Daly Focus Blog
There are few people who know less about music than me, but a recent article in the Wall Street Journal about music and emotion grabbed my attention.
The piece attempted to answer an interesting question:
Why is some music more likely to make people cry?
Is it a matter of nostalgia, a tune tied to a specific time or event in our lives? Or is it the strength, power and message within the song’s lyrics?
Not according to some experts.
Continue ReadingTopics: Current Events Tags: entertainment, pop culture
Four presidential candidates will compete for 419 delegates scattered throughout ten separate states today, the greatest concentration of votes in any single day on the primary campaign’s calendar.
Historically, a big win for any one candidate is likely to propel them to their party’s nomination. A string of losses usually leads to a dropout and a one-way ticket home.
In other words, it’s a make or break kind-of-day. On the fate of Super Tuesday (potentially) rests the future of the nation’s next president.
Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: policy, pop culture
The devastation spawned by the 74 tornadoes in 10 states over several days last week is nearly impossible to fathom.
It just doesn’t compute.
We read of the numbers killed (39) and wince and wonder why. We cringe at the images of destruction and want to cry, especially when we realize that behind every number lost is a name and an entire world forever changed for those left behind.
I’m especially thinking of the Babcock family.
Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: faith, news
There are many kinds of success in life worth having. It is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful business man, or railroad man, or farmer, or a successful lawyer or doctor; or a writer, or a President, or a ranchman, or the colonel of a fighting regiment, or to kill grizzly bears and lions.
But for unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.
Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: family, kids
What does fatherhood mean today in America?
I guess the same as it always has.
Fatherhood can sometimes be walking the floor at midnight with a baby that can’t sleep. More likely, fatherhood is repairing a bicycle wheel for the umpteenth time, knowing that it won’t last the afternoon. Fatherhood is guiding a youth through the wilderness of adolescence toward adulthood.
Fatherhood is holding tight when all seems to be falling apart; and it’s letting go when it is time to part.
Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: family, husband
Does it matter what we wear to church?!
A colleague broached this question a few days ago and it reminded me of my early days as a Christian, back at Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California.
By the time I accepted Christ in high school the “hippie” movement was in full swing, as was the “Jesus movement” – a dynamic uprising of young Christians whose style and manner of worship was pretty unconventional, at least compared with that of the prior generation.
Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: church, husband, pop culture, wife
It’s easy to find fault in others, to look out at the culture and identify individuals who, though in positions of great influence and responsibility, fail miserably as leaders. We see it in politicians who are more driven by popularity than by principle, who will seemingly do anything to remain in power. We see it in executives who preserve their own pensions at the expense of shareholders. We see it in the home, where mothers and fathers whittle away their precious few years of influence with their children.
Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: friendship, relationships
Franz Beckenbauer is one of the most decorated “footballers” (soccer players) in the history of the game. The sixty-year-old retired German star now serves the sport in an executive capacity and writes a regular column for a European tabloid. And although I’m not a fan of soccer, I recently came across a wire story that speaks beyond the mechanics of the sport itself.
Mr. Beckenbauer was asked the other day about a player named Arjen Robben, a highly touted Dutch winger.
Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: entertainment, husband
“The trouble with quotes on the internet is that it’s difficult to discern whether or not they are genuine.”
– Abraham Lincoln
Happy Friday!
Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: entertainment
Brother Lawrence, a lay minister at a Carmelite Paris monastery in the mid 1600s, frequently extolled the power and benefits of prayer.
“There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful,” he wrote, “than that of a continual conversation with God.”
I agree with Brother Lawrence. Prayer is the answer to the challenges of our day. Of course we are to be people of action, but first we must be people of prayer.
Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: marriage
Jim Daly is a husband, father and President of Focus on the Family and host of its National Radio Hall of Fame broadcast. His blog, Daly Focus, is full of timely commentary and wisdom designed to help you navigate and understand today’s culture. His latest book is Marriage Done Right.Home
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