Free Republic

AIM HIGH A college professor prepared a final exam for his students. The test questions were divided into three categories, and the students were instructed to choose questions from only one of the categories. The first category of questions was the hardest and worth fifty points. The second, which was easier, was worth forty points. The third, the simplest, was worth thirty points. Upon completion of the test, students who had chosen the hardest fifty-point questions were given As. The students who had chosen the forty-point questions received Bs. Those who had settled for the easiest thirty-pointers were given...

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT Psalm 23 "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want" - the crowd would listen attentively. And then, at the conclusion of the Psalm, they would rise in thunderous applause in appreciation of the actor's incredible ability to bring the verse to life. But one night, just before the actor was to offer his customary recital of Psalm 23, a young man from the audience spoke up. "Sir, do you mind if tonight I recite Psalm 23?" The actor was quite taken back by this unusual request, but he allowed the young man to...

LIFEBOAT One of the great World War II films was LIFEBOAT, about the ordeal faced by survivors of a passenger ship that was sunk by a Nazi U-Boat in the middle of the Atlantic. The film details their struggle for survival in a small lifeboat, fighting the elements, thirst, and then fighting against each other. Each person has their own ideas about how to navigate the little boat: they argue about who should be in charge; and they find little things to fight over even when they run out of things to fight over. Eventually they come to understand...

EXAMINING THE FOUNDATION It was back in 1962, I'm told, when cracks began to appear in the 42nd story of a very expensive high-rise in Hong Kong. It had already withstood numerous typhoons. And there was no ready explanation for the cracks' sudden appearance. Yet there they were. Obviously, there had to be a problem somewhere. So a team of architects and structural engineers was called in to ferret out the cause. Finally, one determined engineer stumbled upon the reason as he was prowling around the foundations deep in the basement. When he tapped the plaster, he noticed that...

ON PRAYER The Sacred Scriptures urge us to pray always. That seems impossible at first sight; you can't spend your life on your knees. But people pray in many ways. Physical positions and movements, the lotus position for Buddhists, kneeling and folding hands for many Christian faith groups are prayer. Any attention paid to God is prayer. Whether or not any words are spoken, the actions themselves express awareness of, and communication with, God. As St. Teresa of Avila put it, way back in the 16th century, "For though we are always in the presence of God, it seems...

MAKING ASSUMPTIONS A story making the rounds this past week told of a policeman who was heading home after a long, hard day on patrol. He had dealt with a whole succession of difficult people, and a mountain of frustrating paperwork. All he wanted at this point was to kick back, unwind, enjoy some peace and quiet, and maybe watch a few innings of baseball on TV. But, as he neared home, he was startled by a vehicle that came careening around a sharp curve and narrowly missed his squad car. As the car passed within a few inches...

MAKING ASSUMPTIONS A story making the rounds this past week told of a policeman who was heading home after a long, hard day on patrol. He had dealt with a whole succession of difficult people, and a mountain of frustrating paperwork. All he wanted at this point was to kick back, unwind, enjoy some peace and quiet, and maybe watch a few innings of baseball on TV. But, as he neared home, he was startled by a vehicle that came careening around a sharp curve and narrowly missed his squad car. As the car passed within a few inches...

WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET The poet wrote, "Two men looked out through prison bars: one saw mud; the other saw stars." Commenting on this, Father John Powell once wrote: "In the pursuit of the fullness of human life, everything depends on this frame of reference, this habitual outlook, this basic vision which I have of myself, others, life, the world, and God. What we see is what we get." Don't you find that to be true? There's a lot about our world that isn't the way we would want it to be: cruelty, hatred, injustice, jealousy,...

CHANGE FOR BETTER SERVICE Have you ever noticed that the typewriter keyboard places the most frequently used keys far apart from each other? The purpose of this arrangement was to slow down the typing speed. Keys on the machines of the 1800s used to jam if the typist went too fast. About 40 years ago, the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard was developed. On this keyboard, the most frequently used keys were in the home row, and the right hand did 56 percent more work than the left. Typists using this keyboard could increase their speed up to five times without...

