We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. —Will Durant If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude. —Colin Powell January 2024. This is the time of year when [...]
What Do You Make of This Baby?
The hinge of history is on the door of a Bethlehem stable. —Ralph W. Sockman It’s the most wonderful time of the year, so goes the popular holiday song. The Christmas season is upon us once again. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday have come and gone, and December 25th is just around the [...]
Tribute to My First Love
All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother. – Abraham Lincoln Life doesn’t come with a manual; it comes with a mother. – Unknown Last month, I lost my first love. My 84-year-young mother passed away after suffering from a chronic progressive disease. For her last few years of [...]
Integrity, Where Art Thou?
Integrity is doing the right thing when no one else is watching. — paraphrase of a quote attributed to Charles Marshall Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways. —Proverbs 28:6 The word integrity is not bandied about much these days, perhaps because we [...]
Spring: The Season of Opportunity
The beautiful spring came, and when nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also. – Harriet Ann Jacobs Spring is proof that there is beauty in new beginnings. – Matshona Dhliwayo While spring may not be my favorite season of the year, it is certainly the one most welcomed after winter’s [...]
My Love/Hate Affair with Golf
Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated; it satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time rewarding and maddening – and it is without a doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented. — Arnold Palmer Like many men my age, I picked up the game of golf as a result [...]
Confessions of a Bibliophile
bib·li·o·phile: a person who collects or has a great love of books (see also bookworm, readaholic, bookaholic) Hi. My name is Bill, and I’m a bookaholic. There. I said it. I admit that I am addicted to books. I get my fix in reading a lot, my high in reading often. I feed my habit with biographies, [...]
Resolve to Be Resolute/The Art of Stick-to-itiveness
Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account. — Oscar Wilde A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other. —Author Unknown Re·solve: to decide firmly on a course of action. Res·o·lute: to be admirably purposeful, determined, and unwavering. Quit·ters Day: a [...]
When the Holidays Aren’t Such Jolly Days
"Peace upon earth!" was said. We sing it,And pay a million priests to bring it.After two thousand years of massWe've got as far as poison-gas. —Thomas Hardy, Christmas: 1924 “Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.” — William Shakespeare The Christmas season is known for [...]
The Scourge of Ingratitude
A complaining tongue reveals an ungrateful heart. – William Arthur Ward Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. – William Arthur Ward Are you typically a grateful person? If so, you may be in rare company. In a recent post, Christian scholar Carl R. Trueman suggested that in our [...]
Grace Notes 