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Eternity in our hearts
Anne Rice, whose bestsellers including The Vampire Chronicles have sold over one hundred million copies, is one of the most widely read authors in the world. After spending most of her adult life a...
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What will they say about me?
Some years ago the Indiana Department of Social Services sent a letter to a former client which said: “Your food stamps will be stopped in March because we received notice that you passed away. May God...
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Gambling for big stakes
A group of atheists have been paying for ads on buses telling people that there might not be a God so stop worrying. Well, believing there is a God who cares for me is the very thing that keeps me from...
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Hope springs eternal
Alexander Pope wrote: “Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blessed.” But where does man turn when hope dries up? The director of a medical clinic told of a young...
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Comfort through a cat
At the Steer House Nursing Home in Providence, Rhode Island, a cat named Oscar provides a unique service to the residents of the dementia unit. He makes regular rounds, hopping onto patients’ beds,...
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An unknown region with a well-know inhabitant
We know very little about the after-life but someone once described it as “an unknown region with a well-know inhabitant.” I remember an old man I once ministered to just before his death, who told me...
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Which way did he go?
There’s an epitaph on a headstone outside an English parish church that says: ‘Behold all you who pass by, for as you are so once was I; and as I am so you will be; prepare yourself to follow me.’ To...
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We were created to believe
A century ago many people believed that human enlightenment would eventually banish religious belief. But it hasn’t happened, and this has caused some researchers, like Bruce Hood, professor of...
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Pushing the limits
Frank Allegretti, a meticulous pilot with more than twenty years experience, crashed his plane in a cornfield because it ran out of fuel. His distraught wife said: ‘Everybody told me, he was the most...
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There’s nothing to fear
There’s a story about a man from Canada who left the frozen north for a holiday in the Florida Sun. His wife was due to follow him next day. When he got to his hotel he sent her an email. Unfortunately...
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No pockets in a dead man’s suit
Ray Stedman, setting off an extended speaking tour, had the misfortune of having an airline lose his baggage; so he went to an op shop to buy a suit. The salesman led him to a rack of near new suits....
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You’re part of the ocean.
There’s a story about a little wave bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time, enjoying the wind and the fresh air — until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the...
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Plus ultra
In the Spanish city of Valladolid, where Christopher Columbus died, there’s a monument to the great navigator. Its most interesting feature is a statue of a lion destroying one of the Latin words that...
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Dissolving into nothingness…or?
In parts of Africa they have a unique funeral custom whereby mourners stand around the casket and then, on a given signal, put a piece of peppermint into their mouths. As it dissolves they are reminded...
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Frozen dead-guys
In the town of Nederland, Colorado, they have a strange festival called: ‘The Frozen Dead Guy Festival.’ It commemorates Bredo Morstoel, a local inhabitant who had himself cryogenically frozen and...
View ArticleThe essence of Hell is separation
C.S Lewis once said that the essence of hell is separation – from God and from others. To be forever cut off from God’s presence …to be separated from other creatures, to be wholly and increasingly...
View ArticleThe great story in which every chapter is better than the one before. ”
It’s often said that my parents’ generation rarely talked about sex but often talked about death. Whereas for my generation the opposite is true. But when you get to my age it’s hard to avoid it. I...
View ArticleBuilding for our own retirement
A sub-contractor carpenter told his contractor-boss, whom he’d worked for since he was an apprentice, that he was ready to retire. The contractor was sorry to see him go but asked him, as a personal...
View ArticleWhat makes wealth wealth?
John D. Rockerfeller at the age of fifty became the world’s first billionaire. But three years later he had a nervous breakdown. His body was racked with pain, he lost all the hair on his head, he...
View ArticleYou may not know until you fly away
George Orwell, whose classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four so prophetically predicted the nightmare of much of today’s world, also gave a graphic image of the human condition in one of his essays. He...
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