On My Mind

John Glenn. Everyone knows the name of this American hero who flew fifty-nine combat missions in World War II and twenty-seven in Korea; the first American to orbit the Earth and the oldest man in space when, at seventy-seven, he flew with the Space Shuttle Discovery crew; and a four-term U.S. Senator from Ohio. His […]

I had often enjoyed her friendly wave and cheerful smile; she was on cloud nine when working in the yard with her husband. Then one day, a door wreath rustled in the wind; the love of her life was gone. I passed her house each morning and observed her becoming increasingly frail. Then, the sad […]

The eight-year-old girl had been unimaginably abused before becoming a resident of the Pennsylvania orphanage. Understandably distant and defensive, she had no friends, not one. Someone told an administrator that she’d seen the child hide a note in a tree outside the stone wall surrounding the campus. A supervisor retrieved the note, read it, and […]

Why would thousands of people mail tons of rocks to a volcano? Simple. Pele, the goddess of volcanoes, had them spooked. Pele made her home at Mt. Kilauea in Hawaii. She has a nasty temper and has had a mad on since 1983. Mt. Kilauea has melted rocks, spit lava, and eaten trees for years, […]

If you belong to a generation predating Gen X, Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993) swept you off your feet in Roman Holiday, Funny Face, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, or My Fair Lady. But you may be unaware of the backstory that seems the opposite of Audrey’s on-screen charm. That story was what prompted her son, Luca, to say […]

In a Commencement address at Stanford University, the late Steve Jobs said: “No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there.” Death is an enemy that terrorizes mortals, causing them to be “like slaves all their lives because of their fear of death” (Hebrews […]

Dr. Fred Alexander, my college roommate and lifelong friend, chose a career in higher education. It was a close call, because early on he felt the tug of a different calling. As a young Navy Reservist, Fred blew the top off of pilot aptitude tests. The U.S. Navy pulled out all the stops to convince […]

There are a handful of things in my life that have always been there—changeless, consistent, dependable: the sun has not failed to rise or set since the day I was born; the earth has not perceptibly changed its spin in my lifetime; God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And then, there is my […]

A group of grieving women who watched Jesus die on Friday trudged to the tomb to anoint his body on Sunday. But the tomb was empty. “He is not here,” an angel told them; “he has risen!” Risen? Who could believe such a thing? His disciples should have. He had told them more than once […]

Limping ashore after decades at sea, he was taunted: “You don’t have much to show for all those years, do you?” “No, not much,” said the old salt who had spent years sailing with Sir Francis Drake. “I’ve been cold, hungry, sick, scared, and shipwrecked. But I am certain of one thing: I have been […]