thought exercise on Excitement

Just this morning, my family attended church with our son who has autism. He was particularly enthused by the music today, and he was moving around quite a bit. A man in the choir noticed our son, and...

This elementary wonder, however, is not a mere fancy derived from the fairy tales; on the contrary, all the fire of the fairy tales is derived from this…. We all like astonishing tales because they to...

Do you remember Geraldo Rivera's most famous fiasco? In 1986 he broadcast a television special entitled The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vault. In the publicity leading up to the live opening of Capon...

When Queen Victoria first took the throne, she attended a performance of Handel's Messiah, a customary event for royalty. Advised on proper etiquette, she was informed that she should not stand du...

Why is it so fun to be right? As pleasures go, it is, after all, a second-order one at best. Unlike many of life’s other delights—chocolate, surfing, kissing—it does not enjoy any mainline access to o...

So, how are you feeling?  It’s not a trick question. But it’s more complicated than it sounds. We’re always feeling something, usually more than one thing at a time. Our emotions are a continuous ...

The first thing the group of American church leaders noticed about the Central Asian pastor they were meeting was his smile. It was huge. It was so big that anyone who looked at it had to smile too!...

The Double Helix, James Watson’s 1968 memoir about discovering the structure of DNA, describes the roller coaster of emotions he and Francis Crick experienced through the progress and setbacks of the ...

One of the reasons I love a good invitation is that I get tired of being told what to do. As the very responsible oldest daughter of a pastor and someone who entered vocational ministry at a young age...

One day an ad from one of my favorite stores showed up in my email inbox. Splashed across the top in big letters was the phrase “JOY MAKERS.” Of course, the ad was pointing shoppers to deals on toys, ...

A young boy was heard talking to himself as he wandered through his backyard, sporting a full baseball uniform, jersey and cap included, as well as a ball and bat. "I'm the best hitter in the...

Frederick Buechner is a master of capturing the excitement of the moment of Palm Sunday. It’s a great reminder that the story itself is a great illustration! We call it Palm Sunday because maybe t...

A young girl was preparing to move with her family from New York to Dallas, and she couldn’t contain her excitement. That night, as she said her bedtime prayers, she ended with her usual, “God bless M...

Listen to your life. All moments are key moments. I discovered that if you really keep your eye peeled to it and your ears open, if you really pay attention to it…Taking your children to school and ki...

Years ago I heard a motivational speaker encourage his audience to “eat that frog.” … it makes sense in its own way: Stop procrastinating and just do the thing you fear. Once you do that, everything e...

During the 1992 presidential elections a friend of mine told me about an awkward moment in his Bible study. One of the group members expressed excitement because that Sunday, she had seen a bumper sti...

According to Greek mythology, people once knew in advance their exact day of death. Everyone on earth lived with a deep sense of melancholy, for mortality hung like a sword suspended above them. All t...

During spring 1981, one of my favorite persons at the time, Chicago mayor Jane Byrne, made the announcement that she and her husband were going to move into my old neighborhood: the Cabrini-Green hous...

J.B. Phillips was a successful pastor and prolific author in the mid-twentieth century. He was a colleague and friend of C. S. Lewis’s, and it was Lewis who personally endorsed Phillips’s translation ...

There was once a sculptor who worked hard with hammer and chisel on a large block of marble. A little child who was watching him saw nothing more than large and small pieces of stone falling away left...

It is a common belief that the surest way to end your sex life is to get married. But the reality is far more complicated. While it’s true that for many couples, sexual excitement fades in marriage, o...

A preaching professor at Harvard University tells the story of the year his 5-year-old son was working on an art project in his kindergarten class. It was made of plaster, resembled nothing in particu...

In April 1988 the evening news reported on a photographer who was a skydiver. He had jumped from a plane along with numerous other skydivers and filmed the group as they fell and opened their parachut...

In his excellent book, An Unhurried Life, Alan Fadling contrasts our overly busy lives with a vision of the kingdom from Isaiah chapter 61: Isaiah envisioned a kingdom in which those people in need ...

If I were making a list of benefits like the one Mike McKinley imagines, only this time using the devil’s actual logic, it might look more like this: Experience the excitement of new romance. Get th...

Dr. Bob Reccord tells the story of a major move that was set to take place inside the halls of a Fortune 500 company. It was unheard of, but the company was ready to promote a 38-year-old from vice pr...

Restlessness keeps the pedal to the metal. To offer a suggestive analogy in this vein: several years ago there was a recall on some Toyota vehicles. Evidently the cars would be given to sudden and unc...

Joy’s trick is to supply  Dry lips with what can cool and slake,  Leaving them dumbstruck also with an  ache Nothing can satisfy.

Anticipation lifts the heart. Desire is created to be fulfilled – perhaps not all at once, more likely in slow stages. Isaiah uttered his prophetic words about the renewal of the natural Creation into...

Studies show we actually get a dopamine hit when we think we’re proven right. We can literally become addicted to the sensation of our rightness. “Your body does not discriminate against pleasure,” wr...