News and Notes from the
World of Al Menconi

I just returned from viewing Miracles From Heaven, starring Jennifer Garner.   You probably saw the TV commercial for it – a little girl gets an incurable illness, then falls from a tree and miraculously gets well.   Before watching the movie, I thought the producers made a big mistake by telling the “whole story” in the commercial trailer.   Frankly, I was expecting the typical “religious” film: maudlin, trite, and corny, with actors who barely had their lines memorized. Boy, was I wrong! Before I go any further, I want to be the first to say that Jennifer Garner deserves an Academy Award for acting.   She showed us exactly what a mother in crisis looks like and feels.   When she was pleading with a reluctant doctor to examine her daughter there wasn’t a dry eye in the theater.   My wife remarked that one could tell that Garner is a mother in real life; she couldn’t be so convincing if she wasn’t.   She used every ounce of her motherhood experience to demonstrate that sh

I have read emails from my readers who are frustrated with our political choices for president. My question to everyone is this: Why are you surprised?  Please read Romans 13:1 to 4. Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. 4 For he is God’s minister to you for good. Read that passage again.  Paul is speaking to Christians living under ROMAN rule!  And he called the leader of the land “God’s minister for good.”  Why?  Because God will direct us through the leader He has put over us.  No matter how bad we believe our choices are, they are a heck of a lot better than Nero.  I definitel