Inspiration

An older woman recently returned from her home town in North Carolina and told a friend they'd spruced up the churchyard cemetery since her last visit several years past. "Lots of new greenery," she said. "And families are together now."

"All together?" her friend asked, puzzled.

"Well," the first replied, "years ago they never much worried where they buried someone because everyone was a neighbor anyhow. They'd just dig a grave wherever it seemed to balance things. But they've redone it so people are with their children and grandchildren, instead of scattered."

The friend was still puzzled. "You mean they exhumed all those people and reburied them?"

"Oh my, no," was the reply. "We just shifted the headstones. Everyone agrees it looks ever so much nicer."

Stephen Fry says the misery of the world is not our fault. He's wrong. This message looks at how sin (and suffering) entered the world.

Listen Online:

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"We can’t expect the nation to operate by Christian principles… but we can expect this of the church."
- Philip Yancey

I've long maintained that the distinction between "professionals" and "amateurs" is often very slight, often amounting to little more than that the former are paid and the latter are not. This is in no small measure because professional arrogance has been known to become intolerable if left unchecked.

So it happened that a patient was making his first visit to the doctor. "And whom," began the physician with utmost dignity, "did you consult about your illness before you came to me?"

"Only the pharmacist down at the corner," replied the patient.