Trading Treasure for Chains

Intro: Theme/Topic (What’s the problem, the question, etc.) Jean Valjean was a desperate man. In Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables , Valjean has just been released from nineteen years in a French prison — Five for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s starving children, And fourteen more for repeated…

Intro: Theme/Topic (What’s the problem, the question, etc.) I don’t know if you’ve heard…this Tuesday is Election Day. And I know — some of you just felt your blood pressure go up, and some of you just breathed a sigh of relief, because it means it’s almost over. For months now, we have been told — from…

Intro: Theme/Topic (What’s the problem, the question, etc.) You know the feeling. You’re sitting in a waiting room. Your folder is on your lap. Your résumé is inside — polished, updated, every accomplishment carefully worded. And in a few minutes, someone on the other side of that door is going to open…

Intro: Theme/Topic (What’s the problem, the question, etc.) Imagine growing up in a family where you never questioned that you belonged. You have your mom’s smile. You have your dad’s stubborn streak. Your last name is on your birth certificate. You know who you are. But one day, you get a phone call.…

Intro: Theme/Topic (What’s the problem, the question, etc.) Growing up as a kid in the 90s, I was a huge Michael Jordan fan. Like millions of other boys my age, I wanted to Be Like Mike . I wore the shoes. I watched every game I could. I tried the fadeaway jumper in the driveway — and I can assure you,…

Intro: Theme/Topic (What’s the problem, the question, etc.) Imagine you've been living your whole life inside a simulation — a virtual world that looks and feels completely real, but none of it is. The food you eat, the job you go to, the life you think you're living — it's all a program running inside…

Intro: Theme/Topic (What’s the problem, the question, etc.) In 44 BC, a nineteen-year-old boy named Gaius Octavius received news that would change his life — and the course of Western civilization. Julius Caesar, the most powerful man in the world, had been assassinated. And in his will, Caesar had done…

Intro: Theme/Topic (What’s the problem, the question, etc.) There's a scene in The Shawshank Redemption that's hard to forget. Brooks Hatlen has spent nearly fifty years inside Shawshank prison. He went in as a young man and when he makes parole, he leaves as an old man. And you'd think the day they…

Intro: Theme/Topic (What’s the problem, the question, etc.) In 1984, a movie came out that gave us one of the most iconic training scenes in movie history. Daniel LaRusso is the new kid who's getting beaten up by bullies. Then he meets Mr. Miyagi — a quiet, unassuming handyman — who agrees to teach him…