Escape

In the quiet fields of Jackson County, Michigan, something wild—and wildly unexpected—was caught on camera: a zedonk, the rare hybrid offspring of a zebra and a donkey. With the sturdy build of a donkey and the striking black-and-white stripes of a zebra only on its hindquarters and legs, this animal is turning heads and stirring up scientific curiosity.

The unusual creature first drew attention when local police received early morning calls about a donkey obstructing traffic. But when officers arrived at the scene, they realized it wasn’t just any donkey—it was a zedonk. Unlike a zonkey, which is the result of a zebra father and a donkey mother, a zedonk comes from a zebra mother and a donkey father. This distinction matters to biologists because the parentage can affect both appearance and behavior in hybrid offspring.

Officers found the animal had already wandered into a pasture just north of the reported location. It turned out the zedonk had escaped from a nearby farm known for breeding hybrid animals. Fortunately, authorities confirmed that there was no sign of mistreatment or neglect contributing to the escape.

"Occasional escapes are just part of livestock farming," Public Safety Director Darin McIntosh told local reporters.

The zedonk’s brief adventure was caught on film. A local resident’s home security camera recorded the hybrid calmly strolling near parked vehicles, giving locals and officials alike an up-close look at this striking anomaly of nature.

Police later confirmed that the zedonk was unharmed during its wanderings. The zedonk now stands as a living reminder that nature still has surprises in store—and sometimes, they come with stripes.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The appearance of a rare and unexpected zedonks reminds us that God’s creation can surprise us, and that He often uses the unusual to capture our attention and teach us. Creation, in its diversity, is meant to bring glory and praise to its Maker.

As fire threatened people in Jasper National Park, Colleen Knull sprang into action. “I like to be able to help people,” said the 18-year-old. “I like the fact that what I do in my work does good.”

Knull is a volunteer firefighter in North Okanagan in Alberta, Canada. She was working a summer job as part of the kitchen staff at a Jasper lodge when one night an evacuation order was issued for the area. “The smoke was coming up from the mountainside,” said Knull. “It was big.”

Knull quickly spread the word to guests of the lodge and tracked down any other people camping out in the area. In total, she rallied 16 people together for a four-hour hike in treacherous terrain to safety.

Rebecca Tocher, a hiker who was in Knull’s group said, “There was more intense smoke, my eyes were burning, there was ash falling constantly. She was an amazing leader and was just making sure that everyone was working together.”

Knull used her knowledge of the area and tracking skills to navigate in the dark. Knull said:

I had previously ridden a horse up to that lodge on that same trail and throughout the way me and my employer, we had cut logs on the way up," said Knull. "There were 67 logs, so there would be 67 cut logs on the way down…So, I used my tracking skills – following horse tracks, and horse manure.”

“She was just on it and she led it, the whole way,” said David Richmond, another hiker in the group.

“I do it because at the end of the day, I’d want somebody there to help,” said Knull.

During the hike down, the group was able to communicate with search and rescue crews to help with the evacuation. Knull eventually drove all 16 people in her pickup truck out of the evacuation zone. No one was seriously injured.

Knull said the experience reinforced her motivation to become a full-time, professional firefighter.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Rescue; Salvation; Savior, Christ only - Christ, our compassionate Savior, personally leads us through the valley of death, just as He promised, 'Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me' (Psalm 23:4). His prior experience ensures our safe passage. 2) Evangelism, Witnessing - Christians can show others the way to safety in the Lord since they know the way (John 14:6).

Sixteen-year-old Bronwynn Cruden’s family runs an escape room so she’s well-versed in the art of finding an exit. But last Halloween, her skills were critically important and might have helped save lives.

Cruden was doing homework at the front counter of Twisted Escape Rooms in the Vancouver Mall when she heard gunshots ringing out. Cruden said, “I heard ‘boom, boom.’ I didn’t process the first few shots because it sounded so loud and abrupt. Then it was like one after another after another.” Looking up, Cruden saw panicked families running through the mall.

