Morning Briefings

There are people out there who want to keep science in a little box where it can’t possibly touch God. Scientists are not allowed to even think thoughts that involve an intelligent creator.

– Ben Stein regarding his movie
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Man’s accidents are God’s purposes, 1843: No one knows what prompted Sophia Hawthorne to engrave this phrase on the window. Some scholars suggest it may refer to a miscarriage she had in that year after slipping on a patch of ice. There is a sense of grief and resignation about her words, but also of strength and resolution. No easy answer is asked for or given, just a blunt acceptance of events and a determination to either endure or overcome them.

– from James Geary’s
The World in a Phrase

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?

People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them.

– Paulo Coelho
The Alchemist

In the midst of a turbulent, often chaotic life, we are all called to reach out with courageous honesty to our innermost self, with relentless care to our fellow human beings and with increasing prayer to our God.

– Henri J.M. Nouwen
Reaching Out

If everything is important, then nothing is. No one understands the power of this saying more than a person who leads an organization. Every organization provides its leaders with more distractions and concerns than one person can handle.

– Patrick Lencioni
The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive

See-saw power: We’ve already written about the use of playground equipment as a means of pumping fresh water for African villages, and now a British student at Coventry University has come up with a way to use see-saws to generate power.

– As reported on
Guy Kawasaki’s blog

From The Talmud: Know from where you came, where you are going, and before whom you will have to give an account of your life.

– Naomi H. Rosenblatt’s
Wrestling with Angels

There are exactly twenty-four hours in each day. Managing your time isn’t the real issue. Your time is fixed. What you need is to manage the activities that are consuming your time.

– Norman V. Peale & Ken Blanchard
The Power of Ethical Management

The course of American history demonstrates the difficulties, the struggles and the great intellectual and moral resolve which were demanded to shape a society which faithfully embodied these noble principles. In our time, too, particularly in moments of crisis, Americans continue to find their strength in a commitment to this patrimony of shared ideals and aspirations.

– from the address of Pope Benedict XVI on the White House Lawn, April 16, 2008 as reported by
Whispers in the Loggia