My friend and colleague, Gary Schneeberger, is Focus on the Family’s vice president of Communications. He recently hosted a group of foreign journalists who came to the United States as part of the East-West Center’s Senior Journalists Seminar. This year’s group included professionals from places like Pakistan, Malaysia, Afghanistan, the Philippines and Thailand. The purpose of the program is for chroniclers of various cultures to get a flavor of each other and the issues that drive news in each place.
Celebrating Our Silver Anniversary
We were married on August 24, 1986, a sun drenched day in Santa Ana, California. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 25 years, a full quarter-century!
I first met Jean Stephens in 1985 at a wedding in California. People often say that weddings are great places to meet people (for good reason!), but at the time I wasn’t interested in finding a girlfriend. Honest! I had recently returned from a year in Japan and graduated from college.
Your First Lunch Box
Do you remember your first lunch box?
Mine was a G.I. Joe model, used and dented, but I loved it.
Lunch boxes go way back, over a hundred years, in fact. Then they were called “lunch pails” and were usually recycled cans that originally held biscuits or even tobacco. It wasn’t until the 1950s when the Aladdin Corporation struck upon an idea, leading to the explosion of the themed boxes so many of us remember. Realizing that a metal box was durable and thus likely handed down in a family, executives decided to put celebrities and pop culture icons on the side.
Marriage is Good for Your Heart
You’ve heard the adage, “Happy wife, happy life,” but how about this one:
The happier your marriage, the better your chance of surviving and recovering from heart surgery.
It’s true.
According to a new study out of the University of Rochester, the better a person’s marriage, the more likely they are to live longer after heart surgery than those who are single or unhappy in marriage.
“I can only imagine that people who have a good marriage are pretty happy people,” said a Boston cardiac surgeon, Robert Hagberg.
Talking Teen Rage
What’s the main cause of teenage rage in America?
Is it a matter of poor parenting – or no parenting at all?
Writing in last Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan drew a chilling parallel between fatherless homes and the riots we’re seeing in England, as well as the “flash mob” incidents that have been occurring with increasing frequency here in the U.S.
In regard to what to do about it, Ms. Noonan reflected:
The normal, old response to an emerging problem such as this has been: The government has to do something.
Philadelphia Mayor’s Plain Talk
Americans have grown accustomed to politically correct talk, vague words describing dark deeds. To some, abortion is a matter of “reproductive freedom.” To others, adultery is acceptable in a progressive culture – everybody does it.
A culture’s lexicon is ever evolving, especially among those inclined to call good evil and evil good (Isaiah 5:20). So perhaps this is why plain, blunt talk is somewhat jarring, but at the same time, welcome music to the ears, especially in the case of recent comments from Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter.
The Solution to All Your Problems – #1
I’m sure you’ve noticed that people are especially anxious these days. If you’re one of them, I would commend this recommendation to you, courtesy of the late Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd Jones:
Read Your Bible!
Every conceivable experience which the Christian may have to face has already been met and dealt with somewhere in the Scriptures. There is no such thing as a new experience in the realm of the Spirit; you will find everything catered for here.
Is Facebook Good for Your Child?
Writing in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Shirley S. Wang reports:
Several recent studies have found that digital communications can lead to more or better friendships, online and off, greater honesty, faster intimacy in relationships and an increased sense of belonging, in addition to practical social benefits like an expanded circle for networking.
She continued:
… researchers found users expressed a significant amount of empathy online, and that the more time college students spent on Facebook, the more empathy they expressed online and in real life.
One Amazing Dog
Have you ever heard of the Karelian Bear Dog? I hadn’t, until last week, when I caught a short documentary about the breed during an airplane flight.
Weighing between 40 and 65 pounds, the dog looks like a cross between a Husky and an Irish Wolfhound. Stocky and marked by a heavy black and white coat with expressive ears, they were originally bred in Russia and Finland to hunt big game, in addition to protecting farmers from bear attacks.
Does Faith and Prayer Distract America?
As many of you know, I’m privileged to serve on a panel for the Washington Post’s On Faith blog, a weekly “conversation on religion and politics.” I’d invite you to visit the site, which I think you’ll find contains some robust dialog. All of my contributions are archived here.
I’d like to share the latest installment of the feature with you. It concerns last week’s important and powerful gathering of Christians in Houston.
After you’ve had a chance to read the following perspective and reaction to the question, I’d love to hear from you.
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