Her first thought was to help those outside her business, so she unlocked the doors and ushered families inside, including a man holding a crying baby. She guided them to a back door for safety. Then, remembering the group of six people participating in an escape room game, she went back to alert them. “I didn’t know if they heard the shots or thought it was something else,” she explained.

Meanwhile, Cruden’s stepmother Wendy, who was out of town, was alerted to the situation through a motion detection notification on her phone. “When I saw that, I was just shaking,” said Wendy, who immediately called her daughter. “And of course, I’m just trying to keep her calm, too." Wendy instructed Cruden to lock herself in the back bathroom with the family’s two dogs and wait for help to arrive.

Cruden stayed in the bathroom, listening to sirens and police in the hallway, until a friend of her father arrived. She then learned that one person had died and two others had been injured in the shooting.

Recalling the chaotic scene, Cruden said, "I watched hundreds of parents running and picking up kids. It was the most people I’ve ever seen in that mall, and more kids than adults or teenagers. I’m mostly sad for the people, for the kids."

Wendy, reflecting on her stepdaughter's actions that night, said, "She did the right thing. She was very brave, and I felt like I was watching a hero when I saw the video.”

As the village speeches dragged on, eyes drifted to screens. Teenagers scrolled Instagram. One man texted his girlfriend. And men crowded around a phone streaming a soccer match. Just about anywhere, a scene like this would be mundane. But this was happening in a remote Indigenous village in one of the most isolated places of the planet.

The Marubo people have long lived in communal huts scattered hundreds of miles along the Ituí River deep in the Amazon rainforest. They speak their own language, hunt, fish, and trap spider monkeys to make soup or keep as pets.

They have preserved this way of life for hundreds of years through isolation—some villages can take a week to reach. But since September (of 2023), the Marubo have had high-speed internet thanks to Elon Musk.

The 2,000-member tribe is one of hundreds across Brazil that are suddenly logging on with Starlink, the satellite-internet service from Space X. Since its entry into Brazil in 2022, Starlink has swept across the world’s largest rainforest, bringing the web to one of the last offline places on Earth. The results have been less than utopian:

“When it arrived, everyone was happy,” said 73-year-old Tsainama Marubo sitting on the dirt floor of her village’s maloca, a 50-foot-tall hut where they sleep, cook, and eat together. The internet brought clear benefits, like video chats with faraway loved ones and calls for help in emergencies. “But now, things have gotten worse,” she said. […] “Young people have gotten lazy because of the internet.”

After only nine months with Starlink, the Marubo are already grappling with the same challenges that have racked American households for years: teenagers glued to phones; group chats full of gossip; addictive social networks; online strangers; violent video games; scams; misinformation; and minors watching pornography.

Leaders realized they needed limits. The internet would be switched on for only two hours in the morning, five hours in the evening, and all day Sunday.

Decades ago, the most respected Marubo shaman had visions of a hand-held device that could connect with the entire world. “It would be for the good of the people,” he said. “But in the end, it wouldn’t be.” “In the end,” he added, “there would be war.”

His son sat on the log across from him, listening. “I think the internet will bring us much more benefit than harm,” he said, “at least for now.” Regardless, he added, going back was no longer an option. “The leaders have been clear,” he said. “We can’t live without the internet.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Two things here stand out: The first, that exposing a remote tribe to this modern tool created many of the same problems experienced within modernity: Use of the internet changes the user. Secondly, the categorization of the internet as simultaneously harmful and essential is perhaps unsurprising, but it’s fascinating that putting limitations on use of the internet seems to be the best way to deal with this ambiguity.

When jurors are seated onto a panel for a trial, they’re expected to assist in the pursuit of justice. But rarely does it result in a literal foot pursuit.

However, the trial of Nicholas Carter was the exception to the rule. The Portland Press Herald reported that 31-year-old Carter had just been convicted of aggravated assault against a 14-month-old when he attempted to escape custody by running out of the courtroom while his hands were cuffed.

Detective Jeremy Leal was present in the second-floor courtroom at the time. After Carter bolted, Leal and several judicial marshals immediately gave chase, following Carter down the stairs and toward the exterior door.

