The new year is always a perfect time to review our priorities - personal, professional, family, and community - and make a renewed commitment to those things which we determine, with careful deliberation, to be the most fruitful paths toward growth and fulfillment.

An elderly couple passed away in their twilight years, and when they got to heaven the husband was simply astonished! He discovered that it was far more magnificent than he could possibly have imagined. It was fantastic! He turned to his wife and observed: "You know, if it hadn't been for your yogurt and bran muffins, we could have been here ten years ago!"

"Freedom is under attack" has been the battle cry since 9/11. Freedom is indeed under attack, but our intelligence sources indicate Osama bin Laden is not the chief culprit. The attacks on 9/11 were on America, not freedom. In reality, freedom has long been under attack by those in the West who have sought to destroy the foundations upon which Western thought, culture and law rest.

Fans of the popular TV science fiction series, Star Trek, are familiar with the "Beam-me-up-Scotty" concept of "teleporting." In an Austrian laboratory, it appears that scientists have now been able to destroy bits of light in one place and make perfect replicas appear about three feet away.