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GETTING UNDERWAY A young Ensign, who had just completed his first overseas deployment, was given the opportunity to "show his stuff" by getting his ship underway. As he yelled out commands with great confidence, sailors were running everywhere. In no time, the ship came out of the channel, headed for home. It was accomplished so well that he set a new record for getting a destroyer underway. He wasn't surprised when a seaman approached him with a message from his CO...he WAS surprised to find that it was a radio message. He was even more surprised as he read,...

WORD POWER!! During the invasion of Salerno, Allied forces employed propaganda on a scale they had never tried before. Artillery was used to fire shells, each containing thousands of leaflets, encouraging the Germans to surrender and promising them humane treatment if they did. The shells would open about 300 feet in the air and rain down the leaflets on German troops. One British Major made no secret of his anger at having to fire leaflets at the enemy instead of high explosives. In a short while, however, he changed his mind. For days his men had been slugging it...

COPPERMAN While walking through San Francisco's Union Square recently I ran into Copperman. He is a street entertainer, a young actor in copper paint from head to toe, who sits motionless as people walk by on the busy street. Many stop, awe-struck to see this statue-like man. You cannot even see him breathing. People leave contributions in his copper pot in appreciation for this fine "performance". Copperman sits for 25 minutes at a time and then takes a break. During the break he is quite animated and eagerly shares his story with his audience. He told us that it...

TITLES AND POWER Now I see why powerful people often wear sunglasses--the spotlight blinds them to reality. They suffer from a delusion that power means something. They suffer from the misconception that titles make a difference. They are under the impression that earthly authority will make a heavenly difference. Can I prove my point? Take this quiz: * Name the last ten Heisman trophy winners. * Name the last ten winners of the Miss America contest. * Name eight people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize. * How about the last ten Academy Award winners for best...

CELEBRATING THE SUCCESS OF OTHERS "Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend's success." -Oscar Wilde It is natural and understandable to feel pangs of envy when we see someone else get promoted while we may have not been; or to see someone else get a NAM and we were not recognized for our hard work. It is human. Life is full of many disappointments large and small, and it is tough to accept that others may enjoy greater fortune when we are equally deserving. How...

THE LOSER WHO NEVER GAVE UP For "Sparky", school was all but impossible. He failed every subject in the eighth grade. He flunked physics in high school, getting a grade of zero. He also flunked Latin, algebra and English. And his record in sports wasn't any better. Though he did manage to make the school's golf team, he promptly lost the only important match of the season. Oh, there was a consolation match; he lost that too. Throughout his youth, Sparky was awkward socially. It wasn't that the other students disliked him; it's just that no one really cared...

GESTURES OF LOVE Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love . . . and weep with them who weep. —Romans 12:10,15 Cards...hundreds and hundreds of cards. Our mail carrier must have thought we were going for a world record. They came by the stack—day after day after day. It was just one of the many ways we knew that people cared for us as our family endured the painful first weeks after our teenage daughter Melissa died in a car accident. But it wasn't just the cards that provided assurance of loving support...food came in so fast...

THE MAN IN THE GLASS I first heard the poem some years ago as a song performed by a former pop musician turned Christian entertainer. Its words had a powerful impact. They were a challenge to self-examination, and a warning about the consequences of life lived without integrity. They were a reminder that each of us must live with his or her self. And that we KNOW what's behind our image, no matter how carefully crafted, or how convincing it may be to others. I wonder if it might also speak to you. It's entitled "The Man in the...

BACK TO SCHOOL By Naval Support Activity Chapel Staff A child came home from his first day of school. His mother asked, “What did you learn today?” He said, “Not enough. I have to go back tomorrow”. Going back to school is always difficult for both teachers and students. It also means more traffic with school buses back on the road; probably the only ones delighted about schools reopening are the parents. Going back to school can be a milestone. Kindergarten, sixth grade, high school and college are all significant marks of progress and change (especially when the kid...

HAVE I EARNED TOMORROW? Is anybody happier because you passed this way? Does anybody remember that you spoke to them today? The day is almost over and its toiling time is through: Is there anyone to utter now a kindly word of you? Can you say tonight in parting with the day that's slipping fast, That you helped a single person of the many that you passed? Is a single heart rejoicing over what you did or said? Does the one whose hopes were fading now with courage look ahead? Did you waste the day or use it? Was...

THE KEY TO FAILURE I recently read a devotion in God's Little Devotional Book for Women, which really touched my life. This book was copyrighted in 1996 by Honor Books, Inc. in Tulsa Oklahoma. The story on pages 98 and 99 tells of a painter who wanted to produce one work which would please everyone. So she painted a picture, and hung it in the public marketplace. She posted directions for people to mark the places they did not like with a small paint brush. She was surprised when she returned to find her picture was just a blob....

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...