“All of sudden, we hear this huge bang. Crash. Boom,” said attorney Dawn DiBlasi. “And this guy comes running down the stairs. He’s handcuffed or shackled. He’s trying to escape. Literally, he’s got his hands on the railing, coming down, trying to jump three stairs at a time. His feet weren’t shackled.”

Security footage from the incident shows another attorney, who happened to be waiting in the hallway, attempting to thwart Carter’s escape, but he was unsuccessful. Carter eventually made it outside, crossed the street, and then tripped and fell in a yard.

That’s when he was apprehended by two other men, bystanders who just happened be to serving the court as jurors in a different case, according to Sheriff Dale Lancaster. As they held him down, Detective Leal was able to bring Carter back into custody.

Nicholas Carter now faces additional charges for the escape attempt.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Just as this guilty man tried to run but was captured, there is no one fast enough or wily enough to escape the Lord’s judgment.

You might call it the sound of a rebellion. Young people in the Phoenix, Arizona valley are buying old manual typewriters and using them as a creative escape from the distractions of computers and the internet. It's what good old-fashioned typewriters do not do that’s attracting this younger generation.

Max Johnson brought his grandfather's 1964 Smith Corona to school last year; it was a novelty. Max said, “I inherited it. Rummaging through a closet of his old things. (When I bring it to school) other people are like ‘Whoa, a typewriter.’”

Max was tapping into something else. A generation interested in a machine because of what it does not have. No power cord, no internet connection, no temptation to jump online. No AI prompts. Max went on to say, “So with computers there's distractions everywhere. And if you have ADHD like me, you could get nothing done. But with a typewriter. It's just you and the keys.”

Bill Wall owns the Mesa Typewriter Exchange which has been there since 1947. He says, “I have customers from probably eight years old on up.” Unlike Bill Wall's grandfather who started the company, Bill's business is driven by collectors. Wall continues, “I would say half my customer base is probably under 30. A lot of them have a big vocabulary. They seem to have high IQs. A lot of them are homeschooled. They're very creative.”

A recent Type-In Event at the Chandler Library was organized by 21-year-old Jeremiah Buckovski. He shared, “I like the analog stuff. It's a lot more real than a computer. And I like how it's part of history. I like how they sound. I like how they feel.”

Reporter Joe Dana asked a young teen, “What's it like to write something that's permanent? You can't go back and change it.” She replied, “I think it would make me a bit nervous, hoping to make no errors.”

But permanence can be a positive. Max Johnson takes his typewriter to school every day using it for special projects during free time. He typed up one-of-a-kind letters to a local legislator and to his girlfriend. He said, “With a typewriter, what you said is what you said and nothing can change that.”

You can watch the short video here.

Daniel Skeel serves on the faculty of UPenn Law School, specializing in bankruptcy law. In recent years he has been increasingly bold in bringing his faith to bear on his scholarship. Much of that witness can be traced to what he sees as the New Testament’s inescapable—and inescapably radical—understanding of debt (and debtors).

Skeel reflects,

There came a point, where I realized that the story of the Gospel, and the idea of the fresh start with bankruptcy, are very closely parallel. The idea is that you’re indebted beyond your ability ever to escape that indebtedness (and) you can’t get out on your own. It’s almost exactly the same trajectory as the idea of who Jesus is from an evangelical perspective. (It) emphasizes that reconciliation with God can come only by embracing Christ as the Savior, not through a believer’s good works.

This sort of language might cause some hearers to balk (how simplistic!), but its pastoral traction cannot be denied. Not among those carrying student loans, not among those with mortgages, to say nothing of those asked to repay a “debt” to society. Debts weigh on people, and the prospect of the clean slate has a gut-level allure and immediacy, whatever your financial situation.

In other words, it’s not an accident that Jesus used so much debt language. It’s not something to be minimized. And not just because it’s timeless, but because it’s profound. What other type of imagery could make the burden of sin—and sin’s forgiveness—more concrete?

