Charity – Perpetual Adoration

January 2, 2021

You Have the Power to be Invincible

What do you think you could accomplish if you were invincible?

December 5, 2020

The Reflector Theory

When I was born (May 1957), my mom asked her 17-year-old brother, Dick LaHood, if he would be my godfather. My earliest memory of my Uncle Dick is from the early 1960s when he would pick up me and several of my brothers and sisters in his Cadillac and take us swimming at the Timber Lake Club.

December 28, 2019

Happiness For The Next Decade

I recently listened to an interview of a business consultant who said that he blames Thomas Jefferson for many of the problems in the United States, because Jefferson was the one who came up with the phrase in the Declaration of Independence that we have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The consultant said that he had no problem with the life and liberty part of the phrase, but that Jefferson’s use of the words “pursuit of happiness” was a mistake.

June 14, 2019

What “Truths” Govern Your Life?

My wife and I were married in June 1980, which was a month after I finished my first year in law school. One of the weekly television shows that we watched together during the first year of our marriage was the prime-time soap opera, Dallas. We’ve come a long way since then. Today, there’s no way we would waste our time on that type of show.

December 15, 2018

A Valuable Cheat Sheet For Growth & Perfection

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of willingly choosing to accept less freedom in order to become something greater than what we already are. When we choose to consistently give up certain freedoms, we become much more responsible, and we are eventually able to achieve more than we would have ever thought was possible. This is a critical concept that must be understood and practiced by those of us who are serious about becoming what God intended us to be.

June 9, 2018

A 4-Year-Old Superhero Emerges

In 1976, during the spring semester of my freshman year in college, I got in my car and drove to the local Western Union office. When I walked in, I told the clerk at the counter that I wanted to send a telegram. At that time, a telegram was a written message that was sent by telegraph from one Western Union office to a Western Union office in a different city. The second Western Union office would then make arrangements to hand-deliver the message to the intended recipient.

November 18, 2017

Thank God I’m a Catholic Boy

In March 1975, during my senior year in high school, country music singer John Denver released a new single record with the song, Thank God I’m a Country Boy. That year, only six songs made it to the top of both the Billboard Hot Country Singles Charts and the Billboard Hot 100.

June 18, 2016

How to Get Your Way

Last week, I wrote about a handicapped man who had asked me for help at Walmart. He reminded me of the homeless people I see on a regular basis in downtown Peoria who routinely ask for money when I pass by. But he was more sophisticated than the homeless people I’m accustomed to. While he didn’t ask for money, I believe that it was his intention to do so until he saw the way I reacted to his behavior.

June 11, 2016

The Simple Things In Life

I attended Saint Louis University School of Law from 1979 to 1982. There was a McDonald’s restaurant that was located about six blocks from the school. The area where the McDonald’s was located was run-down, and it was not uncommon to run into a homeless person when I stopped at McDonald’s for a bite to eat.