Today’s bit of new knowledge:

Tu B’Shvat in the Jewish calendar begins this evening at sunset – New Year’s Day for Trees.  Here’s a bit of an explanation from Rabbi Yehuda Prero:

The Gemora, when discussing cures for ailments, writes that “a tree that loses its fruits before they ripen should be dyed with a red paint.” What is the point of dying the tree with red paint? How does the red paint prevent the tree from losing its fruits before they ripen? Read more »

We’re fiddling with the look of Our Father’s World to try to make it a bit more readable -  thanks for your patience, especially if you happen to be visiting while some of the changes are taking place!

I had just finished giving a talk for Blackhawk Church‘s Metro3040 adult fellowship group, and had included a short video from Discovery Channel’s Planet Earth in which one expert says, “I think we’re facing the loss of half the world’s frogs.’

On the way out, one of the participants asked me:  “So, exactly what is killing the frogs?”

It happens that I had just run across an article on this very topic two or three days ago.  Richard Black, BBC Environment Correspondent, was commenting on a world-wide precipitous decline in amphibians of all kinds (think frogs, salamanders, etc) in a post he called ‘The Attack of the Killer Everything“: Read more »

[*Neem Hakeem is an occasional feature on health and the environment. See other Neem Hakeem posts and an explanation of the term here.]

Worshiping outdoors is easier than it is inside a building, and playing outdoors is good for your kids’ eyesight.

What in the world do these two things have to do with each other? Read more »

All done!

Three months of planning, writing, praying and creativity and now, a bit of rest before we get into 2010.

The first day of the new year of 2010, was spent driving back to Madison, WI from St. Louis, MO where we had spent the previous week with about 13,000 students and 3,000 other attendees both experiencing — and in some ways helping to shape — the future of missions in the US.
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No one comes to Urbana for fun. This is not a “winter break” vacation. Not by a long shot.

There are a couple of common threads that we have heard from each of the over 100 students we have talked to at our Urbana09 booth and the countless others that we have sat next to in the morning worship service, met in the lunch line or ridden with in the hotel elevator.

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