My family and I recently spent a weekend in New York City, visiting my son, who is a student at NYU. During our trip, we saw a few unusual sights that I thought I’d share with you. You don’t see these everyday. In the center of this memorial, somebody put up a quotation in sticky notes to honor Steve Jobs. It comes from a commercial Apple produced in 1997, the “Think Different” commercial. The quotation whole quotation reads: Here’s to... Read more
Where Is God’s Country? What Difference Does It Make? Psalm 86:1-17 All the nations you made will come and bow before you, Lord; they will praise your holy name. Psalm 86:9 Two weeks ago, our Sunday reflection focused on Psalm 82:8: “Rise up, O God, and judge the earth, for all the nations belong to you.” I entitled that reflection “Where Is God’s Country?” The answer from our text was: Every country is God’s country. Today, I want to return... Read more
I thought you might enjoy a couple of photos from my backyard. Axis deer are plentiful in the Hill Country of Texas. Some would say they are more than plentiful. Originally from central Asia (Nepal, Sri Lanka, etc.), the Axis deer or Chital was introduced to Texas for hunting. Now they can be found everywhere. They are easily identified by their spotted coats. I spotted this Vine Sphinx moth on our porch in early summer. It was about four inches... Read more
Most of my readers will know that I write a daily devotional for The High Calling, a website supported by Foundations for Laity Renewal, where I work. I’m proud to be associated with this website, which, among other things, features excellent writing by a wide variety of authors. They share their wisdom on “work, life, and God,” some of my favorite topics. Today, I want to point you to three recent articles at The High Calling. I highly commend them... Read more
Dan Pallotta, an expert in nonprofit sector innovation, says YES. And he says this in spite of the fact that Steve Jobs did not give away lots of his money. Here’s the core of Pallotta’s argument: What a loss to humanity it would have been if Jobs had dedicated the last 25 years of his life to figuring out how to give his billions away, instead of doing what he does best. We’d still be waiting for a cell phone... Read more
One of my favorite writer-bloggers, Tim Dalrymple, has put up a post entitled “The Church is Not Your Canvas.” In this column, he interacts with a piece I wrote for The Pastor’s Workshop, a collection of my essays for pastors and other church leaders. My recent essay asks pastors the question: “How Do You Talk About Your Church?” I look closely at how Paul and his co-writers talk about the church of Thessalonica in the letter we know as 1... Read more
A few days ago I found myself waiting in line in an airport Starbucks. Looking down, I saw a tempting display of various kinds of nuts. There were packages of almonds as well as fruit & nut combinations. But then I saw the warning sign: So, be careful the next time you’re at Starbucks. Their little packages of nuts just may contain nuts! Read more
The New York Times recently featured an article with this tempting headline: “This Just In: Study Shows Songs About Sex Are Hot Sellers.” I’ll bet you didn’t know that before! James C. McKinley, Jr. reports on a study just published in the Journal of Evolutionary Psychology. The journal’s press release announces: “Song lyrics contain reproductive messages.” If you read the actual study (available on PDF), you may be surprised to see what counts as a reproductive message. The categories are:... Read more
A recent opinion piece in the New York Times bears the intriguing headline: “Super People.” No, James Atlas is not writing about recent superhero movies or about medical efforts to sustain life. The “super people” that concern Atlas are the young people, in the effort to get into high-ranking colleges and graduate schools, have become extraordinary. These super people are represented by recent winners of a prestigious fellowship: It’s a select group to begin with, but even so, there doesn’t... Read more
Mark D. Roberts
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The “Broadway Bomb” Skateboarding “Race” in New York
Talk about things you don’t see everyday! When is the last time you saw 1,500 skateboarders racing down the middle of a busy street, weaving in and out of traffic, blasting through red lights, and celebrating as if they owned the world? If you missed the 2011 “Broadway Bomb,” here is a short video clip to give you the flavor. These skaters, by the way, were at the back of the pack. The race dimension of the event had passed... Read more