With street lights and flash lights, fluorescent and incandescent lights, LED and flashing neon lights, let’s face it, we totally rule the night.

We have ways of illuminating our surroundings that our ancestors never dreamed of. With the exception of a major ice storm, gone are the days where we need candles to light our way through the night. Before mass-produced candles and fancy things such as oil lamps, our ancestors respected fire for all its virtues. It kept them warm during the long, cold winter nights. Fire cooked their food and torches blazed with its red-orange kiss. It was dangerous. Many lives were lost while slumbering from a hearth fire gone out of control. It was dangerous, and it was essential for life. (more…)

Over the past week, I’ve been preparing for the coming of the Advent. So many things have swirled around in my head of what I wanted to write about, of what I really wanted the message to be.

That’s when I picked up one of my older notes that I had scribbled down. It was a copy of the Magnificat, also known as the Song of Mary, that is a canticle frequently sung or spoken liturgically in Christian church services. (more…)

I’ve decided that the best way for me to breach this topic is by way of the columnist’s best friend, the anecdote. It was the summer of my 14th year. I was attending my sister’s church for vacation Bible school because I had nothing better to do and because it got me out of the house.

I’m sitting in the crafts room with six or seven other teens sewing homemade wallets. The Bible teacher or whatever is discussing the power of prayer. I’m emblazoning my wallet with a ramshackle crucifix when an idea occurs to me. “Maybe some prayers go unanswered,” I say, “because God wants to teach us a lesson.” (more…)

Today is Black Friday, the day that the profits of the retail community are said to run in the black, where some retailers open at 4 a.m. with droves of customers already waiting in line to take advantage of the sale prices. However, if the word “black” also connotes darkness, obscurity, loss of transparency (as in “blackout”) or absolute secrecy (as in “black budget” or “black-ops”) or loss of a future (as in “the future looks black”), then it may be that our entire season should be labeled “black” and that the sun tomorrow morning will not bring light, translucency, and a new day. (more…)

A couple of days ago I was reading Captain Underpants with my son and in between laughing and snuggling he said something that continues to stick in my head. As he was holding the book I noticed how he was bending the book so much I thought he was going to break the spine. So I asked him why he was bending the book like that and he said, “That’s the way you do it, Daddy.” (more…)

We read the papers, watch or listen to the news, and know that times are continuing to be economically difficult. During challenging times such as these, we are all called upon to make many decisions in our business and personal lives. Some of these decisions are not easy, but one of the most important decisions overall that we will make is whether we will have a positive or negative outlook.

We have all heard the old adage, “Is your glass half full or half empty?” Knowing that it is technically both if we are literally looking at a real glass that is filled exactly to the half-way mark, the core issue comes to light: How will you view it? Will you be miserable over the things that you do not have or thankful and happy about all that is going well for you? (more…)