The house was quiet. There were sound that children make when they are sleeping, there is the gurgle and bumping of the water travelling through the heater pipes. I’m in the upstairs master bedroom. Lois will join me soon for a long winter’s nap and set the fan to whirring. But right now things are quiet. An occasional car purrs through the neighborhood, only a few an hour this late in the evening.

Some families rarely have a family meal together. They just “graze” all day. They wander from the ‘fridge to the microwave then park it in the living-room to stare at the big electronic “eye”. I must admit partial guilt. (Just as I finished this paragraph Lois came into my study from a shopping trip and dropped a Whopper on the desk near my keyboard). I think we need to talk about this.

Somtimes life takes funny little twists and turns that you suspect are more providential than they are coincidental. Last summer that happened to us in a true incident involving our oldest son, Kyle. The story follows:

In our local library they have a delightful children’s book called Owl Moon. It’s about a little girl and her daddy walking through the snow on a winter night to see an owl. Somewhere, in some city, a grown-up girl thinks about her daddy years ago bundling-up a little girl and making a memory while field on field of fresh snow reflected the moon’s luminous glow. She writes her memory down and adds full-color illustrations and thousands of us enjoy the walk with her. A wise man. A blessed little …

If a man has a combination of wealth, strength, athletic ability, sexual attractiveness, position, respect, power, and influence; if he has the right toys and the right image, he is considered successful.
Modern men have an insatiable lust for success. They are driven to achieve it. They thirst for its rewards. They want it and they have determined to have it. They fantasize about it. They sacrifice for it. Millions of men will sacrifice their family, their integrity, their leisure, their health and their peace of mind just for …

A few years ago I was staying in a mountain lodge high in the Adorondak Mountains of up-state New York. I had been under a great deal of pressure in my work and needed a quiet week away. I found myself becoming a cynical, critical person and I didn’t like it. A quiet, no-pressure week in a lodge over-looking a mountain lake was like a long drink of ice-cold spring water to my spirit.