Category Archives: Spiritual life

The well-tempered person

Posted on January 23, 2016 by salooper57

Controlling anger is a big issue for many people. “I’ll admit it,” they say. “I have a real temper.” But they’re mistaken. The problem is they have not been tempered enough. “Tempering” is a process that increases strength and elasticity. … Continue reading →

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Don’t Be Bored in the New Year

Posted on January 2, 2016 by salooper57

Our church was selling its old pews a few years ago. One wag suggested we advertise them with the tag line, “You’ve slept in them at church. Now you can try them at home.” His fellow wit added, “And we … Continue reading →

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The hard-to-believe truth about Christmas

Posted on December 19, 2015 by salooper57

In a famous Old Testament passage, the prophet Isaiah wrote: “The Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14). St. Matthew … Continue reading →

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Restoring our center of gravity

Posted on December 12, 2015 by salooper57

Driving around Chicago felt like a cinch after the crazy drivers and screaming racing bikes on the 405 in L.A. It felt like a cinch, that is, until the SUV immediately in front of us swerved one way, then the … Continue reading →

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Completely misreading the situation

Posted on November 28, 2015 by salooper57

My friend Rob was spending a couple of days in Rome, seeing the sights. Instead of using public transportation, he opted to walk to the tourist spots. That way, if he saw something on the way that interested him, he … Continue reading →

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How to debug the programming

Posted on November 15, 2015 by salooper57

Back in the days of DOS, my first personal computer was giving me problems. It would sometimes fail to boot up from its “massive” 40 megabyte hard drive. I’d push the power button repeatedly until it finally started. When I … Continue reading →

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Playing pinball with a new Lincoln

Posted on November 7, 2015 by salooper57

It is often said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. It seems to me that is not so much a definition of insanity as it is a description of … Continue reading →

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Tear down this wall!

Posted on October 17, 2015 by salooper57

One of the chief difficulties people (skeptics, seekers, and believers) have with Christianity is the idea that it doesn’t belong to this world, that religion and reality don’t intersect. It’s assumed that religion is a kind of fantasy world that … Continue reading →

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Back to the present: how future Americans will see us

Posted on September 5, 2015 by salooper57

When reading European authors from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, one frequently runs across descriptions of America and Americans. Americans are either burly, uncultured, do-it-yourselfers or rich, ambitious, self-made men. As a nation America is emotional and reckless, … Continue reading →

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A rose by any other name

Posted on August 29, 2015 by salooper57

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Those are of course Juliet’s lines in Act II of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. If only Romeo’s last name were something other … Continue reading →

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