The 2000 US presidential election was finally decided after weeks of recounts, court battles and controversy about punch-card ballots. Political pundits and comedians had a heyday. Even after the Florida recount wrangling was over, a billboard along the Michigan highway reminded travellers of those post-election days. It carried this clever message: “Count your blessings. Recount…

The song of the humpback whale is one of the strangest in nature. It is a combination of high-and low-pitched groanings. Those who have studied the humpback whale say their songs are noteworthy because these giants of the deep are continually changing them. New patterns are added and old ones eliminated so that over a period of…

Paul Wylie was skating in the 1988 Winter Olympics at Calgary. He was nervous as he began his programme before 20,000 people and a TV audience of millions. Then, in his first jump, something went wrong. He writes, “A flash later my hand touches the ice; the blade won’t hold. I start slipping and now…

When he was only 13 years old, the violinist Yehudi Menuhin was invited to perform with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. With distinguished musicians in the audience listening to him, the youthful genius played some of the most difficult compositions by Beethoven, Bach and Brahms. The response was so enthusiastic that the management called in the police…

Our fast-moving world demands immediate service—instant car-phone communication, 20 minute pizza delivery service, fast broadband and so the list goes on. Waiting is grating. As a result we don’t have time for breakdowns, recuperation or repairs. If something goes wrong, we want a quick fix so we can be on our way. If stores can’t give…

About halfway through a rehearsal conducted by Sir Michael Costa, with trumpets blaring, drums rolling, and violins singing their rich melody, the piccolo player muttered to himself, “What good am I doing? I might just as well not be playing. Nobody can hear me anyway.” So he kept his instrument to his mouth, but he made no…

With cranberries, it’s the bounce that counts. According to Science Digest, processing cranberries involves pouring freshly picked berries down a series of step-like boards. At each level, only the berries that bounce over an eight-to-ten-inch barrier pass the test. Each berry gets eleven chances. Those that fail are discarded. Some fruits are judged by their…

Oswald Chambers of Scotland showed so much artistic promise that he was invited to study under Europe’s greatest masters at age eighteen. But he declined the offer and enrolled in a little-known Bible school, where he eventually became a teacher. Later he went to Egypt and ministered to the spiritual needs of British soldiers. Chambers died there…

This Advent, everyone’s waiting. But alongside the Christian tradition of waiting expectantly to celebrate the birth of the Saviour, the world waits to be saved from COVID-19. And, interestingly, both forms of waiting use the same language: of “light breaking through.” Earlier last month, when the first promising signs from the vaccine trials emerged, the…

In his book, “Why Christians Sin”, J. Kirk Johnston tells about a young Russian woman, who before the collapse of the Iron Curtain, was allowed to visit her relatives in Canada. She was a devout Christian, and her friends assumed that she would defect and seek asylum in Canada or the US because of religious…