Straight From Pastor Ey

“How much do your kindergarten teacher and classmates affect the rest of your life?” (Source:  The New York Times ) Raj Chetty (third from left) and his team of researchers. Image source: The New York Times That’s the question Harvard Economist Raj Chetty and his team sought to answer in his research that scrutinized the “life paths” of about 12,000 adults, who were subjects of a famous education experiment in Tennessee when they were just kids 30 years ago. Chetty presented his “fairly explosive” findings in an academic conference in Cambridge, Mass. (USA).  According to the Chetty research, “Students who had learned much more in kindergarten were more likely to go to college than students with otherwise similar backgrounds. Students who learned more were also less likely to become single parents. As adults, they were more likely to be saving for retirement. Perhaps most striking, they were earning more.” (Ibid) In short, due to early education, these people b...

The story was told about a country that was experiencing an epidemic of psychiatric problems. The doctors could not handle all the mental health cases brought before them. In short, many people in that country were getting crazy. But later on, a civil war broke out in that country. It was a terrible, destructive war. Yet, to the surprise of the doctors, the war “had the unexpected effect of ‘curing’ many of [that country’s] thousands of neurotics. When they became concerned about the welfare of their families, friends and country instead of their own, their neuroses disappeared and hospitals and clinics were almost emptied of such cases. ” (John MacArthur, Jr., “Ephesians: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary.” ) They were cured when they stopped concentrating on themselves and started caring for others. We are commanded in James 5:16, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as i...

Art historians used to believe that Leonardo da Vinci painted his “Virgin on the Rocks” with the help of his student Giampetrino (Source: Reuters). The 15th century painting was discovered and authenticated only a few years ago. It was a later version of the “Virgin on the Rocks” painting that is now displayed in Louvre, Paris. (If you watched Tom Hank’s “The Da Vinci Code” movie, you saw the painting already.) However, an 18-month restoration project by the conservation team at the Britain’s National Gallery revealed otherwise. In a press statement the team declared, “ It now seems possible that Leonardo painted all he picture himself, leaving some parts just sketched or yet to be completely resolved, and others fully worked up.” (Ibid) A badly degraded coat of varnish applied in 1948 “had reduced the picture’s subtle shading, particularly in darker areas, and impacted its intended sense of space.” (Ibid) When the team subjected the painting under the latest infrared technology, they...

Image source:  http://optionalpha.com/ Billionaire Warren Buffett is “consistently ranked among the world’s wealthiest people, and is the third wealthiest person in the world as of 2010… He is one of the most successful investors in the world… In 2007, he was listed among Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the world.” (Source: http://www.wikipedia.org/) People’s ears perk up whenever he speaks on his views on economy and other issues. His devoted followers deem his economic wisdom Solomonic. Now, what was the best advice that this most sought-after font of financial advices has ever received? In an exclusive interview, he lauds his father, businessman and politician Howard Buffett, for “teaching him how to live” (Yahoo! News) Buffett credited him for teaching “The power of unconditional love. I mean, there is no power on earth like unconditional love. And I think that if you offered that to your child, I mean, you’re 90 percent of the way home. There may be days...

I could not believe my eyes when I read it. President Benigno Aquino III, whom we now fondly call “P-Noy,” got caught in traffic. “On his second day in office Aquino ordered his driver to stop for red lights and declined to use lanes set aside for public buses and as a result arrived 40 minutes late for the turnover ceremonies for the new chief of staff” (Source: http://inquirer.net/) According to his personal driver, P-Noy obeyed traffic rules even before he became a congressman, something he learned from his late mother, former President Corazon Aquino. Needless to say, it was a security nightmare for the Presidential Security Group. “Police escorts were also barred from using their sirens, and members of his security detail jumped out of their vehicles to secure the presidential car every time the heavy mid-morning traffic stopped the limousine” (Ibid). Last Wednesday, June 30, 2010, on his way to his inauguration as president, people saw that there were no blinkers or sirens (In ...