Mountains

Dick Bass and Frank Wells became the first persons to climb the tallest mountain on each continent. They wrote a book about their adventures called "Seven Summits." Now Bass has written another book called "The Eighth Summit." It's a book about the figurative mountain every person has to climb in his or her own...

Light

When the great Church of Holy Wisdom (the Hagia Sophia) was completed in Constantinople they hung thousands of lamps in it. The lights shone through a corona of windows in the dome, so that a sailor on the Bosporus could find his direction not only by the stars but by the light from the church. One writer of the time said, "It...

Home

A couple in Milwaukee asked an appraiser to look at a painting in their home. While there he saw another, which they thought to be a copy or reproduction of a work by Van Gogh. It turned out to be an original Van Gogh -- Still Life with Flowers painted in 1886! It later sold at auction for $1,400,000. What is there in your home...

Estate

When Mahatma Gandhi died he left an estate valued at less than three dollars! But he left a legacy of peace and non-violent political activism that inspired many who came after him. The estate of Jesus Christ was even less. Apparently all He had was his robe and His executioners got that. But He spoke of His legacy "Peace I...

Zeal for the Cross

Dorothy Sayers wrote, "It is curious that people who are filled with horrified indignation whenever a cat kills a sparrow can hear that story of the killing of God told Sunday after Sunday and not experience any shock at all." Recently in one community in the mid-South an animal rights activist wrote an indignant letter to the...

Compromise

In the early days of the twentieth century there was a bank robber in the West called Black Bart. He was so successful that he threatened to bankrupt the Wells-Fargo Company. The problem was solved when the company gave Black Bart a pension on the condition that he retire and stay off the highways. But we ...

Complaining

Charles Dickens once visited America and gave some lectures across the country. He told one audience that we here in this country are a bit mixed up. He said we should not have one Thanksgiving Day, but that we should have 364 Thanksgiving Days. The one day left over would be used just for complaining and griping; the...

Communion

At the heart of the city of Indianapolis stands a towering granite monument. About it are clustered statues depicting various scenes from the Civil War. Carved on the stone are these words: "To Indiana's Silent Victors." When we come to communion we come to honor a Victor, but He is not a silent Victor. It was...

Church

When they inaugurated the city of Constantinople in 330 they wanted to honor its founder and namesake. So they brought from Greece a statue of Apollo, but they removed from the statue the head of Apollo and replaced it with a carved image of the head of Constantine. Does it not seem sometimes that Christ has been...

Age

Kant wrote his famous philosophical work at the age of seventy-four. Verdi wrote Ave Maria at the age of eighty-five. At the age of eighty Tennyson wrote Crossing The Bar, Goethe finished Faust, and Moses started on the Exodus. When Michelangelo died at the age of eighty-seven he was still supervising the construction of...