My travel agent informed me this week that for someone my age to rent a car in Ireland I must now provide proof that I am not only fully insured but a statement from our doctor that I am healthy enough to drive. I believe I have graduated to a different status in life. I am now elderly. Elderly is better than simply old. Elderly is something else entirely. It means I have the opportunity now of being an elder and that is so different from merely being old. An elder can choose to be wise and of use in unique ways. I may resist being old but I can…

Discoveries made through a mistake, battles lost by a sudden change of wind, unintentional inflection points in a life through a wrong turn. The history of our world is full of them. In fact, the closer we study major shifts the more likely we are to see they often hinge on seemingly unimportant choices that make the outcome radically different. What if Archduke Ferdinand’s driver had not accidentally turned down the wrong street giving a Serbian nationalist his opportunity? What if the wind had not shifted on the Spanish Armada destroying their fleet? What if a dish of bacteria in the lab of Alexander Fleming had not been contaminated with…

Don Miller’s first book “Blue Like Jazz” may be the most recognized of the several he has written but I have a special fondness for his book “Scary Close.” In it he chronicles his years of failed relationships, isolation and painful drama. Don is honest about his tendencies to manipulate, use and ultimately alienate people out of fear – fear of being honest about himself and with others. He writes that his actions were not altogether intentional but always inevitable: “A weasel doesn’t know he’s a weasel, he just does what works to get food.” But in Don’s life there was a moment when he changed — and that’s his…

The story of Abraham’s calling begins at the end of the line. If you trace the descendants of Adam through Noah and then to Terah, the line of family was about to disappear because Abraham’s wife, the daughter of the first-born of the last of Adam’s line, was barren. While it had survived against great odds – it was about to be extinguished. For 1,000 years between Noah’s covenant and Abraham there had been no word from the Lord. “This is the sign of my covenant” – and then silence for a millennium. I’ve wondered how they were able to live on so little from God when we expect to…