Spielberg’s Lincoln is a stunning, captivating story of the four most important months in Lincoln’s presidency and, perhaps, in our nation’s history. In his first inaugural Lincoln was holding out hope that the war between the states could still be avoided, so he addressed those who had seceded, saying: “We are not enemies, but friends. […]

Thoreau famously said, “Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.” Thoreau, who was born in 1817 and died 44 years […]

Opening Words:  From Windy City, Carl Sandburg Put the city up; tear the city down; put it up again; let us find a city. Let us remember the little violet-eyed man who gave all, praying, “Dig and dream, dream and hammer, till your city comes.” Every day the people sleep and the city dies; every […]

Miller Williams wrote a short poem-like piece about civility – you might consider committing it to memory, if you haven’t already done so: “Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don’t want it. What appears bad manners, an ill temper or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no […]

A familiar passage from the book of Micah, an Old Testament prophet from about 800 BCE, says: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and we may walk in his paths… He shall judge between many […]

Frost is in the forecast…Robert, that is. An advisory is usually a warning of some kind, and this sermon might fit that category. The warning is that Robert Frost is intent on being duplicitous, and he says so, himself. So, take my advice – don’t believe what you hear or read at first blush, at […]