For decades television, and recently the internet and social media, have taken a strong foothold on people's minds, shaping perceptions, opinions, and effectively distracting people from reality. In 1961, Newton Minow, head of the Federal Communications Commission, gave a speech before TV-industry leaders. Television had become “a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, Western bad men, Western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons.” He stated that they were turning TV into “a vast wasteland.”

Major tech companies, from Microsoft to Google and Facebook's Meta, have invested vast amounts in recent years in augmented and virtual reality. "Their approaches vary, but their goal is the same: to transform entertainment from something we choose, channel by channel or stream by stream, into something we inhabit. In the metaverse, the promise goes, we will finally be able to do what science fiction foretold: live within our illusions." Why just surf the net when we can live there?

Various science fiction writers such as George Orwell (1984), Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451), and Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) have predicted people will simply give in to the deluge of compelling entertainment. "We will become so distracted and dazed by our fictions that we’ll lose our sense of what is real. We will make our escapes so comprehensive that we cannot free ourselves from them. The result will be a populace that forgets how to think, how to empathize with one another, even how to govern and be governed."

As one columnist recently observed, “It’s a place where people form communities and alliances, nurture friendships and sexual relationships, yell and flirt, cheer and pray.” It’s “a place people don’t just visit but inhabit.”

An Italian mafia boss, Gioacchino Gammino, has been on the run for decades. Gammino escaped a Rome prison in 2002 and was sentenced to life in jail the following year for murder. He was a member of a Sicilian mafia group and was one of Italy's most wanted gangsters.

He was found in Spain, where he was living under the name Manuel. A Google Street View shot showing a man resembling Gammino standing in front of a grocery shop was key to tracking the fugitive, investigators say.

Sicilian police believed Gammino was in Spain, but it was the photo of him talking to a man outside Manu's Garden, that triggered an immediate investigation. His identity was confirmed when police found a Facebook page of a now-closed restaurant which was located nearby. It had posted photos of Gammino wearing chef's clothes and he was identified by a scar on his chin.

After his arrest, he reportedly told police: "How did you find me? I haven't even called my family for 10 years."

If anyone in Hollywood is looking to reboot Crocodile Dundee with a person of color in the lead role, 26-year-old Eugene Bozzi won’t have to send in an audition tape, because he’s already got an alligator-hunting viral video under his belt.

When Bozzi was notified by his children that an alligator had wondered onto their suburban property, he went outside to investigate. He told USA TODAY that he assumed it was a baby alligator and was prepared to let it go, but when he saw its real size, he knew he needed to act.

Bozzi, a US Army veteran, said “I'm removing it because he's probably hungry. The only thing that came to my mind was to protect my kids and the other children outside." His heroic exploits were filmed and posted to Twitter, where it’s been viewed at least six million times.

When the video footage of him begins, Bozzi has a dark-colored trash receptacle tipped over on its side, lid up, mouth open, and he’s pushing it toward the gator. “Let me know when the head goes inside,” he implores the onlookers who are filming him. Then, once the gator is close enough, Bozzi swings the lid over, striking the gator on its head. As the gator violently thrashes around, he slowly tilts the can upward, trapping it inside as onlookers whoop and holler in joyful disbelief.

Bozzi said, "I used the front like a hippo mouth. I saw that he was timid, and he was backing down, so that's why I knew I had the advantage.” Afterwards, Bozzi released the gator into a nearby waterway. He said, "I feel like I was just doing what I was supposed to do at the time.”

You can view the video here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

We sometimes need to put ourselves in harm’s way to protect the weak and innocent. This is what Jesus did when he took on Satan to protect us from spiritual death.

Travel blogger Matt Karsten was sightseeing on a small dinghy during a trip to Antarctica with his wife and some friends when they happened to notice some commotion in the water. The video they took of the experience went viral.

We were heading out for a scenic Zodiac cruise between icebergs when a large pod of orcas showed up playing in the water besides us. They swam right up to the camera and said hello. Suddenly the orcas started chasing a penguin trying to eat it.

