Author Archives: Dr. Philip W. Turner

If you live in the city, it can be difficult to see stars at night compared to living out in a more remote area. The reason for this condition is the city’s light pollution. Light pollution is a side effect of industrial civilization. Its sources include building exterior and interior lighting, advertising, commercial properties, offices,Continue reading “Star Light, Star Bright: Choosing our Words”

For a majority of fairytales, the ending is often the same, “they lived happily ever after.”As the story comes to its end, the couple now joined together in their love are swept away into a life of everlasting happiness. At least, this is how the story is told. Yet, most of us probably have concluded thatContinue reading “Happily Ever After”

         When the Colonial Pipeline shut down this past week because of a cyber-attack, panic buying followed.  With the possibility of running out of gas both at the local station and in your own vehicle, people quickly lined up at the pumps in an effort to not end up on empty with no place to purchase gasContinue reading “Living on Empty”

Have you ever gotten a song stuck in your head? For whatever reason, you find yourself singing or humming a tune over and over again throughout the day. You may be engaged in another activity, but you keep replaying the song over and over again in your head. Often, you are not even conscious that youContinue reading “A New Song”

Sometimes life piles up on you. You find yourself having to deal with several difficulties or stressful situations all at once. You resolve one problem only to have it followed by something else that is just as trying or even greater than what you just went through. It seems that you have to deal withContinue reading “One Thing After Another”

For a time period in my life, I took up the hobby of furniture restoration. I did so mainly because I had received a couple of old furniture pieces out of my grandparents’ barns after they passed. These seemingly discarded pieces of furniture were found underneath a room full of boxes and bags, and otherContinue reading “He Restores My Soul”

The classic hymn, Softly and Tenderly, is sung often in Christian worship. In 1880 William L. Thompson penned the lyrics that have spoken to so many people over the years. The chorus says,“Come home, come home; you who are weary come home; earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling, calling, O sinner, come home!” In the Protestant revival tradition, this songContinue reading “You Who Are Weary Come Home”

Most parents have heard the chorus rise from the back seat of their car when traveling with children, “Are we there yet?” Often children are eager to get to their destination as merely sitting and riding in a car for any length of time can feel like an eternity for them. Parents try to respond the best they can,Continue reading “Are We There Yet?”

We’ve all probably had the experience of traveling away from home but leaving something behind that we meant to bring with us. It might be something as simple as your toothbrush, which can easily be replaced. It could be something much more significant, like leaving your passport behind when you are already at the airportContinue reading “Leaving Your Nets Behind”

It just seems that a day doesn’t go by that we don’t hear about breaking news. Whether it is the cable news on television, a report on the radio, or an alert on your smartphone, our lives are interrupted by some kind of breaking news. Breaking news is an old concept, codified by the Associated Press in 1906 whenContinue reading “Breaking News”

Sometimes in our lives we embark on some kind of endeavor, but we just cannot finish it. For whatever reason, we run out of energy and are just too weary and tired to keep moving forward. We might throw in the proverbial “towel” and call it quits. Just as a boxer might try to go all tenContinue reading “Going the Distance”

A stress test, also called an exercise stress test, shows how your heart works during physical activity. Because exercise makes your heart pump harder and faster, an exercise stress test can reveal problems with blood flow within your heart. A stress test usually involves walking on a treadmill or riding a stationary bike your heartContinue reading “Stress Test”

During this winter season, I have enjoyed starting a fire in the fireplace each evening after work. Not only for the heat, but also for the warm orange and yellow flames that seem to dance around on, under, and around the logs. Once the fire starts, I am able to keep it going throughout theContinue reading “It Only Takes a Spark”

One of the road signs you sometimes encounter when driving your car is one which reads “left or right lane ends ahead.” Two lanes will soon become one lane. What drives me crazy is when people don’t merge until the very end. Even though the sign says merge, they go to the last possible second to moveContinue reading “Lane Ends, Merge Right”

When the game show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, premiered on ABC on August 16, 1999, it quickly became a hit. Television viewers across the nation tuned in each episode to see if contestants could answer 14 multiple-choice questions. If all 14 questions could be answered, then the contestant went home with one million dollars. MostContinue reading “Your Final Answer”

The proverbial saying “You are what you eat “is the notion that you need to eat good food to be fit and healthy. Your daily diet of food consumption will affect your body and impact the overall health of your body. If your diet is healthy, then the assumed conclusion is that your body will be healthy.Continue reading “Our Daily Diet”

One of the lessons that my parents taught me was not to talk with my mouth full. When eating, I should swallow my food before beginning to speak as no one wants to see food chewed while the person is talking. Talking while eating can lead to food accidentally falling out of your mouth asContinue reading “A Mouth Full”

We live by the clock. That is, time matters. As the clock hands turn so do our lives. Time let us know what we are supposed to be doing at any moment: it’s time to wake up, it’s lunchtime, time for work, time for my doctor’s appointment, time for my show on television, time toContinue reading “Stable Time”

In the Christmas story, as told by the Gospel of Luke, we learn of shepherds who were in the fields watching over their sheep at night when angelic messengers informed them of Jesus’s birth. When the workday began for them, I doubt any of them imagined that the day would turn out the way itContinue reading “Ordinary Days”

“Over the River and Through the Woods” was originally published in 1844 as a poem written by Lydia Maria Child. The poem was published in Child’s book of poems Flowers for Children, Volume 2, and was originally titled “The New-England Boy’s Song about Thanksgiving Day.” In time, Child’s poem was set to music by an unknown composer, and over theContinue reading “Over the Hills and Through the Woods”