CONFLICTING LOYALTIES An interviewer once asked the late Senator Sam Ervin, Jr. how he had developed such insight into human behavior. "I had a good teacher, Henry Horace Williams," replied Ervin. "He said the things that try people's souls do not consist of choosing between good and evil. The thing that tries a person's soul is having to choose between conflicting loyalties." Ervin went on to say that understanding that concept had not only helped him make better decisions, but to judge other people more fairly as well. Sometimes unwise choices were simply the result of misplaced loyalty. "A...

ON A GOOD DAY Our worth is tested every day. We are given the choice of being nice to people or uncharitable. We are given the choice of doing our work as well as we can or of goofing off. Some days it seems the tests are harder than on others, but every day brings with it some kind of test. Even the really good days! To have everything go wonderfully for us, to feel like a million dollars, to have one of those days when nothing and nobody can upset us, they are days when we might think...

YOU ARE SPECIAL "I don't know why I was even born," the young sailor confided! "I'm ugly. I'm not talented. I've never been what you would call smart. I don't really have any friends. And I can't seem to do anything right. I feel like I've spent my whole life letting people down. Sometimes I wonder if even God could love me!" That conversation took place more than a decade ago, but I still remember it as if it were yesterday. That one and a lot of others over the years with the same message: "I'm no good; I'm...

THE PARABLE OF THE FENCE Once upon a time there was a little boy who was talented, creative, handsome, and extremely bright...a natural leader. The kind of person everyone would normally have wanted on their team or project. But he was also self-centered and had a very bad temper. When he got angry, he usually said, and often did, some very hurtful things. In fact, he seemed to have little regard for those around him...even friends. So, naturally, he had few. "But," he told himself, "that just shows how stupid most people are!" As he grew, his parents became...

NEVER ENOUGH TIME While I have only been an occasional visitor to Washington, I was struck by one scene so strongly that it remains as somewhat of a reference. My first view "up close and personal" of the Pentagon was neither awe-inspiring nor intimidating. To be sure, I was impressed with the size of the building, but that was about it. What came upon me, and has stayed with me, is the image of an ant farm. An enormous one, surely, but an ant farm nonetheless. So many passageways with so many ants constantly traveling them...seemingly endless streams of...

So-called ‘interfaith’ chapel at airports are essentially mini-mosques. There was not a single cross in two chapels I visited. On Palm Sunday, I was traveling through Dallas-Fort Worth Airport (DFW) on my way home from CPAC 2026 and, having gone through security very early, I had a few hours to spare inside the terminal (thanks, Congress). So, I did what I usually do when I have extra time in airports — I looked for the chapel. Airport chapels have long been a curiosity of mine, ever since I discovered they exist. I used to have terrible flying anxiety, and I...

ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW.... I LEARNED FROM NOAH'S ARK 1. Plan ahead. It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark. 2. Stay fit. When you're 600 years old, someone might ask you to do something REALLY big. 3. Don't listen to critics -- do what has to be done. 4. Build on high ground. 5. For safety's sake, travel in pairs. 6. Two heads are better than one. 7. Speed isn't always an advantage. The cheetahs were on board, but so were the snails. 8. If you can't fight or flee -- float! 9. Take care of...

CHOICES An elderly carpenter was about to retire. He told his employer-contractor of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his extended family. He would miss the paycheck, but he needed to retire. They could get by. The contractor was very sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials....

ROSE The first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we didn't already know. I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder. I turned around to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me with a smile that lit up her entire being. She said, "Hi handsome. My name is Rose. I'm eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a hug?" I laughed and enthusiastically responded, "Of course you may!", and she gave me a giant squeeze. "Why are you in college at such...

OBSTACLES "For a long time it had seemed to me that my life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in my way, something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles WERE my life." Fr. Alfred D Souza

YOU WILL NEVER BE SORRY FOR: ...thinking before speaking, ...hearing before judging, ...forgiving your enemies, ...being candid and frank, ...helping a fallen friend, ...being honest in your work, ...standing by your principles, ...blocking your ears to gossip, ...being courteous and kind. Unknown