This headline caught my eye: “Drag queens deliver home-cooked dinners as part of San Francisco club’s ‘Meals on Heels’ service.” The Washington Post reports that every Friday, “about four or five performers have made upward of a dozen stops at homes throughout the city to deliver meals and give three- or four-minute performances.” Here’s what especially interested me: The newspaper distributed the article as part of a section titled “The Optimist: Stories that Inspire.”  On one hand, we can see... Read more

Robin Williams won an Academy Award, six Golden Globe Awards, five Grammy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. In a listing of the “25 Funniest People of All Time,” he was ranked first. But his remarkable success and popularity could not insulate him from the pain of this broken world. He dealt with cocaine and alcohol addictions, heart problems, and severe depression before taking his life in 2014. Now we know the rest of the... Read more

J. K. Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter series, the best-selling book series in history. Forbes named her the world’s first billionaire author, but later reported that she lost this status by giving away so much of her earnings to charity. Her Wikipedia article lists six honorary degrees, including one from Harvard University, along with twenty-eight other awards or recognitions. However, she made the news recently for something she is giving back.  Rowling received the Ripple of Hope... Read more

I spent a day in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) several years ago. Our hosts demonstrated the hospitality for which the Arab people are justifiably known. It was obvious, however, that this was a Muslim nation governed by Sharia law. Flogging, stoning, amputation, and even crucifixion are legal punishments. Apostasy from Islam is a crime punishable by death.  It was therefore a great surprise to hear on August 13 that the UAE and Israel had decided to normalize relations. Israeli... Read more

Chadwick Boseman, the actor who played the title character in the Oscar-winning film Black Panther, died last Friday at the age of forty-three. Boseman drew accolades for his depictions of Thurgood Marshall, Jackie Robinson, and James Brown. He died on the fifty-seventh anniversary of the March on Washington and the day baseball honored Jackie Robinson.  In his memory, ABC showed Black Panther commercial-free last night. I watched the marvelous film again as well as the tribute show to Boseman that... Read more

Hurricane Laura struck Louisiana yesterday as one of the most powerful storms in US history. At least six people were killed and power was knocked out for nearly one million customers. Arkansas is under a state of emergency this morning from damaging winds and flooding. All this in a region also grappling with the coronavirus pandemic. In the midst of the “compound risks” we face these days, what can I say to encourage us on this Friday morning?  One of... Read more

Hurricane Laura made landfall early this morning near Lake Charles, Louisiana, as a Category 4 storm with winds of 150 mph. The Wall Street Journal calls the hurricane “a storm of historic proportions, with wind speed at landfall surpassing Hurricane Katrina in 2005.” At least twenty million people are in the storm’s path; over half a million were ordered to evacuate. The National Hurricane Center has been warning of potentially catastrophic and life-threatening storm surges, extreme winds, and flash flooding... Read more

James Bond turned ninety years old this week. Actually, that’s not quite right. Sean Connery, the Scottish actor who will forever be linked with the iconic British secret agent, had his ninetieth birthday. Tributes came in from other Bond actors and the general public around the world. I found this article especially interesting: Columnist Mark O’Connell notes that until the first Bond film, “cinema was the commonplace realm of jingoistic war movies, ailing backlot westerns, biblical excess, and tired thrillers.”... Read more

Jack Eccles is a longtime Baptist pastor with two doctoral degrees. Even at the age of ninety-three, he is currently learning German and recently posted a sermon to YouTube.  His wife of seventy years, Gerry, is the mother of their nine children. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2015 and lives in a nursing home in North Carolina. On March 12, when Dr. Eccles arrived as usual to spend much of the day with her, he was turned away because... Read more