The image of an apron-clad matriarch delivering a home-roasted turkey to the table on Thanksgiving Day (as immortalized by Norman Rockwell) is increasingly an icon of the past.

The National Restaurant Association reports that in 2006, 53 percent of American households used restaurant-prepared takeout items to supplement their Thanksgiving dinners, and 6 percent purchased fully prepared meals from restaurants, ...

In data collected from over 20,000 Christians in 139 countries (though mostly in America) and between the ages of 15 and 88, The Obstacles to Growth Survey found that, on average, more than 4 in 10 Christians around the world say they "often" or "always" rush from task to task. About 6 in 10 Christians say that it's "often" or "always" true that "the busyness of life gets in the way of developing ...

The Long Walk Home, a movie starring Sissy Spacek and Whoopi Goldberg, tells of the relationship between a white housewife, Miriam Thompson, and her black housekeeper, Odessa Cotter, during the 1955 Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott. Miriam begins to sympathize with Odessa and her long, 9-mile walk to and from work. Defying her racist husband and the White Citizen's Council, she decides to drive Odessa ...

A South Korean man has died after playing Starcraft, an online battle simulation game, for almost 50 hours straight. Local newspapers—referring to the man only by his last name, Lee—reported that he had recently been fired from his job for spending too much time playing computer games.

That's when Lee sat down at a local Internet café in the southern city of Taegu. He logged in on Wednesday, August ...

Kenneth Behring seemed to have everything. He was affluent and generous. But something transformed him during a trip to Vietnam in 2000. The retired construction magnate was helping a relief organization bring food and medicine to a village. It was there Behring personally delivered a wheelchair to a 6-year-old polio victim. The girl's reaction changed his life.

"She got a big smile on her face. She ...

Known for their luxury watches, Swiss watchmaker Patek Philippe has also become well-known for its clever advertising slogan: "You never actually own a Patek Philippe; you merely take care of it for the next generation."

So it is with what we "own": money, gifts, ministries, time, and our very lives.

Here are a few lessons that humor columnist Dave Barry says took him 50 years to learn.

1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings." 3. There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness." ...

Alice Chaffin had received hundreds of thank-you notes for her work as a volunteer. But when the 87-year-old brought a hand-knitted shawl to a disabled woman, she was overwhelmed by the woman's joyous response. "She didn't know there were individuals who did things for people they didn't even know, and it made me feel that what I was doing was truly worthwhile," Chaffin says.

As head of Helpmates, ...

Americans say whether they would work an 80 hour work week for a few years if there was potential for a large financial payoff:

No, personal life is too important: 54 percent

Yes, payoff is worth the sacrifice: 46 percent

Of places Americans volunteer to work, rank of the church: 1