Category Archives: America

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Phil Everly. Music. And Marriage.

Phil Everly, left, and brother Don perform on ITV's Saturday Spectacular in 1960.

Throwback Thursday is a weekly theme by social media users to post past photos of themselves.  In that spirit I’m posting a 1960 picture of the Everly Brothers.  Phil is on the left and his brother Don is on the right.  I hadn’t thought about them in a long time, until I recently learned that Phil passed away.    Continue reading

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What’s the World Coming To?

NewsRecent news headlines are pretty depressing. 

“No Pants Subway Day” Yes, it is what it sounds like!  In 60 cities across the world people rode the subway sans their pants.  Acting as if everything was normal people waited, boarded and rode the subway in their boxers, briefs and panties.  The twelfth annual event is said to have attracted over 4,000 participants in New York City.

As we shake our collective heads in utter disbelief and disgust, there is more…. Continue reading

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Bill Cosby “Calls Out” Vulgar Culture

Cosby.Bill(Note:  We are taking a “holiday break” and re-posting the top 9 posts in 2013 based on the number of hits.  Although only posted a month ago, this one came in at #9)

“We are not a vulgar culture,” said Bill Cosby in a speech at Tuskegee University earlier this month. Continue reading

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Was Abraham Lincoln a Man of Faith?

Lincoln“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”

You immediately recognize those words as the beginning of President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address.  Today is the 150th anniversary of that speech at the dedication of the soldier’s National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Continue reading

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A Dire Warning From 3,000 Years Ago

Bible.Proverbs

The failure of the new government-run, health-care web site has provided fodder for ridicule from both the left and the right of the political spectrum. It has given late night comedians material for their sarcastic jokes.  Saturday Night Live mocked Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in a recent skit.  And of course, various talk show hosts almost seem to smirk with an “I told you so” attitude. Continue reading

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Reflections: 9/11, Twelve Years Later

WTC_Silhouette

Yesterday over our morning coffee, Norma Jean and I were reflecting about September 11, 2001.

We were living in Spring Hill, TN.  And I was preaching for the Jackson Heights church in Columbia.   As I was getting ready to go to the office Norma Jean yelled for me to come into the family room.  She said, “A plane has hit one of the twin towers.”  Like millions of Americans we watched in amazement as a plane hit the other tower.  Then the Pentagon was hit.  And then the report of the crash in PA. Later we learned of the heroism that prevented another catastrophic  strike.

That day I did not go to the office. Continue reading

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9/11 Day of Service and Remembrance

I.WIll

“It’s been 12 years and a lot of times I get disappointed because Sept. 11 has just become another date on the calendar.” says Fairview, New Jersey Police Chief Frank Del Vecchio.

So Del Vecchio decided last year to do something to honor and help the families and friends who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001.  He raised $12,000 for a children’s charity through a memorial run that began at his home in Ridgewood, NJ to the World Trade Center site.  This year he is running again.  And hopes to raise more money. Continue reading

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Where is God Leading You?

Boat.Storm

Sean and Hannah Gastonguay were fed up.

They were fed up with governmental intrusion in their lives.  Fed up with moral state of America.  Fed up with unfair taxation.   Hannah said as Christians they don’t believe in ‘‘abortion, homosexuality, in the state-controlled church.”  U.S. ‘‘churches aren’t their own,’’ Gastonguay said, suggesting that government regulation interfered with religious independence.

So the northern Arizona family decided to do something about it. Continue reading

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Is Bill O’Reilly’s Solution Right?

Bible.Plant

“Reader’s Digest”  once told the story about a company who mailed out some special advertising business post cards with a mustard seed glued to it.  The following caption read something like this: “If you have faith as small as this mustard seed in ( our product), you are guaranteed to get excellent results and be totally satisfied.”

— Signed, The Management Continue reading

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Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?

 Together

Twenty-two years ago Rodney King became nationally known after being beaten by Los Angeles police officers.  The African-American construction worker was on parole for robbery and following a high-speed car chase on March 3, 1991 was caught and beaten unmercifully.

George Holliday, a nearby resident, witnessed the vicious beating and video taped it from his apartment balcony.  Mr.  King’s plaintive cry was eventually heard around the world “Why can’t we all just get along?

Following the recent riots, vitriolic response and heated rhetoric regarding George Zimmerman’s acquittal for shooting Travyon Martin, a 17-year-old African-American, King’s question still rings in our ears.  Continue reading

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