By JIM NICHOLS One of my most trusted mentors taught me that one should never begin a presentation with an apology or explanation. He had good reasons for that suggestion, and it was good counsel, but I am going to break that rule right now. As you read what follows, please remember that my primary identification is as a child

By JIM NICHOLS One of the most well-known pieces of the Bible is the set of parables of Jesus. Concentrated in certain areas of scripture but also sprinkled at random elsewhere, they contain lessons that are both profound and precise. That is not to say they are necessarily easy to understand. We generally suggest that they are stories using a

By JIM NICHOLS His given name was Leroy, although everyone called him Roy (except for his children and grandchildren).  Roy was a bus driver eventually, although he worked his way through other jobs. One of his early positions was as a door-to-door salesperson for the Fuller Brush Company. That sentence sets the period for his life and this story. Roy

By JIM NICHOLS I suspect my friend does not remember saying it, but I have not forgotten his statement, “Not every task demands perfection.” Like many of you, I have tried to do things correctly for my whole life. It has become obvious that most pieces of life are out of my control; nevertheless, I have worked hard to perform

By JIM NICHOLS Our bodies are not the only things that need exercise. To try to keep my body functioning as well as possible as I age, I do physical activities that might maintain flexibility and strength. It is not comforting to keep reading how much muscle mass a body loses every ten years. My mind and my soul need

By JIM NICHOLS There is so much darkness in the world it seems, perhaps we need to speak more about light—or more specifically, love. I have always liked to learn unfamiliar words. Once I graduated from Dick, Jane, and Spot, even as a child I relished coming upon a word that contained new meaning. In junior high I learned the

By JIM NICHOLS Data from the U.S. Census Bureau recently made a point worth noting. In 2011, 14.3 percent of adults 25 and up had a bachelor’s degree. In 2021, 23.5 percent did. There were parallels of increase in graduate degrees past the bachelor’s degree. As a person with an academic background, I consider this good news. For better or

By JIM NICHOLS If one did not know you were in a hospital, there would be nothing unusual about the setting nor about the people in it. However, this is not an ordinary “let’s go out to lunch together” eating establishment. There are two clearly distinct groups eating here; one group is the various hospital employees and the other, for

By JIM NICHOLS It was one of the “Ah-ha” moments for me; I suspect you have had a few in your life too. One might call them “revelations,” although that sounds a bit pompous. They are times when something dawns on us that, apparently, everyone else seems to know already. We stammer around and smile knowingly while we try to