Yesterday, I spent an hour with a group of high school students in a leadership class. They just finished reading "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell and invited several people to be guests in their class this week. I got Monday.

They came prepared with great questions. My definition of success. Key moments of decision and when did I make the wrong call. What did I think of Gladwell's concept that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill or craft. That kind of thing.

The one question that surprised me. What three lessons have you learned since you graduated from high school that you would take back with you if you could step back to 1982 (my graduation date, yes!)?

Took me a moment, but I said

1) Choose your spouse wisely. This is a crucial life-changing decision, and a lot of us get it wrong because we do not really think it through. Choose wisely and it impacts your life forever. Choose poorly and it impacts your life forever.

2) Take risks. Most older adults I have encountered all said that they wish they had taken more risks and not played life so safe. So take risks. It is OK to fail.

3) Have a lot of kids. Contrary to what our culture teaches right now, kids will likely be the best part of your life. Have a bunch of them. The Duggars are some of the most successful Americans.

When I heard the new J.D. Hayworth campaign radio ad for the first time, I felt like I had worms in my underwear. Whereas Hayworth's opponent, John McCain, usually stonewalls when asked about his faith, Hayworth instead shines forth with bravado in an ad that declares him “a good Christian,” whatever that may be. How did we land at a place in American public life where one's faith is either something to be avoided altogether or something to be wielded like a sword and shield? Neither approach is one of which we should be proud.

On his rare attempts to articulate his faith, McCain sputters a few words about how faith sustained him for years in a POW camp, certainly an admirable thing, but that response leaves one to wonder about any role of faith in his life over the last month. Or at anytime in the past four decades. Faith as a relic.

Hayworth, on the other hand, comes forth with a full frontal faith assault in an ad clearly designed to check all the formulaic boxes we voters have been trained to expect through the ubiquitous “voter guides” of groups like the Christian Coalition or the American Family Association. Faith as an exercise in placing planks in a political platform.

Both McCain and Hayworth reduce faith and debase it. McCain reduces it to a relic socked away in the recesses of a memory. A lifeless, fossilized relic not to be examined or even given much credence. Hayworth reduces faith to a predictable, mathematical equation. Stake out five clear positions and call yourself “a good Christian.” In these reductions, we discover problems not just with John McCain and J.D. Hayworth, but also with America's inability to discern the proper role faith should play in one's life and in our public life together.

If faith has played no role in his life since Vietnam, John McCain has a faith problem. Not as a politician but as a person. If his faith is not shaping his decisions, his leadership, and his world-view today, it is appropriate to ask what is.

After declaring himself a “good Christian,” J.D. Hayworth checks all the “faith boxes” a conservative candidate would need in order to garner votes. For example, the ad begins by sharing J.D.'s initial faith decision. Evangelical street cred. Check.

We learn J.D. met his wife at church. Good combo – female spouse met in a faith setting. And she is named Mary – perhaps an extra touch for Catholics like me! Institution of marriage. Check.

The couple has suffered reproductive complications, so they have come to value the sanctity of human life. Check.

The ad shares how Hayworth will defend God in the public square and in public schools. Prayer in schools. Check.

Faith for Hayworth is not so much a touchstone for his soul but a simple and predictable political formula. A litmus test.

While McCain may be reticent about his faith, Hayworth formulaically shouts his faith credentials as if one's faith consists of a series of grades on a report card. After all, Hayworth is a “good Christian,” a phrase that is defined in this ad as subscribing to the four political points above. One is left with the impression in the Arizona campaign that McCain's faith beverage is like the lightest of beers, so watered down as to be nearly tasteless and irrelevant. Hayworth's faith play reverberates like a shot of rye whiskey. It curls your nose hairs.

