Highlights from "The Liberal Lion"

I've never been a big fan of Ted Kennedy. However, I truly enjoyed this week's "Word for Word" which highlighted several of his best-known speeches over the past 40 years. Worth a listen...

Mark & Mike's OK Adventure (#2)

Mark and I completed our Second Annual OK Adventure last week. We had a great time seeing both sides of the family. We missed a few cousins this year, but still had a blast seeing all of our grandparents and uncles. Here is the pictorial travelogue.

Energy Use and the Average American Family

Yesterday's Marketplace had a fun story about an "average" American family here in SoCal. The report, from the sustainability desk, analyzed their typical daily environmental impact and then extrapolated the global impact if every family in the world had a similar lifestyle. It's a short story, and I think you'll find it funny, and informative.

What a small world...

For the first time in my memory, I met Aunt Juanita. Mark and I were at Braums in Weatherford with my buddy Jerry and she walked in with some friends. We would never have recognized here but we saw her photos at Granny's earlier in the day. Isn't that wierd?

Speaking of Faith...best of

Most of you know how much I enjoy Speaking of Faith, NPR's weekly program about "religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas." I nearly always enjoy the topic and learn quite a bit from it. Obviously, I'm not alone in my appreciation for the program. This year it has received both a Peabody Award, and a Webby Award. Congratulations to Krista Tippett.

Lately there have been a few topics that were especially powerful that I've been wanting to share. Here is a bullet list of the best three programs of the spring...

• The Beaty and Challenge of Being Catholic is a series of audio essays from catholics around the world. They discuss the challenges and joys of being a post-Vatican II Catholic. I have a very sincere and deeply-held appreciation for Catholic faith and life. You can listen to the program here. I would love to record a similar program on "Why I Am a Member of the Churces of Christ". Wouldn't it be wonderful to hear a 45-minute collection of brief audio essays from the several generations now living and serving in our churches? I wonder who could pursue this? I'll talk to Jerry Rushford about it...



• Exploring a New Humanism is an interview with Greg Epstein, a Humanist Chaplain at Harvard, discussing the role of humanism as a way of articulating an atheist identity that is not driven by a stance against religion but by positive ethical beliefs and actions. I found the discussion very worthwhile and I suspect very appealing to many of the students I work with. It is available here.



• And finally, The Need for Creeds, which is an interview with the late scholar Jaroslav Pelikan on the role of creeds in containing, and propigating faith across time and space. Coming from a non-credal tradition I found this to be challenging and enlightening. Find it here.

Photos from Central Europe

After a full week of Lectures at the 65th Annual Bible Lectures here at Pepperdine, I had a few minutes to put our photos online. Here are the best of our pictures from 10-days in Budapest & Prague. Enjoy...

A BIG day for Tiny!

As you can see, it was a big day for my littler girl. Her front tooth has been so loose lately. This morning it was so wiggly that Michelle said "when are you going to pull it out?". Madison stuck her tongue out at Mom and the tooth came right out on top of her tongue! What a special 9th birthday milestone!