The world is to be cleaned by somebody, and you are not called of God if you are ashamed to scrub.

Unamuno, the Spanish philosopher, tells about the Roman aqueduct at Segovia, in his native Spain. It was built in 109 A.D. For eighteen hundred years, it carried cool water from the mountains to the hot and thirsty city. Nearly sixty generations of men drank from its flow. Then came another generation, a recent one, who said, "This aqueduct is so great a marvel that it ought to be preserved for our children, as a museum piece. We shall relieve it of its centuries-long labor." They did; they laid modern iron pipes. They gave the ancient bricks and mortar a reverent rest. And the aqueduct began to fall apart. The sun beating on the dry mortar caused it to crumble. The bricks and stone sagged and threatened to fall. What ages of service could not destroy idleness disintegrated.

A well-dressed European woman was on safari in Africa. The group stopped briefly at a hospital for lepers. The hear was intense, the flies buzzing. She noticed a nurse bending down in the dirt, tending to the pus-filled sores of a leper. With disdain the woman remarked, "Why, I wouldn't do that for all the money in the world!" The nurse quietly replied, "Neither would I."

"There are no menial jobs, only menial attitudes."

"I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble."

YET I WILL PRAISE Margaret Sangster Phippen wrote that in the mid 1950s her father, British minister W. E. Sangster, began to notice some uneasiness in his throat and a dragging in his leg. When he went to the doctor, he found that he had an incurable disease that caused progressive muscular atrophy. His muscles would gradually waste away, his voice would fail, his throat would soon become unable to swallow. Sangster threw himself into his work in British home missions, figuring he could still write and he would have even more time for prayer. "Let me stay in the struggle Lord," he pleaded. "I don't mind if I can no longer be a general, but give me just a regiment to lead." He wrote articles and books, and helped organize prayer cells throughout England. "I'm only in the kindergarten of suffering," he told people who pitied him. Gradually Sangster's legs became useless. His voice went completely. But he could still hold a pen, shakily. On Easter morning, just a few weeks before he died, he wrote a letter to his daughter. In it, he said, "It is terrible to wake up on Easter morning and have no voice to shout, 'He is risen!'--but it would be still more terrible to have a voice and not want to shout." CITATION: Vernon Grounds, Denver, Colorado. Leadership, Vol. 8, no. KEYWORDS: Afflictions; Adversity; Perception and reality; Optimism; Easter; Resurrection; Ministry; Health; Perseverance; Praise; Tenacity; Zeal; Eternal Perspective; Perspective SCRIPTURE: Psalms 63:4; Habakkuk 3:17-18; 2 Corinthians 4:16; 1 Peter 1:6-7

When we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what that is really like. It is like a small child going to his father and saying, "Daddy, give ME a sixpence to buy YOU a birthday present." Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child's present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction. -C.S. Lewis this is where Sixpence None The Richer got their name

The first time the band Sixpence None the Richer appeared on "The Late Show" with David Letterman, lead singer Leigh Nash was interviewed briefly by the king of sarcasm and putdowns. Letterman asked if the band's name was a literary reference. "Thanks for asking," Nash replied, fighting her nervousness. "I will quickly tell you. It's from a book by C.S. Lewis. The book is called 'Mere Christianity.'" Nash later admitted that she was scared, but that being on the show was a dream come true for her. Though her bandmates were laughing and Letterman was wiggling his tongue in his cheek and acting like he didn't understand what she was talking about, Nash continued. "I really want to tell you the story," she said to Letterman. "Do you want to hear it?" Letterman said he did, so Nash began her explanation. "A little boy asks his father for a sixpence, which is a very small amount of English currency, to go and get a gift for his father. The father gladly accepts the gift, but he also realizes that he is not any richer for the transaction because he gave his son the money in the first place." "He bought his own gift," noted Letterman. "That's right, pretty much," said Nash. "I'm sure it meant a lot to him, but he's really no richer. C.S. Lewis was comparing that to his belief that God has given him and us the gifts that we possess and that to serve him the way that we should, we should do it humbly--with a humble heart--realizing how we got the gifts in the first place." "Well, that's beautiful," Letterman said. "Charming."

Have you ever gotten one of those fake checks in the mail as part of an advertisement? You know, the kind that say 'non-negotiable' on the front? So did Patrick Combs. And he decided to deposit it to see what would happen. The bank actually deposited the money to his account. It turns out that the advertising company had created a fake check that actually met all nine criteria for being a real check! And when you do that, writing the words 'non-negotiable' on the check don't mean squat. Here's the thing--Patrick never wanted to keep the money once it was credited to his account, he just wanted the bank to admit they had made a mistake. The bank wouldn't. They used long, loud sentences that prominently featured words like 'fraud' and 'criminal' and 'police.' Patrick stood his ground. Ultimately, the bank gave him the letter he wanted. And he gave them the money back, plus $65 to repay the interest he earned while it was in his account. (for myself, this happened in '96--he returned the check the day the OJ verdict came out)

What we do during our working hours determines what we have; what we do in our leisure hours determines what we are. --

No man was ever shot by his wife while doing the dishes. -- Anonymous

Percentage of women who would rather watch a man wash dishes than dance naked: 61%. -- Details, March 1995

Moreover, when I recalled what dangers I had undergone on behalf of these people even in my earlier advocacy, I decided that the credit of my earlier service must be preserved with a new favor. Indeed, there is a general consensus that you undermine earlier benefits unless you compound them with additional ones, for however often people have been in debt to you, once you refuse them some one thing, they remember that thing alone that has been denied to them. [ancient testimony to the paradox of rising expectations]