Somewhere out there, someone is buying my books.

I don’t know who. I don’t even know how they have heard about me or my books, but someone is buying them.

And not just any “someones”. Only people who have a Kindle.*

If you don’t know, Kindle is the e-reader developed and sold by Amazon.com. They are supposed to be light years beyond their competitors, with a non-glare screen that (they advertise) is just like looking at print on paper and can even be read in bright sunlight. The first Kindle they came out with a while back kept selling out.

My family knows I like to have the lights off. I have my kids pretty well trained to turn off the light as they leave a room.

This is all about my personal electric bill. I am, when it comes to things financial, a cheapskate.

How do you feel when you leave:
• A restaurant where the food was bad?
• A movie where the ending was just terrible?
• A sporting event where your team lost?

OK, how about:
• A good restaurant?
• An exciting or touching movie?
• A sporting event where your team won?

Have you ever left one of these good events excited? Maybe the food has left you feeling all warm inside, or the movie or the football game has made you feel like you could conquer the world!

Our dear departed cat Bonkers, rest her soul, taught me to look before stepping out onto the porch. See, she liked to leave us presents. When she was in a good mood, she would leave us dead mice on the porch—stepping on one with your bare feet can really wake you up!

In less savory moods, she’d throw up on the porch. You don’t want to step in that, either. Then there were hairballs and other less-savory bodily products.

The Apostles’ Teaching

Acts 2:42
They spent their time in learning from the apostles, taking part in the fellowship, and sharing in the fellowship meals and the prayers. (GNB)

We’ve been talking this month about worship. The Christian church has, historically, held up Acts 2:42 as a model of Christian worship. We learn from the Apostles’ teaching (i.e. study the Bible); we fellowship with each other; we break bread in the Lord’s Supper and we pray. We may do these things in different formats and varying orders, but we always try to include all four of these elements.

[Started the sermon by showing several different traffic signs on the big screen and asking people to identify what they mean.]

How did we learn these? Have you ever violated one of these—like, especially, the “Stop” sign? Hopefully, no one was hurt. And maybe you didn’t even get caught. You were driving on one of the back streets and suddenly realized you had driven right through a stop sign.

Christopher Booker writes, "Sea levels are not shooting up but only continuing their modest 3mm a year rise over the past 200 years. The vast Antarctic ice-sheet is not melting, except in one tiny corner, the Antarctic Peninsula. Tropical hurricane activity, far from increasing, is at its lowest level for 30 years. The best correlation for temperature fluctuations is not CO2 but the magnetic activity of the sun." In his excellent article you can read at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/4990704/... )