Mold and yeast are first cousins (second cousins to fungi and mushrooms). Both mold and yeast are very primitive microscopic organisms that have found a way of thriving for millions of years. One of their most effective survival strategies is to develop spores (“seeds”) that can be dormant for months, or even years, then come […]

Altadena Baptist Church is blessed to include people from a variety of national and cultural backgrounds. One example is our living connection with the Middle East through Jean and Rene Bouchebel. Jean grew up in Lebanon, and Rene spent her childhood in Egypt, though her roots are also Lebanese. Together with their son Patrick, Jean […]

When the movie The Passion of the Christ came out in 2004, most of my believing friends rushed out to see it. I made a decision not to see it, and I still haven’t. My reasons are hard to explain. I had concerns about what I had read about the film’s production, some of the […]

Palm Sunday has never been the same for me since I saw the film Parable in 1964. Actually, I was never comfortable with Palm Sunday. The holiday commemorates Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem at the time when great crowds were gathered in the City for the celebration of the Jewish Passover. As Luke tells the story, […]

“Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.” Some people seem to live their lives with this attitude. They are passive and just try to deal with what happens to them. They hope that, once in a while, they will be in the right place at the right moment, and something good will come […]

In the movie “Lady Bird” (above), the church scenes were filmed at St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Altadena, just five blocks from our church. On Facebook, people from that congregation who have seen the film mentioned a change they noticed in the artwork above the altar from what they remembered in they’re youth. One of […]

Life After Failure “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – basketball great Michael Jordan [listen here] Michael didn’t […]

Everyone seems to be feeling outrage about the fact that a disturbed young man was able to walk onto a high school campus in the middle of the afternoon and use an assault weapon to kill at least seventeen people. Calls for stronger gun control are becoming louder and more insistent, but the political posturing […]

The modern summer Olympic Games began in 1896 and have been held every four years since then, except during war time. The winter games were added in 1924. The mission and goals are lofty and inspiring: “Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and […]

In 1920, a new land track was opened in Our Town, called “Altadena Woodlands.” The area was bounded by Allen Avenue on the west, New York Drive on the south, and Altadena Drive on the north and east. Here’s the realtor’s classy brochure: And here’s what it says on the inside: Over the years, Our Town continued […]