Left with no other options for survival, the penguin tried to jump into the boat. The first time it bounced off the side, but in a show of resiliency the penguin’s second attempt landed it safely inside, to the shock of everyone on the boat. The orcas gave chase for a bit, but eventually gave up and moved on. Karsten said, “After cruising for a little bit, the penguin said goodbye to the boat and hopped back into the icy water.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Often when danger rears its head, pride causes us not to take it seriously. But the enemy of our souls is just as dangerous as a hungry killer whale. There are times for careful thought, and there are times for urgent action. May the Lord guide us so that we can know in the moment which is which.

In the 1960s, towns along the northeast coast of Japan began erecting seawalls to withstand waves of about 30 feet (the height of a terrible tsunami that struck in 1933). The walls were an eyesore everywhere, but they were especially disliked in the village of Fudai.

Kotoko Wamura was the mayor of Fudai when the town began planning its seawall. Wamura had been a young man when the 1933 tsunami wiped out his home town. And he also remembered the stories of an even larger tsunami (50 feet), one that had struck in 1896.

On one side of the city, the mayor built a huge flood gate where the Fudai river meets the coast. And on the other side, he constructed a tower seawall at a height of 51 feet, the tallest seawall on the NE coast. Residents who lived in the shadow of the wall were furious, unconvinced they needed a wall so expensive and so ugly, blocking their ocean view. But Wamura wouldn't back down.

Opinions about the mayor and the wall changed on Friday March 11 2011, when a tsunami, described by one resident as "a black wave, darker than a nightmare" struck Japan. Towns up and down the coast were wiped out, but not Fudai. The wall, once derided and despised, held back an ocean of death and destruction.

One resident, Ms. Odow, owns a home right behind the seawall. Recognizing that the project was initially hated by the residents, a reporter asked what the residents thought of the mayor now. She responded, “They appreciate the mayor now ... [he is] the hero of Fudai.”

Kevin Martin was a minister at a massive church—but one of those churches where it got too burdensome. The administrative machine ate him up, and his world was blackened with depression. At one point he was so depressed, so crushed, that he hastily wrote a letter to his board, immediately resigning from office, and then wrote a letter to his wife and his children saying he would never see them again.

Kevin got in his Buick and drove up to Newfoundland, Canada, without anybody knowing where he was. He got a job as a logger. It was winter. He lived in a small metal trailer, heated at night by a small metal heater. One night, when it was 20 below, the heater stopped working. In a rage, Kevin went over to the heater, picked it up with both his hands, and chucked it out the window—then realizing that was a stupid thing to do, for it was 20 below.

He throws himself on the ground and starts pounding the floor of this small metal trailer. As he’s pounding on the floor, he is yelling out to heaven, “I hate you! I hate you! Get out of my life! I am done with this Christian game. It is over!” He went into a fetal position.

Kevin writes, I couldn’t even cry. I was too exhausted to cry. As I laid there, I heard crying, and heaving breaths, but they were not coming from me. Instead, in the bright darkness of faith, I heard Christ crying, and heaving away on the Cross. And then I knew, the blood was for me: for the Kevin who was the abandoner, the reckless wanderer, the blasphemer of heaven. And then the words rose up all around me: ‘Kevin, I am with you, and I am for you, and you will get through this. I promise you.’

Kevin rose to his feet, got into his car, sped back home, and reconciled with his family and his church. And then went on to lead that church in a healthy way.

All over the world, from the US to Germany to the UK, some people decide to disappear from their own lives without a trace--leaving their homes, jobs, and families in the middle of the night to start a second life, often without ever looking back.

In Japan, these people are sometimes referred to as jouhatsu. That’s the Japanese word for “evaporation,” but it also refers to people who vanish on purpose into thin air, and continue to conceal their whereabouts--potentially for years, even decades.

