How to Count Your Blessings

How many things do you have to be thankful for? Perhaps it has been a while since you sat down and really considered that question. If so, I would encourage you to take the time–today–to create a list of everything for which you are thankful.

Newt Holds Court

Republican presidential candidates clashed Tuesday on when to pull U.S. troops from Afghanistan, how to approach a hostile regime in Iran and whether to accede to cuts in the Pentagon budget as they sought to define themselves on national security issues.

In the spotlight: Republican presidential candidates include Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich and Rep. Michele Bachmann applaud before Tuesday night’s debate begins at Constitution Hall in Washington. Much of the attention was focused on Gingrich.

How to Count Your Blessings

How many things do you have to be thankful for? Perhaps it has been a while since you sat down and really considered that question. If so, I would encourage you to take the time–today–to create a list of everything for which you are thankful.

GOP Debate on National Security Shows Divisions Among Presidential Candidates

Republican presidential hopefuls warned in near unanimity against deep cuts in the nation’s defense budget Tuesday night, assailing President Barack Obama in campaign debate but disagreeing over the extent of reductions the Pentagon should absorb to reduce deficits and repair the frail U.S. economy.

Is ‘Christlam’ Rising in America?

Communities across the nation are taking Christianity and Islam–two diametrically opposed theologies–and working to blend them together.

Caleb Carter, 26, reads the Quran at home in Dearborn, Mich., Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2011. For Carter, the road to becoming a Muslim took years, but Sept. 11, 2001 was a turning point _ specifically a high school teacher’s hostile reaction that day to the terrorist attacks. “I was a junior in high school at the time, taking a class called Nonwestern World Studies,” said Carter, who then lived in Columbia, Mo., but now resides in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, home to one of the nation’s largest Muslim communities. “For him, it was purely, ‘This is what Islam teaches. We shouldn’t be surprised.’ He played the whole ‘Islam equals terrorism card.’” (AP Images/Paul Sancya)

10 Things We Often Take for Granted that We Should Be Thankful For

by J. Lee Grady

We Americans are a blessed people, but we are also spoiled. I know I am. I can get flustered over the stupidest things–like when my cellphone doesn’t get a good signal, when a flight is delayed or when my computer takes too long to load a website. 

How the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” Changed America and the Life of Its Writer

On Nov. 18, 1861, Julia Ward Howe, a prominent Boston poet, attended a review of Union troops outside Washington, D.C. 

Julia Ward Howe wrote “Battle Hymn of the Republic,”the leading anthem of the Union cause.