Just a quick thought for the day. Or really a question: Do you think happiness is a worthy goal? Or is it rather a by-product of other things? Ever since Thomas Jefferson, at least, we have been taught to think happiness is something we should pursue. But, I wonder, what is happiness, exactly? When do we know we’ve found it? How do we go about it? Noting that we are notoriously bad at predicting what will make us happy, it occurs to me that perhaps that’s because happiness isn’t, finally, something you can pursue and catch and possess. Rather, perhaps happiness is the by-product of worthy activities. Perhaps happiness is...

There’s a lot to like about this interview with Bill and Melinda Gates. There’s the joy they clearly have in working together. There’s the regular testimony of Melinda Gates to her faith, a faith that inspires her to action and to question some of the authorities in her faith tradition. There’s the clear sense of urgency, priority, and optimism that colors their work. But perhaps my favorite thing of the interview is the delighted admission that giving their wealth away has been the most satisfying thing they’ve ever done. Yes, that’s true when you have billions to give. And, yes, that’s equally true when it’s dollar bills....

What do you do when someone offends you, or tries to hurt you, or goes out of their way to slight you? As persons of faith, we  confess that we would try – huge emphasis on try – to return that hurt with compassion and forgiveness. This is what we see in Jesus’ life and, most acutely, in his death and resurrection: his refusal to return hate but instead to offer love, believing and trusting that love, ultimately, is more powerful than hate. While I find this message in Scripture regularly, however, it’s also nice to have it reaffirmed in the public square and, at times, in the commercial square. Honeymaid, the company who for years...

Mistakes. We all make them. And, by and large, we all dread them. I get that. I hate making mistakes. They make me feel foolish and incompetent. They undermine my confidence and make it harder to reach my goals. They feel like setbacks, if not out and out failures. And sometimes those mistakes are costly or painful or both, to me and to others. Mistakes are therefore something to be avoided. That’s the common narrative we tell ourselves about mistakes, and there is something deeply and obviously true about that story. But there’s another story as well. And that is that mistakes, if we pay attention to them, have a great deal to teach us....