42-year-old Sugimoto said, “I got fed up with human relationships. I took a small suitcase and disappeared. I just kind of escaped.” From inescapable debt to loveless marriages, the motivations that push jouhatsu to “evaporate” can vary. Regardless of their reasons, they turn to companies that help them through the process. These operations are called “night moving” services, a nod to the secretive nature of becoming a jouhatsu. They help people who want to disappear discreetly remove themselves from their lives, and can provide lodging for them in secret whereabouts.

Sho Hatori, who founded a night-moving company, says “Normally, the reason for moving is something positive, like entering university, getting a new job or a marriage. But there’s also (other reasons), like dropping out of university, losing a job, or escaping from a stalker … What we did was support people to start a second life.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Adversity; Hardship; Escape - Life has trials, challenges, hurts and wounds that make us want to run away and escape. While people may not literally vanish, we do have other ways of isolating, hiding, or escaping from our pain and challenges.

In a sermon, the Reverend Ethan Magness quoted the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard who told this parable:

A crowded theater hosted a variety show, with various acts in it. Each act was more fantastic than the one prior, so it created louder and louder applause from the audience. Suddenly, a clown rushed on to the stage and said, “I apologize for this interruption, but I regret to inform you that our theater is on fire! You need to leave right away, and in an orderly fashion.”

But the audience thought he was part of the act, so they laughed and applauded. They thought he was very committed to the role. But the clown again implored them that they needed to leave right away or they would get seriously injured, maybe even die. And again, they greeted him with loud and thunderous applause. At last, he could do no more, and so he left the building, and the people were destroyed.

And Kierkegaard concludes in this sobering way: “Our age will go down in fiery destruction not to the sound of mourning but to applause and cheering.”

In 2013, Netflix ventured into new television territory by releasing all 13 episodes of their new show “House of Cards.” Even Netflix was shocked by how many viewers watched multiple episodes in one sitting. Although “House of Cards” was 13 hours long, Netflix reported that thousands of viewers consumed the entire series in one gulp over the weekend of its release. A later Netflix poll of TV streamers found that 61 percent defined their viewing style as watching two to six episodes at a time.

Grant McCracken, an anthropologist paid by Netflix to investigate (and promote) the habit, reported that “TV viewers are no longer zoning out as a way to forget about their day, they are tuning in, on their own schedule, to a different world. Getting immersed in multiple episodes or even multiple seasons of a show over a few weeks is a new kind of escapism that is especially welcome to today.”

This new habit of viewing TV morphed into a new word—binge-viewing. The word became widely used in 2013 after Netflix begin releasing their full seasons at once. It even prompted the Oxford Dictionary to add it to the language and also shortlisted as the Word of the Year. (The final Word of the Year for 2013 was “selfie.”)

Possible Preaching Angles:

Notice the phrases used to describe this practice (or spiritual discipline) of watching TV—“tuning in … to a different world” and “Getting immersed in multiple episodes.” That is how we should be able to describe our life of prayer, worship, and paying attention to God.

The numbers for the $101 billion (2024) video game industry are astonishing:

• 190 million Americans play video games.
• 61% of the US population plays a video game at least one hour a week.
• 28% play a minimum of 1-5 hours per week.
• 21% of US adults 18-29 spent 6-10 hours playing per week.
• 8% surpass 20 hours weekly.
• The revenues collected by the industry rivals that of professional sports, motion pictures, and television.

Why the obsession? Cultural critic Frank Guan examines the gaming craze and offers some possibilities for the mania and passion.

First, "games make sense." The rules are clear to all. According to Guan, "The purpose of a game, within it, unlike in society, is directly recognized and never discounted." Second, you are always the protagonist. "Unlike with film and television, where one has to watch the acts of others, in games, one is an agent within it." And, third, they are utterly convenient. The gamer never has "to leave the house to compete, explore, commune, exercise agency, or be happy, and the game possesses the potential to let one do all of these at once." Fourth, the game might be challenging, "but in another sense it is literally designed for a player to succeed."

No wonder Guan concludes by stressing the escapist nature of video games:

"[Video games] solve the question of meaning in a world where transcendent values have vanished … We turn to games when real life fails us—not merely in touristic fashion but closer to the case of emigrants, fleeing a home that has no place for them … . Life is terrifying; why not, then, live through what you already know?"

