by David Anderson
“Money can’t buy happiness.” Turns out, it’s not so. Michael Norton, a professor at Harvard Business School, has done extensive research on money and happiness, and Norton says in fact money can buy happiness. It’s just that we usually spend on the wrong things. Norton’s team did a little experiment. They went to the University […]
by David Anderson 2 Comments Filed Under: Faith in Action, Gratitude, Happiness, Money, Service
Once you have lived a few years, you understand how precious is time. When you were quite young you knew there were certain things that needed your attention, needed to be done, but you were too busy. Besides, there was always tomorrow. If you needed to lose a few pounds or cut back on your […]
by David Anderson 4 Comments Filed Under: Change, Faith in Action, Now/ the Present
My daughter Sharon, who’s studying for the ministry at Yale Divinity School (one proud father I am!), told me this week about a great sermon she’d heard by an old Baptist preacher. “He spoke about the quiet people,” Sharon wrote. “The folks who sit at church and don’t make a big fuss over themselves, the […]
by David Anderson 11 Comments Filed Under: Change, Daily Practice, Faith in Action, Faithfulness
In matters of faith, nouns rule. People talk about what they believe in, and you get a limp procession of nouns: peace, justice, love, the Bible, heaven, salvation. All powerful things, but not in the nominative form. To get at the power inherent in those things we have to find the verb. We’ve got to […]
by David Anderson 1 Comment Filed Under: Daily Practice, Faith in Action, Prayer/Meditation
Perhaps the most pernicious assumption about life is that we can attain some ideal by the practice of its opposite. We can see this plainly in world leaders who are certain that one more war will finally bring us peace. We remember the famous line from the U.S. Army officer who said of the Vietnamese […]
by David Anderson 12 Comments Filed Under: Daily Practice, Faith in Action, Happiness, Love
‘Tis the shopping season, and I’m reminded of a lovely story about a woman who was an associate pastor of a large Presbyterian church in southernCalifornia. She loved to go to Nordstroms in Bel Air, mostly to enjoy the holiday ambiance and the live Christmas music on all five floors. She was up […]
by David Anderson 4 Comments Filed Under: Faith in Action, Grace
Statistics can paralyze. Of the world’s 6.8 billion people, 925 million don’t have enough to eat. That’s more than the population of the U.S., Canada and the European Union all put together. Global food prices are rising sharply—because of population increase, rising oil prices and climate change. The world’s poorest spend 80% of their income […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Faith in Action, Faithfulness, Justice/Peace