Morning Briefings

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

– Ezekiel 36:26

If America is to rediscover its mojo and grow its way out of debt and deficits–and not just pin the tail on the rich, or inflate it all away–it needs to liberate the new generation of Steve Jobses. Today, that challenge seems daunting. But the 1970s, the decade of Apple’s birth, offers hope that hardy seeds can take root in bad climates.

– Rich Karlgaard, The Wall Street Journal
Apple to the Rescue?

All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.

– Proverbs 14:23 as referenced in
God’s Words for Life

Set down your chains, ’til only faith remains; set down your chains. And lend your voices only to sounds of freedom. No longer lend your strength to that which you wish to be free from. Fill your lives with love and bravery and we shall lead a life uncommon.

– Jewel
Life Uncommon

Abigail Van Buren once wrote that, ‘a church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.’ As important as history and tradition is to our Church, our faith is not a museum exhibit filled with long-dead specimens, stuffed and propped up to show what the ‘real thing’ looks like. Our Church is and must be alive and real, and that means filled with fragile, weak and sinful humans.

– Steve Givens
Living Faith

Two major airports reopened and the floor of the New York Stock Exchange came back to life Wednesday, while across the river in New Jersey, National Guardsmen rushed to rescue flood victims and fires still raged two days after Superstorm Sandy.

– Adam Geller, AP
philly.com

United Parcel Service Inc (UPS.N) reported lower quarterly profit on Tuesday, citing slowing global trade, and said there was ’some uncertainty’ about the strength of the coming holiday season.

– Lynn Adler
Reuters

When we think of the journey of life, the going is more important than the arriving. We are not here to be somewhere. We are here to live and to share our lives with each other. Our lives are the ultimate pilgrimage.

– Reverend James O’Leary
I Think I Am Happier Than I Think I Am

Why do the righteous suffer? Virtually every meaningful conversation I have ever had with people on the subject of God and religion has either started with this question, or gotten around to it before long.

– Harold S. Kushner
When Bad Things Happen to Good People

For entrepreneurs in their 60s and 70s, the consequences have been particularly vexing. May of them are stuck in ‘business purgatory’ unable to retire and forced to hang on for a recovery that economists say could still be a long way off.

– The Wall Street Journal
The Economy Stole My Retirement