Our Daily Bread

After 30 years as a pastor, a New Jersey minister concluded, “The Bible is the best-selling, least-read, and least-understood book.” In his view, “Biblical illiteracy is rampant.”

A group of rowdy teenagers spray-painted obscenities on the brick walls of a local high school. The police charged them with malicious destruction of property. The judge sentenced them to probation with no jail time—but only if they could get every bit of paint off the walls, including the cracks between the bricks. It took them days!

Have you heard about the “lawn-chair astronaut”? A 31-year-old truckdriver attached 40 large, helium-filled balloons to a lawn chair. Then, with a CB radio, an altimeter, a parachute, and a life jacket, he began his ascent into the “wild blue yonder.” He also took a pellet gun so that he could shoot as many of the balloons as necessary when he was ready to come back to earth.

Of all diseases, leprosy is the only one singled out by the law of Moses and linked with sin. It’s not that having leprosy was sinful, nor was it the result of sin. Rather, the disease was seen as a graphic symbol of sin. If we could see sin, it would look something like leprosy.

“Religion and reality don’t mix”—that’s what a group in Grand Rapids, Michigan, believes. These 24 people call themselves “freethinkers” who have chosen “reality over religion.” Most of them grew up in churchgoing families but have left their faith.

“This house ain’t worth robbing,” said a thief who seemed to feel he was wasting his time. According to a news report, the burglar broke into a home and held the owner at knifepoint while looking for money. He ransacked the place but turned up only $3 in change, $5 in a wallet, and a few pieces of cheap jewelry.

I read several years ago about a woman who hurriedly purchased 50 Christmas cards without looking at the message inside. She quickly signed and addressed all but one, and then dropped them in a mailbox. Just imagine her dismay when later she glanced inside the one unmailed card and read these words:

On Christmas Eve 1932, Robert McGimsey attended a midnight church service in New York City and then headed back to his one-room apartment. As he walked the final blocks, he passed the open doors of private clubs where people were shouting and swearing and singing. Others were so drunk they had passed out on the sidewalk.

One dark and ominous night during World War II, a US aircraft carrier was plowing through heavy seas in the South Pacific. All lights were out because of enemy submarines. One plane was missing. Somewhere in that pitch-black sky it was circling in a seemingly futile search for the carrier—its only landing place, its only hope of not being swallowed up by the giant ocean. The ship’s captain, knowing the terrible risk involved, gave the order, “Light up the ship.” Soon the plane zoomed onto the deck like a homing pigeon.

Several years ago a group of historians authored a book called If—Or History Rewritten. Some of the ifs those scholars considered were these: What if Robert E. Lee had not lost the Battle of Gettysburg? What if the Moors in Spain had won? What if the Dutch had kept New Amsterdam? What if Booth had missed when he shot at Abraham Lincoln? What if Napoleon had escaped to America?