And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. Ecclesiastes 1:13
In sixth grade I discovered the beauty of a speckle-breasted bird feeding in our yard, and I've been fascinated with birds ever since. I knew robins, blue jays, cardinals, sparrows, and starlings, of course, but this bird was a stranger to me. He was also so beautiful with his dark mustache, long pointed bill, spotted... Continue Reading →
Writing on the proposed United States Constitution in 1787 Benjamin Franklin said: ...I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered; and I... Continue Reading →
This province was first settled by (and a majority of the assemblies have ever since been of) the people called Quakers, who, though they do not, as the world is now circumstanced, condemn the use of arms in others, yet are principled against bearing arms themselves; and to make any law to compel them thereto,... Continue Reading →
Old friends buried their son a week ago today— at twenty-two-years-old, his death in a gun accident was unlooked for— a painful understatement. Words like tragic, awful, and heart-wrenching come to mind but fall short of the abrupt end-of-life-as-we-know-it reality. We fall headlong off the cliff of unlooked for disasters. The death of the... Continue Reading →
Bill Buckley was one of my favorite authors in the halcyon days of my late 20s when I was discovering kindred spirits in all things religious and political. I cut my politically inclined teeth on Buckley in National Review and loved the fact that I needed a dictionary when I read his articles! It... Continue Reading →
I visited the Kansas Supreme Court building recently, a building I had a very small part in building back in 1977. While John Jones and I worked outside this landmark to justice providing water proofing membrane under the exterior granite walkway, a sculptor was working inside the building providing a symbolic element, the statue Justice. A... Continue Reading →
Looking out the window of one of my favorite coffee shops (Panera’s), a petite young employee, company baseball cap sitting low over her pigtails, is wrestling large bags of trash. The bags are almost half her size and she’s attempting to raise them high enough to drop them into the large trash container in the... Continue Reading →
The production of honey has to be one of the coolest and most mind boggling processes on the planet. Consider these facts: A colony of up to 100,000 bees will visit over 2,000,000 flowers in 12 square miles and fly the equivalence of the earth’s circumference twice to produce one pound of honey. A single... Continue Reading →
It must have been quite a party— the surroundings were opulent, the guests represented the cream of society, the food was the best the world had to offer, and the wine! The wine was an elixir; its intoxicating influence gave those who imbibed an enlarged sense of themselves and their own importance. No wonder the... Continue Reading →
He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like... Continue Reading →
Applied Heart 