Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash The actions of prophets and their prophecies have been around since the dawn of civilization. So, just what is a prophet? Very generally speaking, a prophet is one who takes stock of the world around them and then offers predictions on what will happen in the world in the near or long-term future. This is true in both a religious and secular sense. George Orwell was considered a secular prophet when, in the 1940s, he wrote his books “1984” and

Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash Many years ago, I was sailing half a year on commercial ships engaged in worldwide trade and spending the other half of the year as a professor of nautical science at the United States Merchant Marine Academy. I did this for many years. I remember every year when a new class had been at the Academy for several months, some professors would grumble that “this group of midshipmen is terrible. They don’t know anything, and they are poor students

Photo by Jordan McDonald on Unsplash Humans love to celebrate new beginnings, especially marked by a new year. The earliest known example of a new year’s celebration goes back to about 2000 BCE in Babylon – that’s 4000 years ago. This time was marked by the spring equinox which occurs in our March – the day of equal light and equal darkness. The celebration was called “Akitu” and was marked by various religious rituals, singing, dancing, and feasting. The holiday even include

In truth, in many years past, I was a been kind of an Ebenezer Scrooge. Well – maybe not as bad as Scrooge, but the commercialism and phoniness of a lot of the Christmas season has never sat very well with me. When does the Christmas season begin anyway? This year I think I saw my first Christmas decorations at Lowes at the end of September. And these days, we are not only bombarded with Christmas advertisements on television and in the media, but we have “Black Friday” and “

“Thank you, I really appreciate it.” What simple words these are and how very easy they are to say. Why is it that these words are forgotten so many times during our daily lives? Being thankful is something that seems to come easily to some people but is far too difficult for others. Being thankful is very characteristic of some regions of the world and even some regions of our country, but in far too many places, it is often forgotten. And, by the way, what is a typical resp