In a museum in Florence, Italy, there is a painting by Raphael called “The Madonna of the Barrel.” The story is told that Raphael was walking one day through the market place of Florence when…
Sermon Illustrations
Stan Rolfsrud once candidly told readers why his column in the Carver County, Minn., Herald was missing. Under the usual heading was this statement: “Stan Rolfsrud has nothing to say this week.” Associated Press
A man and his wife were upset by their daughter’s limited vocabulary. Every other word out of her mouth was either”awesome” or “gross,” depending on whether she liked or disliked something. Finally the father said,…
This was told as a true story by the lady involved, who came from a small Texas town. It seems she had read a lot about crime in New York, and was scared to death…
A bank robber who operated along the Texas border around the turn of the century was so successful in his forays that the Texas Rangers put a whole extra posse along the Rio Grande to…
In the novel, “Dearly Beloved,” by Ann Morrow Lindbergh, there is a moving passage in which Deborah, the mother, is adjusting the wedding veil for Sally, her daughter. They have lived in the same house…
The county hospital telephone operator received a call from a woman inquiring about the condition of a patient named Brinkman. She explained that she needed to know precisely how the patient was progressing. “I want…
“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver” (Proverbs 25:11). A man returned to his home and played his telephone-answering machine to discover that his message to callers had…
During the early days of the “Cold War,” there was a story about Josef Stalin in which the Soviet Dictator is flying from Leningrad to Moscow. The plane passes over a particularly desolate area and…
There’s not as much status being a member of the Communist Party in Russia as there used to be. A reporter on C-SPAN (the Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network) related this story recently: “To encourage…
In March of 1981, President Reagan was shot by John Hinckley, Jr., and was hospitalized for several weeks. Although Reagan was the nation’s chief executive, his hospitalization had little impact on the nation’s affairs. While…
A daughter, home for the holidays, was sitting in on her mother’s bridge game. In between bidding, the players were discussing the AIDS epidemic. One of them suggested the disease was God’s way of punishing…
“As God’s Chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (Colossians 3:12). Famed newspaper columnist Bob Considine has written a story of a woman whose extraordinary love for other…
Someone has likened people who remain insensitive to the needs of others — unloving people — to two shipwrecked men sitting together at one end of a lifeboat, doing nothing. They watch intently as the…
Frederich Engels was a German socialist leader and political philosopher who collaborated with Karl Marx on the Communist Manifesto in 1848. When he was a youngster, his father took him on a tour of the…
There is a French play with a passage in it that might go on haunting you all week long if you let yourself think about it. All the good people are at the gates of…
“It was one of those days,” wrote humorist Erma Bombeck, “when I wanted my own apartment — unlisted!” It was a day in which she simply was not in the mood for small talk. However,…
“For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will be disorder...” (James 3:16). Two businessmen became involved in a highly competitive kind of game. Whatever one did, the other immediately outdid. When one bought…
The coach of a Little League baseball team addressed his young players: ”Don’t take it too hard, fellas. Losing is no disgrace. The important thing is that you played hard and you played clean. Sure,…
An elderly woman with hearing problems had a tendency to shout when she went to confession. When the priest asked her to speak more quietly because everyone in the Church could hear her, she shouted,…
