Panhandling: Opportunity for Compassion or Easy Money?

Past Published Post, Published Blog Post

A common sight now a day is a person standing on the street corner, or major intersection, asking or money. Most, with a cardboard sign that explains who they are, their need, and usually ends with ‘God Bless’. Is there compassion for these individuals? Or have they...

Greg Smith: Buy Time

Past Published Post

The king raised his hand and the guards stopped. “Could you really do such a thing? ”There is a story about an ancient con man that served a king as the court magician. For some reason, he fell out of favor with the monarch. The king ordered his head to be chopped...

Rod Kackley: Trees and Beer, Two Better Ideas

Past Published Post

The trees of metro Grand Rapids were nearly wiped out by Dutch Elm disease or better put, they were nearly wiped out by city officials overreacting to the epidemic. Instead of treating the disease, they decided to kill the patients.”Whenever there is a need,...

Rod Kackley: A Better Idea, Grand Rapids’ Piggeries

Past Published Post

Feeding uneaten and spoiled food to pigs was not the first option. When the odor of piled up garbage and the vermin that feasted on it became too much to bear, it was thrown into the Grand River. So much was tossed into that waterway that in 1895 the Army Corps of...

Greg Smith: Ambition vs Opportunity

Past Published Post

Ambition can blind us to opportunity. Ambitions are the supply side of life’s economy: they are what we want to give to (or in some cases push upon) the world. Opportunities are what the world wants or needs from us. Supply-side creativity is a magical thing,...

Greg Smith: Communism

Past Published Post

I keep hearing that communism is a great idea, except that it doesn’t work in the real world. Ironically, I’m pretty sure that’s the very definition of a bad idea. It’s a predictable slogan on college campuses, and increasingly in many churches: communism describes an...