Mental Musings

My first trip outside of the United States was for Christmas vacation during 4th Grade. My father had traveled all over the world with the Navy, but he chose to take us to Venezuela because my parents knew a missionary couple that was working in Caracus. We stayed in a nice hotel and took taxis around to see various sites. All around the city we could see large skyscrapers that where most of the rooms had broken and boarded up windows. Attached all around the buildings or sticking out of these windows were TV antennas. As we went further outside of the city we saw homes all along the hillsides built out of junk cars, cardboard, sheets of tin, old tires, and whatever else people could find to put up walls. The only consistent thing we saw were electric power lines going into and TV antennas sticking out of each makeshift home. We learned from the missionary couple that the makeshift homes along the hills were the original dwellings for the poor of their country. The used wha...

When I was in first grade I lived in a neighborhood in Norfolk, Virginia, that was just outside of the inner city in the shadows of Interstate 64. We had much more freedom to just wander the streets and do whatever we wanted until we got into trouble: which we did quite often. One day I went with my mom across the street to visit with one of her friends. She had a little boy several years younger than me. While our moms were inside talking, we went outside to play. I gave this boy a ride in my little red wagon. As I was pulling him, the handle started to come loose, so I stopped, raised the handle up to the wagon and bent over to tighten the nut around the bolt that connected the handle to the front wheels. While doing this, the little boy thought it would be funny to shove the handle toward me. What happened is probably one of the many reasons that we now have so many strict regulations regarding toy safety. When the handle came down, the open hinge around the bolt and nut...

In 1827, Czech-Austrian inventor Josef Ressel invented a device that, in conjunction with a steam-powered engine, would help move ships through the water at a faster pace. Now almost 200 years later, the propeller is stilled used for ships, motorboats, airplanes, and even drones today. Propellants are often necessary to move objects. Whether it is fuel for a jet engine or a parent’s warning to their child about possible punishment, we need some force to get things moving in the right direction. Today we will see what propelled the viral message of God’s redemptive story. We start with that final moment that the disciples had together with the Incarnation of God. While He was together with them, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the Father’s promise. “This,” He said, “is what you heard from Me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”  So when they had come together, they asked Him,...