After a relaxing, week-long summer vacation in Florida with their 10-year-old son, Robert and Angela Barry of Grove City, Ohio, left for the airport to return home to Ohio. Just before they left, a young girl staying at the Barrys' hotel showed up at their room and gave their son a teddy bear as a gift. As they went through security at Orlando International Airport, the teddy bear went through the x-ray machine like the rest of their luggage, and the Barrys learned that appearances can fool you. A Transportation Security Administration worker noticed the outline of a gun inside the bear. Opening up the bear, airport security workers found a loaded .22 caliber handgun stuffed inside. The Miami Herald later reported that the gun had been reported stolen in 1996 in California. Robert Johnson, a TSA spokesman in Washington, D.C., said the incident "underscores the need to screen everyone and everything no matter how innocent the people or their belongings may appear." Citation: Greg Asimakoupoulos, Naperville, Illinois;

Garden of Eden: the old game of two truths and a lie "your eyes will be opened, you will become like God, you will know good from evil"

You probably know Ted Giannoulas even if you've never heard his name. He has been the San Diego Chicken for 30 years. But Ted is getting older. At age 50, being the Chicken has been his life and his whole identity. His face is never photographed unless he is in costume. No one knows the real Ted. He has no family. At first, he loved his alter ego. "I discovered an untapped personality in that suit," he said. "It was like, now I have freedom. Now I'm no longer Ted." But there is a price to pay. Dave Raymond, who for years wore the costume of the Philly Phanatic, said, "[Giannoulas] was the first and the funniest, and I have nothing but respect for him. But if you're not careful, you can lose yourself in that suit." Ted himself says, "I have plenty of Chicken stories. I'm afraid I don't have any Ted stories." Many people live life being someone God didn't create them to be. They lose themselves in other things instead of finding their identity in Christ. Citation: "Chicken's Salad Days Over", Chicago Tribune, (8-26-02), (Sports Section); submitted by Lee Eclov, Vernon Hills, Illinois

The most common lie is the lie one tells to oneself. -- Nietzsche

It has been said that there are three kinds of lies: white lies, black lies, and sermon illustrations.

Few people have had as many natural endowments or achievements to feel proud of as Edwin Hubble, the astronomer for whom the Hubble Space Telescope was named. Hubble was a gifted athlete. As writer Bill Bryson recounts, "At a single high school track meet in 1906, he won the pole vault, shot put, discus, hammer throw, standing high jump, and running high jump, and was on the winning mile-relay team—that is seven first places in one meet—and came in third in the broad jump. In the same year, he set a state record for the high jump in Illinois. On top of his athletic gifts, Hubble was extremely good-looking. One person described him as "handsome almost to a fault." Another called him an "Adonis." If that weren't enough, Hubble was intellectually gifted. He studied physics and astronomy at the elite University of Chicago, and he was selected to be one of the first Rhodes scholars at Oxford. When Hubble began his career as an astronomer at Mount Wilson Observatory in California, in 1919, only one galaxy was known: the Milky Way. But Hubble showed in a landmark paper in 1924 that the universe contained many galaxies. Then Hubble proved that the universe was expanding, an idea no physicist or astronomer had conceived of before. Either one of these achievements would have guaranteed Hubble a place in history. Yet for Hubble all of this was not enough. Hubble claimed he spent most of his late 20's and early 30's as a prestigious lawyer in Kentucky. Actually, he spent those years as a high school teacher in Indiana. Hubble boasted that in World War I he had bravely led "frightened men to safety across the battlefields of France." The truth was, he arrived in France only one month before the Armistice and probably never heard one shot fired. Hubble told people how he had daringly rescued drowning swimmers. But that story never happened. Hubble bragged about how he had taken on an exhibition bout with a world-class boxer and surprised the champion with an amazing knockdown punch. That, also, was too good to be true. What is it in human nature that makes us willing to lie to enhance our image? Citation: Kevin A. Miller, Carol Stream, Illinois; source: Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything (New York: Broadway Books, 2003)

Tricked For Their Own Good

A German nursing home has come up with a novel idea to stop Alzheimer's patients from wandering off: a phantom bus stop.... "It sounds funny," said Old Lions Chairman Franz-Josef Goebel, "but it helps. Our members are 84 years-old on average. Their short-term memory hardly works at all, but the long-term memory is still active. They know the green and yellow bus sign and remember that waiting there means they will go home." The result is that errant patients now wait for their trip home at the bus stop, before quickly forgetting why they were there in the first place.