Morning Briefings

There are people out there who want to keep science in a little box where it can’t possibly touch God. Scientists are not allowed to even think thoughts that involve an intelligent creator.

– Ben Stein regarding his movie
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Man’s accidents are God’s purposes, 1843: No one knows what prompted Sophia Hawthorne to engrave this phrase on the window. Some scholars suggest it may refer to a miscarriage she had in that year after slipping on a patch of ice. There is a sense of grief and resignation about her words, but also of strength and resolution. No easy answer is asked for or given, just a blunt acceptance of events and a determination to either endure or overcome them.

– from James Geary’s
The World in a Phrase

A person who feels no guilt can never find healing. Yet neither can a person who wallows in guilt. The sense of guilt only serves its designed purpose as a symptom if it presses us toward cure.

– Philip Yancey
Rumors of Another World: What on Earth Are We Missing?

People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them.

– Paulo Coelho
The Alchemist

In the midst of a turbulent, often chaotic life, we are all called to reach out with courageous honesty to our innermost self, with relentless care to our fellow human beings and with increasing prayer to our God.

– Henri J.M. Nouwen
Reaching Out

If everything is important, then nothing is. No one understands the power of this saying more than a person who leads an organization. Every organization provides its leaders with more distractions and concerns than one person can handle.

– Patrick Lencioni
The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive

See-saw power: We’ve already written about the use of playground equipment as a means of pumping fresh water for African villages, and now a British student at Coventry University has come up with a way to use see-saws to generate power.

– As reported on
Guy Kawasaki’s blog

From The Talmud: Know from where you came, where you are going, and before whom you will have to give an account of your life.

– Naomi H. Rosenblatt’s
Wrestling with Angels

There are exactly twenty-four hours in each day. Managing your time isn’t the real issue. Your time is fixed. What you need is to manage the activities that are consuming your time.

– Norman V. Peale & Ken Blanchard
The Power of Ethical Management

The course of American history demonstrates the difficulties, the struggles and the great intellectual and moral resolve which were demanded to shape a society which faithfully embodied these noble principles. In our time, too, particularly in moments of crisis, Americans continue to find their strength in a commitment to this patrimony of shared ideals and aspirations.

– from the address of Pope Benedict XVI on the White House Lawn, April 16, 2008 as reported by
Whispers in the Loggia

Famines in Genesis symbolize all the catastrophic life events over which we have no control. During famines our faith and our resourcefulness are tested to the limit. But our character is also tested during times of plenty.

– Naomi H. Rosenblatt
Wrestling with Angels

Taxman was when I first realised that even though we had started earning money, we were actually giving most of it away in taxes. Are we being punished for something we have forgotten to do?

– George Harrison on the lyrics for Taxman from
I, Me, Mine

Success in living a happy life is a larger project than success in business, and nearly everybody in business wants to achieve both.

– Michael Novak
Business as a Calling

Parting Shot: What I Learned from Writing 1,008 Columns. That brings me to an issue I probably should have addressed in my inaugural column: What is the reason for all this saving and investing?

– Jonathan Clements writes in his final column after a 26-year career
The Wall Street Journal

Good News: “Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest.”

– Matthew 11:28

Bad News: U.S. Slump Takes Toll Across Globe, The Wall Street Journal; Stocks Slip After Disappointing Earnings, Yahoo! News; Home Sales Hit Low in February, Associated Press

People want to work for a cause, not just for a living. When there is alignment between the cause of the firm and the cause of its people, move over–because there will be extraordinary performance.

– William Pollard
The Soul of the Firm

Bad News U: Colleges Reject Record Numbers. The college-admissions season set records this year–both in the number of students who applied, as well as the number of students who were rejected.

– Anjali Athavaley
The Wall Street Journal

All season long, I would look for signs of His imminence and concern in my daily affairs. I prayed hard and only gradually became aware that this fierce praying was a way of finding prologue and entrance into my own writing. This came as both astonishment and relief. When I thought God had abandoned me, I discovered that He had simply given me a different voice to praise the inexhaustible beauty of the made world.

– Pat Conroy
My Losing Season

At the heart of working men and women is the longing–though oft forgotten and sadly despaired of–to participate in something greater than themselves, to belong to a cause that is meaningful and to share in a legacy that endures.

– Richard D. Phillips
The Heart of an Executive: Lessons on Leadership from the Life of King David

Aloha Airlines Halting Passenger Service: Aloha, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on March 20, was a casualty of fierce competition and rising fuel prices. The airline said it will halt all passenger service after Monday, signaling the end of an airline that has served Hawaii for more than 60 years.

– Audrey McAvoy, AP, as reported on
Yahoo! Finance

The fool takes no delight in understanding, but rather in displaying what he thinks.

– Proverbs 18:2