On my nationally syndicated radio show, I have spoken often about how I like to know everything I can about a political candidate. Especially the source and touchstone of a candidate's moral compass. I evaluate candidates much as if I were hiring a key leader on my team. My goal is to know a candidate's world view, to understand his leadership style, to learn how she interacts in relationships. Most of all, for an elected official, I hope to learn how he or she makes decisions and the core values from which those decisions emerge. Finally, I aim to get a sense of a candidate's character, not so much contained in a few predictable political positions but in the compassion, generosity, and honesty demonstrated in real life. And a little dose of humility rather than bravado would not hurt.

I would vastly prefer to hear about a candidate's moral compass. What core values shape who you are? What shapes how you lead? Whose lives have you impacted through your compassion and generosity? What examples can you give me about your decision-making process and how your faith informs that? Faith matters.

My two decades as an evangelical Christian pastor afforded me the privilege of walking alongside mill workers, accountants, security guards, soccer moms, chief executives, and a handful of politicians. Rare was the politician whose faith life matched the depth of any of the other groups listed above. Perhaps that is the occupational hazard of politics where self-service can often be confused with public service.

An encounter with the divine affects who you are, not merely what stance you might take. I understand full well that no political party will usher in the Kingdom of God, but when a candidate seeks to make decisions affecting me and society, I want to receive real insight into their soul and character. I also want to receive more than a predictable spoonful of items on a litmus test checklist.

While I may agree with Hayworth on a number of the issues he checks off in his radio ad, and while I may appreciate McCain's steely will forged in Vietnam, the whole campaign experience leaves me with the unmistakable feeling of having worms in my underwear. That feeling may be interesting, but it is not helpful. Politicians can do better, and we Americans deserve it.

Update to the story that virtually no other media outlets desire to cover. Harlan Drake has been found guilty of murder in the killing of pro-life demonstrator Jim Pouillon and of Mike Fuoss.

Likely to get mandatory life sentence. Drake smiled as the verdicts were read.

The fun show last week on the three California teachers who made a mockery of Black History month continues to generate enormous email response.

A handful agree with me that the teachers should be fired. Most do not - of course, they are wrong :)

Even more think that Black History Month should be eliminated altogether. A point of view that actually thinks that the average white American knows a lot (or at least enough) about the contributions of black Americans, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries to America's development. I could not disagree more.

Anyway, here are two of the most interesting emails to arrive. For your reading pleasure.

Allen,

1. African-American History has outlived it's purpose. African-American history is included in every history curriculum in the U.S. If we are to have true racial healing in this country, we have to get away from the idea of seperateness and start seeing ourselves as one people.

2. The three teachers in California may not have been conservative bigots trying to make a point. They may have been liberals who thought these three men were wrongly accused or convicted. After all, it was California.

3. Another man who is often included but should be excluded from African-American month is Malcom X. He was a racist, and should not be included with the likes of Rev. Martin Luther King.

Thank you,

Louis


Mr. Hunt. In your tirade about the three L.A. teachers you repeatedly said they should be fired, why? Because they were insensitive? Because they disrespected Black History month? Please! For starters there have been far worse offenses commited by teachers where being fired was not even considered. I think "Diversity Training" whether in education or on the job is outragious. This is nothing more than political correctness run amuk. This is just more big government. How about teaching American History. Why segregate our history? Let's just educate our kids. I think you're just ate up with political correctness and diversity. You continued to harp on the fact that they were "three white males." What if they were females, black or hispanic? Should they still be fired? I believe we should be more worried about the overall education system and what it's doing to all our children. I think we should be trying to pull together as one nation, one people with one history not worried about how diverse we can be. Exploiting our diversity will not help pull us together. I'm a frequent listener and will keep listening. Keep up the good work.
V.R.

This lady takes the cake. She captures souls and then sells them. Check it out.

She donates the proceeds of the soul sales to a charity for animals. After deducting her exorcism fee of course.

She sounds like a perfect candidate for Congress.

