the past two weeks our House of Prayer has been focusing on “Seeking God’s Agenda.”  The premise to that quest is simply that the goal of the Christian’s prayer life is to embrace God’s agenda as your own agenda.  (Have you noticed—so much of our praying focuses on our own agendas for ourselves, our needs, our wants, our problems, our desperations.  Nothing wrong with bringing those to God, to be

“When terror comes, they will seek peace, but there will be none. Calamity upon calamity will come, and rumor upon rumor.” At this sixth anniversary of 9-11 these cryptic words of an ancient prophet (Ezekiel 7:25, 26) give pause for reflection, don’t they? Run through your mind a quick scan of the national and global headlines since that fateful September Tuesday in 2001. Tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes—the more than usual intensification of nature. Madrid and London and Baghdad—new hot spots in a post-9-11 world.

On March 4, 1933, the newly elected president of the United States delivered his inaugural address to the nation.  Four sentences into that address, Franklin Roosevelt uttered the words that have lived long beyond his four-term presidency:  “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

You won’t think less of me, will you, if I admit that I’m not a country music aficionado?  But hurrying to catch a plane in Minnesota a few weeks ago, I caught the refrain of a country song.  With one hand on the wheel, I scribbled the words down, googled them back at home, and discovered what’s turned out to be the most requested country song in America this summer.

How would you like to teach school in New Orleans? The government is endeavoring to attract new teachers to what, even before Hurricane Katrina, was one of the toughest and most challenging school districts in the nation. But now in the post-traumatic stress of that crippled city, recruiters are offering to every teacher willing to move to the Crescent City a two-year signing bonus of $17,000. Any takers?

Should we send out a search party?  Anybody know where summer disappeared to?  I’m not a prophet, nor the son of one, but I did prophesy to Karen back in May that this summer would be over before it even started.  Was I right?  (Just don’t ask me to predict the stock market this fall!)