Morning Briefings

You in the armed forces have the difficult task of keeping ‘chins up’ when you know that separation from friends and loved ones, dangers of sea, air and land and death itself must be faced. In a way, though, the difference between this new life and the old is only one of degrees, not of kind; and successful service anywhere requires faith.

– Elam J. Anderson, former President, University of Redlands
Strength for Service to God and Country

Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook, Paul Allen and Bill Gates with Microsoft, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs with Apple–those success stories lead some to think that coming up with big ideas is a young person’s game. But the tech entrepreneurs who rose to early fame and fortune are the outliers. The typical entrepreneur is a middle-aged professional who learns about a market need and starts a company with his own savings.

– The Wall Street Journal
How to Come up With a Great Idea

A person who feels no guilt can never find healing. Yet neither can a person who wallows in guilt. The sense of guilt only serves its designed purpose as a symptom if it presses us toward cure.

– Philip Yancey
Rumors of Another World: What on Earth Are We Missing?

7500 Online Shoppers Unknowingly Sold Their Souls: A computer game retailer revealed that it legally owns the souls of thousands of online shoppers, thanks to a clause in the terms and conditions agreed to by online shoppers. The terms of service were updated on April Fool’s Day as a gag, but the retailer did so to make a very real point: No one reads the online terms and conditions of shopping, and companies are free to insert whatever language they want into the document.

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FoxNews.com

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.

– President John Quincy Adams

Start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

– St. Francis of Assisi

Jesus, faced with a man who had been crippled for thirty-eight years, asked a peculiar question, ‘Do you want to be healed?’ Being delicate can become a way of life. Some grow accustomed to being a victim, to being helped, to being dependent, to being unable to walk and to fend for themselves. What bit of ourselves do we want to be healed? Everyone has a weakness where stress shows: nerves, addictions, sleep, anxiety, fears, pains, rashes. We can be too limited and unambitious in our prayer for healing. A lovely description of mental health (from Freud) is ‘the capacity to love and to work.’

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Sacred Space

The Church’s calendar begins with Advent. Its liturgical color is purple, denoting sorrow for sin and doing penance. Advent begins on or about 30 November and always includes four Sundays.

– Margaret R. Miles
Maiden and Mother

Select capable men from all the people–men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain.

– Exodus 18:21

With the same zeal, enthusiasm and fervor that I started this day, I now turn toward home. My spouse and children deserve a husband and father/wife and mother who is happy to see them, someone who is filled with energy, happiness and joy. I refuse to drag across the threshold weary, worn out and beaten down by the day’s activities.

– Germaine Copeland
Prayers That Avail Much for the Workplace