1. Give up a few drinks a month and spend $38 a month to sponsor a child in a foreign country.
2. Make your voice heard: write a letter to Congress. You’d be surprised how few they get and how much each one matters.
3. When you go to the supermarket, get your cart from the cart return in the parking lot. That’s one less cart the attendant will have to push back into the building. And always return the cart to either the cart return or the building.
4. Adopt a child.
5. If you’re married or otherwise attached, throw a Valentine’s Day party for all of your single friends.
6. Volunteer to teach some sessions at a job training center in a poorer part of town.
7. If a phone service rep for your cable company or something similar is helpful or does a good job, tell them. They never hear positive feedback.
8. Buy flowers or a gift for a loved one for no special occasion.
9. Keep a jar of candy stocked at your desk at work for anyone who wants it. You’ll make a lot of friends in the process.
10. If you want a pet, do a search of rescue shelters before going to a breeder.
11. Tip well, and be nice to the wait staff when you go out to eat. They get blamed for everything that goes wrong in the restaurant.
12. Take up a cause, educate yourself, and see what changes you can make in your life to further this cause. Here are some ideas, if you can’t think of any: world hunger, illiteracy, human trafficking, animal rights, racial reconciliation, and women’s rights (especially if you’re a man).
13. Furnish a room in your living space for whoever needs it. Be willing to take in friends, family, or recent college grads who are trying to get on their feet.
14. Before you go on a mission trip to build a house or a church, see if there are any trips where you’d get to utilize your unique and/or professional skills rather than your probably mediocre construction skills. (If you’re good at construction, see if you can help manage a local project.)
15. Be careful with your words. Once you say something, you can never completely take it back.
16. If you’re not a vegetarian, give up meat one or two nights a week. If nothing else, you’ll save money, since legumes cost a lot less than meat.
17. Buy an acre of rainforest in a foreign country to save it from deforestation.
18. Wash your clothes in cold water unless they’re absolutely filthy. This saves a ton of energy.
19. Buy a surge protector that cuts energy to electronic devices when not in use. Without this, things like televisions and even cell phone chargers continue to suck up energy when they’re turned off.
20. Smile at strangers.

What are some additional ideas that you guys have?

Janelle and I actually love the red beans and rice out of the box. Being the curious cook that I am, I wondered if I could create something like that from scratch. My first attempt… well, we don’t talk about my first attempt. But my second attempt was a resounding success! Here’s the recipe:

• One cup rice
• Two cans black beans, undrained
• Three or four cloves of garlic, chopped finely
• Two jalapeños, seeds and veins removed, chopped finely
• Three or four green onions, chopped
• One to one and a half pounds lean ham, cubed (optional)
• Some olive oil, for sauteeing (vegetable or canola oils will work, but olive is a bit healthier)
• One small can tomato paste
• One teaspoon cumin
• One tablespoon chili powder
• One bay leaf

Despite having two jalapeños, this is not a spicy dish. The seeds and veins contain most of the heat of the jalapeños, so leave some of that in if you want a spicy dish.

Prepare the rice according to the instructions. (For white rice, it’s usually two parts water, one part rice, on medium low for 30 minutes, but check on this.) While that’s cooking, put some oil in a large skillet (just enough to cover the bottom) and throw the garlic in there. Sautee for a few minutes, until it just starts to brown. Then, throw everything else but the beans and tomato paste in and sautee for five to ten minutes. Then, add the tomato paste, black beans with liquid, and an additional cup of water. It will look pretty soupy, but the rice will soak most of that up. Mix well and sautee for another few minutes, then mix in the rice and serve.

Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law
Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek’d against his creed
- Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H., Canto 56

With the debate raging about whether to teach intelligent design in the classroom, some in the science community have also suggested that stupid design be taught right alongside it. Why can’t all the nutrients needed for animals to live be found in pond water? Why does nature revolve around a cycle of killing?

Darwin wrote about the Ichneumon spider, who paralyzes its victims, keeps them alive, and lays eggs in them. The victim is still alive when the eggs hatch and the baby spiders eat the live flesh as their first meal. Many in the science community, such as Dawkins and Pinker, point to this as evidence that the natural world was not designed, or, at least, not by a loving God.

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