2024 video game stats can be found here and here

On Friday March 28, 1947, at 6:55 A.M., Bronx bus driver William Cimillo got into his bus to start his daily route. But then something happened. He decided to take a crazy leap. Fed up with New York traffic, Cimillo decided he'd had enough. Instead of sticking with his daily routine, he headed his bus south, going nowhere in particular. He stopped in New Jersey for a bite to eat, and parked in front of the White House and took a look around D.C.

Three days later, he was in Hollywood, Florida, where he stopped for a nighttime swim. Cimillo was totally free … and strapped for cash. He telegrammed his boss in New York, asking for $50, and that's when the cops showed up. Two New York detectives and a mechanic were sent to fetch the runaway driver and his bright red bus, but according to Cimillo, the mechanic couldn't really drive the bus, so they had Cimillo drive them back to New York. And when they arrived, William Cimillo discovered he'd become a legend. People across the country sent him fan mail, newspapers portrayed him as a working-class hero, and his bus-driving buddies raised enough cash to cover his legal expenses.

Realizing they were the bad guys here, the Surface Transportation System decided not to prosecute. In fact, they gave Cimillo his job back. For the rest of his life, Cimillo never pulled any more wild stunts. Instead, he kept on driving that bus for 16 more years before finally passing away in 1975. Those three crazy days in 1947 were more than enough adventure for William Cimillo. Asked why he did it, the busman would explain: "This New York traffic gets you. It's like driving in a squirrel cage." He was also quoted as saying that he just "wanted to get away from everything."

Possible Preaching Angles: New Year's Day; Problems; Pressure; Stress; Difficulties; Jobs—Do you ever feel like you the stress is too much and you just want to get away and start a fresh life somewhere else? There's a better way—trust the Lord, take a Sabbath, be faithful to your tasks, and so forth.

During the height of Marxism in Eastern Europe, the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz (pronounced Ches-wav Me-wosh) explained how so many intelligent people could have been seduced by the soulless philosophy of Communism. Milosz said it was like taking the Murti-bing pill. The idea of the "Murti-Bing pill" first appeared in a 1927 a futurist novel written by one of Milosz's contemporaries.

In the novel (titled Instability), a foreign army is threatening to invade and conquer Poland. The Polish people, nervous and exhausted, have no idea where to turn for help. Should they fight? Should they surrender? Not to worry, the leader of the foreign army offers everyone in Poland a wonderful gift—the Murti-Bing pill. Whoever took the Murti-Bing pill became instantly "serene and happy." The worries of life, including the worry about being conquered and enslaved, no longer bothered them. Takers of the Murti-Bing pill ceased to care about troublesome questions like the meaning of life or what happens after death. Everyone took the pill. But eventually those who took the Murti-Bing pill couldn't completely erase their past or escape their problems so became schizophrenic.

For Milosz, Polish intellectuals and politicians who capitulated to Communism in the 1940s and 50s had taken the Murti-Bing pill. It was the only thing that could help them cope. The pain and shock would be too much to bear, so instead they stopped asking questions about life and just took the pill and escaped.

Possible Preaching Angles: How do we take the Murti-Bing pill and try to escape from the real questions of life? What are our contemporary versions of the Murti-Bing pill—diversions, distractions, addictions, entertainment, or social media?

"If you're an average North Korean, it's nearly impossible to even leave the country—and if you are caught trying to escape, you'll probably spend the rest of your life in a political prison camp, where you might be joined by three generations of your family, all arrested for 'guilt by association.'"

PBS' show Frontline featured a group of defectors who are willing to risk everything to escape. Most of these defectors got their desire to escape from goods smuggled in from the outside that provided a different perspective on their reality. The goods included smuggled radios, DVDs, and thumb drives with Western shows.

Possible Preaching Angle:

That sounds a bit like the Bible—news from outside our system that provides a hunger for a different view of reality and a better life.