Harlan Drake may employ the Bobby Boucher defense. After all, it appears he was just trying to please his mother. Adam Sandler made a fortune playing the apron-strings-still-attached Boucher in The Waterboy. Boucher is best remembered for his line, “Mama says, mama says, mama says, girls are the devil.” Harlan Drake, on the other hand, faces life in prison for his role as the murderer of Jim Pouillon in Owosso, Michigan, on September 11, 2009. Drake's trial began last week.

Who is Harlan Drake, you say? You may well have forgotten him since the national media barely offered a blip about his transgressions. After all, while Scott Roeder murdered an abortion doctor, Drake merely murdered a pro-life protester. In the American psyche, the former is an outrage; the latter offers little worth lamenting. The murder of an abortion doctor will get you expansive amounts of shrill media coverage, an immediate statement from the White House, and a swift Department of Justice promise to step up security and enforcement at abortion clinics around the country. Killing a pro-life protester will not even get you ignominy. It will merely get you, well, ...oblivion.

Not even Harlan Drake disputes that he murdered Jim Pouillon. The only point of debate is whether he was insane at the time; and whether anyone notices or cares that he did it.

Harlan Drake was every bit as meticulous in his assassination in Owosso as Roeder was in his own killing of George Tiller in Wichita. Drake dropped off his nieces at school and then edged his pickup into the vicinity of pro-life protester, Jim Pouillon. Pouillon, 63, was in one of his regular protesting locations, on the street corner in front of the high school. Harlan Drake rested his left arm on the car window to steady his right hand as he shot the elderly man. He pulled the truck closer to fire again. In all, Drake landed four bullets in the defenseless Pouillon's body. Jim Pouillon fell down, then forward, and died right there. Drake drove away and moved on to murder a former employer, Mike Fuoss, and to search for a third victim, whom he fortunately never located.

A former Owosso city councilman, Michael Cline, has testified that Harlan Drake's mother, Kimberly Staples, had phoned several days in a row leading up to the murder and asked the councilman to “do something” about the problem protester, Jim Pouillon. She told him she would “send her boys over to go see Jim.” After the shootings, Cline reported that Staples called him and said “I have solved the city’s problem.” In other words, Pouillon needed killing.

Jim Pouillon's tactics in protesting abortion were controversial to be sure. He carried signs with a picture of a healthy baby on one side and a photograph of a dismembered, aborted fetus on the other. He aimed to show passers-by the horrors of abortion.

Pouillon's personal history was spotty with a series of family disputes and strained relationships. Jim Pouillon had few admirers in Owosso, Michigan. In fact, the local paper, The Argus-Press, said in an editorial five days after the killings, "His sign, often accompanied by his shouting at passers-by, gave his cause, indeed his town of Owosso as well, a bad name." No evidence of such reputation editorializing emerges from Wichita after the murder of Dr. George Tiller. Evidently, in the public mind, vocally showing people pictures of aborted fetuses is one thing while being the one who actually, but very politely and quietly, does that dismembering is another thing altogether. The former is heinous and disgusting; the latter merely falls into the category of health care, or reproductive “rights.”

In fact, prosecutors in Michigan were so concerned about Pouillon's reputation for abrasiveness that they doubted their ability to get a fair trial from an unbiased jury of Drake's peers. Again, Pouillon had few defenders for his pro-life protesting.

The trial is underway and should continue for two more weeks, but it will do so without the participation of Owossohites like Judy Jackson, 64, who told one reporter, "I don't agree with someone taking someone's life. But I don't miss the man on the corner or his foul mouth. He would chase you, call you names. He was evil. His pictures were so gross." In other words, to locals like Ms. Jackson, he had it coming. After all, Pouillon was “evil.” He performed the dastardly deed of displaying before human eyes the atrocities of abortion.

In America, or at least in Michigan and Kansas, what offends is not so much what you do as it is how you do it. Suction babies out from their mothers' wombs, or stick scissors into their heads if you must, but please we just ask that you not show us what it looks like. Our souls may not be delicate, but our eyes and our sensibilities most certainly are.

