I live in Dallas, TX where there are two passions—The Dallas Cowboys and road construction. I cannot travel 2 miles without coming across safety cones. (I wish I had invested in that industry three years ago!). One nagging issue I face is the absence of [...]
Some things you read hit you right between the eyes. One such piece was Eric Barker’s recent blog post on how to be happy in a crazy world. In a furrowed-brow world, everyone is looking for the magic elixir of joy. We all have it; [...]
Everyone has had two kinds of teachers. Some you never remember. Then, there are those you never forget. Everyone has a list of the second. (It is usually a short list.) What makes the difference between the two? We assume we know what teaching is. [...]
I am a simple carpenter. No one would believe my story. I wouldn’t believe it had I not lived it. My father Jacob was a carpenter who trained me to be a carpenter. As a boy, he would tell me the family stories. My favorite [...]
Christmas colors are red and green. Tinsel shimmers. Lights twinkle. Hearts soar. Sometimes, life paints Christmas a different color. There’s no Pantone color number, but the best way to describe it is Melancholy Blue. I enjoy Christmas but also the holiday season carries [...]
On the Oak Ridge Boys Christmas Cookies album is a song called Ordinary Days. It’s not a traditional Christmas song. In it, the writers Steve Bogard and Rick Giles captured more than holly, snow, and nativity scenes. They put a tear in the eyes [...]
Church shootings seem to fill headlines on the crawls at the bottom of cable news networks. America saw death at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC. Then it visited Antioch, TN at the Burnette Road Church of Christ. Last Sunday it rained [...]
Seldom do you find Genghis Kahn held up as a role model! Book cover of Barking Up the Wrong Tree That is what Eric Barker does in his new book, Barking up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Everything You Know About [...]
We like things that are easy. Our minds like to conserve energy for more important things. The problem comes when we encounter information. The more information we have, the less we can think . (Having choices is fun. Choosing is agonizing.) We feel like the [...]
I am writing this post from a room in a motel in Managua, Nicaragua. It is not my own room. The shower has no hot water so shaving is difficult. Don’t even think about putting paper down the commode. (I won’t go into the mechanics [...]
