God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life by Gene Edward Veith Jr. My rating: 5 of 5 stars "Luther said that faith serves God, but works serve our neighbor." That's an early sentence out of Gene Veith's short book, which resurrects Martin Luther's teachings on the workaday world for the 21st-century audience (who, like me, has probably never read a word that Luther actually wrote, besides the hymn "A Mighty Fortress" anyway). And with it, Veith launches into a clear outline of what Luther and others taught about the holy pursuit of... plumbing. Veith covers the vocations of work, citizenship, family and church membership, often using regular-Joe examples related to plumbing or farming or a host of other occupations. The writing isn't as exciting as, say, an adventure novel, but it's sufficiently on layman's turf that you don't have to have studied Biblical languages or church history to follow

I received a lovely surprise today at work: A thank-you bouquet from a WWII veteran. This veteran is originally from the town where I work and at 90 years old must be one of a very small number of men left who had served in World War II. He had seen an article I wrote recently about the Roll of Honor, a local monument to the area's WWII veterans (both the living and those who've passed on). So he called me this week, hoping someone at the paper could send him a photo of the monument. He lives out of town and had never seen it since it was rebuilt in 2010, even though his name and those of several of his relatives are on it. I couldn't find him any from the paper but I snapped a few with my phone on my way to an assignment and emailed them to him. He replied with his thanks and I figured that was taken care of. Then about noon today, one of the front desk ladies brought these peach roses, saying they were delivered for me. For the life of me I couldn't guess wh