田森傑牧師／博士

Every person in this world has the freedom to choose; however, this personal freedom is limited and conditional. We all can choose what we like and how we do things, when it is bound by the situation or legal constraints.

When people think of Thanksgiving, we often think of the bountiful feast with turkey and other dishes. How often do people remember the treacherous journey of the Puritans, who came upon the shores of North America on the Mayflower and their harrowing experience as they settled upon Provincetown, Massachusetts?

There are countless great works of literature in the world, but only the Bible is the foremost book of wonder. Not only are there ancient manuscripts of it and hold the records of having the most translations, but also there are numerous authors to the Bible as well.

On July 27th, the U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres issued a dire warning: “The era of global warming has ended, the era of global boiling has arrived.” According to World Weather Attribution (WWA) which analyzed worldwide weather patterns and statistics, the month of July was possibly the hottest period in Planet Earth’s 120,000 years of history.

On June 18, 2023 at 8 am EST, a state-of-the-art submersible led by OceanGate Expeditions’ founder and CEO Stockton Rush, made its descent in Canada’s Newfoundland province approximately 375 miles east of the coastal town of St. Johns. Its objective was to explore the unsinkable Titanic’s wreckage, which sank 111 years ago, its mysteries and at a depth of nearly 13,000 feet below sea.

On the evening of June 2nd, three trains derailed in India, causing almost 288 deaths and more than 1,000 injuries. According to a BBC report, this was the most devastating train collision in this century.

Despite the fact that the British Empire and its colonialism policies had drawn ire, the tabloids pursued all sorts of gossip about the royal family, as well as lackluster feeling of this coronation (compared to Elizabeth II’s ceremony seventy years ago), Charles III’s coronation’s prelude still contained pearls of ancient wisdom that we should take note of:

After the joint establishment of OpenAI in 2015, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, and Peter Thiel the PayPal’s founder, moved on to announce to the public about their artificial intelligence giant called “ChatGPT” in November 2022 and its incredible abilities have caused quite a stir in the worldwide AI community.

Since the dawn of mankind, men and women have been seeking physical beauty. As plastic surgery’s techniques advance, they can certainly reverse aging and revert back to one’s youthful days.

On the fifteenth day (lantern date) of the 2023 Lunar New Year, Turkey experienced its worst earthquake in the past two centuries! According to reports from the United Nations, on February 6 around midnight, the southern part of Turkey and Northern Syria had massive earthquakes.

2023’s Lunar New Year occurs earlier than previous years’ dates, which coincides with a hare’s spirit of swiftness and brevity. People in ancient China viewed the hare with exceptionally rich and complex imagination. According to folklore, there are numerous tales associated with the hare.

According to yahoo news, on October 29 in Itaewon, South Korea, one hundred thousand revelers who gathered to celebrate Halloween were caught in a crowd crush, leading to hundreds of fatalities and injuries. President Took Suk-Yeol declared a weeklong mourning as well as a thorough investigation into the tragic incident.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA has a Double Asteroid Redirection Test or DART mission that successfully changed the orbit of an asteroid named Dimorphos by intentionally smashing into it on September 26th at 7:14 pm EST. This space mission success demonstrates that humans can take action to deflect a potentially deadly asteroid approaching the planet (Tim Fernholz).

Due to a global warming trend, Lake Mead, the largest man-made lake in the US, has a water level at 27% of its capacity, the lowest ever recorded since 1937 due to unusual drought conditions. Because of the receding water level, many corpses have been discovered! On May 1st, the police discovered a gun homicide victim possibly in the 1970’s or 80’s that was abandoned in a barrel and discarded in the lake.

While the conflict in Ukraine continues to rage on, Europe not only is facing a crisis in energy scarcity, but also a flood of refugee resettlement issues. However, the most shocking devastation is the record breaking heat wave across Western Europe.

In the state of Washington, a high school football coach named Joe Kennedy made a promise to God in his prayer prior to a game in 2008, “I will pray after each game, whether winning or losing, to thank God for each teammate and letting me be a coach.”

Recently mass shootings in the US have increased dramatically. The issue of gun control became a hot political topic. The US is reputed to be one of the most powerful free nations in the world, attracting countless immigrants to seek the American dream and freedoms not available elsewhere.

After the world was shrouded in the threat of the Coronavirus pandemic, most people are tired of hearing news of the virus’ mutation; in fact, many long to hear of the virus’ extinction instead! However, the heredity, mutation, and extinction of living things follow a certain order and progression.

As the world witnesses the outbreak of Russia-Ukraine conflict, tragedies occur on a daily basis. The Polish vice prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said during an interview with the German press that Poland is armed and prepared with American nuclear weapons.