And therein lies the difference between the cause celebre that is Scott Roeder and the quickly forgotten mama's boy, Harlan Drake.

I can't decide. 7 out of 10 married persons say they would marry the same partner all over again. Is that good or bad?

7 means that most married folks (like me, I should point out early on!) would make the same decision. I actually look forward to the years ahead and growing old together with She Who Must Not Be Named. 7 means 70% are more or less in agreement with that statement. 7/10 full.

But that also means that 3 out of 10 married people are miserable or darn close to it. As Meat Loaf said, "Praying for the end of time, so I can end my time with you." That is really tragic. To have made a crucial decision and watch it fail to thrive. 3/10 is a lot of half-empty.

So what is the one key ingredient in a 7/10 couple? Humor? Forgiveness? Shared faith? Stable finances?
No, the indispensable ingredient is deep, genuine friendship. That is where true love resides. When the finances are stripped away, when the romance flickers, when life hits the fan, a relationship deeply rooted in genuine friendship with one another will stand the test. My grandmother was right. "Don't marry someone you can live with. Marry someone you can't live without."

Great hour tonight on miracles. According to the new Pew study, 4 out of 5 of us believe in miracles. Does not surprise me at all.

So I opened the phones for you to share what you think a miracle is and whether you have experienced one. The show should be posted on the site tomorrow if you missed it and would like to listen.

As you wait, here is an email miracle:

Allen, this is an actual miracle.

In the late 70's I was driving home to Asheville, NC from Orangeburg, SC, after a night of playing a 4 hour gig, stopping in Columbia to down a few drinks, and trying to get home before sunlight.

Well, as we got close to NC driving up I-26 I started to fall asleep at the wheel. It must have been about 3 or 4am. Just as I started to veer over into the mountain side I felt hands on top of my hands turn the starring wheel back onto the road. The combination of feeling those hands on me and knowing that I had almost gotten us killed, woke me up scared to death. I immediately pulled over and told my partner what had happened. I don't think he believed me. But I was so sleepy I demanded that he drive so I could sleep.

In less than 30 minutes the exact same thing happened to him and he pulled over and told me. He refused to drive anymore and I forced myself to stay awake and got us home.

I have only seen my partner once or twice in the last 30 years but he would tell you the same story. That's not something you forget.

I truly believe God saved our lives that night even though we tempted him twice the same evening! I do not know why we were spared but I am very happy that it wasn't our time. This incident furthered my belief in the Lord, although I've never been very religious.

But I do know God is real!

You can use my name.

Steve Callas

Yitta Schwarz was my kind of gal
She, her husband and their first 6 kids were sent to the Nazi concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen

They later immigrated to America in 1953 – and she eventually birthed a total of 16 kids. I love it!

A devout Hasidic Jew, Yidda saw life as a gift and a blessing from God.
She practiced her faith intently even into her 90's.
She attended all the circumcisions, first haircuts, bar mitzvahs, engagements, and weddings of her immense family.
One of her sons finally had to create a family calendar just for her to keep up with the obligations.

When she died last month, Yidda was 93.
And she left behind 15 living children, more than 200 grandchildren, and close to 2000 living relatives.
2000 thumbs in the eyes of the Nazis who wanted to eliminate the Jewish people. I love it a lot!

Mrs. Schwartz did not want her children to collect photographs of her.
“Just keep me in your heart. If you leave a child or grandchild, you live forever.”

May she rest in peace.

You can read her full obituary here.

I surely am the biggest advocate of forgiveness that radio has ever experienced (not saying much, I know)

But this guy stretches the bounds of even my grace standards. Could you forgive a guy (or vote for him) who had an affair with his mother-in-law while his wife was pregnant?

Give the man credit for one thing - it takes real guts to run for public office knowing that everyone will learn about your story.

Just not sure that I could bring myself to vote for someone who did this or even work for him if he were my boss.

Eeewwwwww!