A while back I was visiting my parents, and as we were sitting at their diningroom table, my father said, "Look at that bird out there by your car!"

I looked out the window, and there was a bird, perched on the windowsill of my passenger-side front door. But where he was, that wasn't half so interesting as what he was doing.

The bird was very studiously examining itself in the side-view mirror! I chuckled a bit, and then turned back to the conversation. About five minutes later, my father said, "You know, that bird is still there!"

Sure enough,...

When I was a high school math teacher, I remember vividly one algebra one test I gave. As I was correcting the students' papers, I noticed that one student had put virtually no "work" on her paper; only answers. Then, as I corrected her paper, I began to realize that some of her incorrect answers looked very familiar.

Flipping back through the papers I had already corrected, I found a paper with identical answers. In some cases, the first paper had a wrong answer because the student had made a foolish addition mistake (7+8=16, for example). Yet even in these cases,...

Several years ago we had a yearly tradition of taking our church youth group on a hiking trip to Mount Katahdin. If you've never been to Katahdin, it's the tallest mountain in the state of Maine, and a wonderful place to hike. The views from the top are downright amazing.

We would hike up Pamola Peak (the second-tallest peak on Katahdin) and then cross Knife Edge to get to Baxter Peak (which is the tallest peak). Knife Edge is a trail, approximately a mile long, which runs along a ridge between Pamola and Baxter. You can probably guess what the trail...

I have three brothers. No sisters. Occasionally people would say to my mother, "Four boys? Wow! I bet you wish you had a daughter!"

And my mother would say, "No, not really."

"Really? Why not?"

"Because I teach sixth grade." Now, that would seem like a bit of a non-sequiter, but then my mom would explain, "When boys get mad at each other, they have a big explosion, maybe they throw a punch or two, and then ten minutes later it's all over and they're friends again. With the girls it's not like that. With the girls, when they get...

Ever stop to think about gifts you've been given, and why they are important to you? There are many reasons why a gift might be important to you...let's look at a few.

#1: A gift might be from someone who is very special to you. With Valentine's Day right around the corner, this is a reason lots of people are thinking about. When you think about the gifts people receive for Valentines Day...roses, chocolates, jewelry, etc., they are rarely practical, and often not even all that expensive. And yet, when a girl gets her very first rose from a guy,...

Two times in the last month, under completely different circumstances, I've had people say to me, "I don't want to be a burden." In both cases the statement was made by another Christian. Both times my reply was: "How could you be a burden? You're part of my family. This is just what we do for each other."

We always talk about "brothers" and "sisters" in Christ, but I don't think we often stop to really think about what it means that we are family.

I remember hearing a story about two brothers who were walking one day, and...