The World and Everything in It: June 18, 2026

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MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good journalism doesn’t just tell you what’s happening, it helps you understand what’s happening.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: That’s why WORLD presents the news with careful reporting, thoughtful analysis, and confidence that God is sovereign over all of it.

BROWN: During our June Giving Drive, would you help sustain that work? 

WNG.org/donate.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

Hard-to-regulate supplements may leave users dangerously in the dark about their effects.

WHEELER: He had no way of realizing that they were 50 to 100 times more powerful.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And, leveling the financial playing field in college sports.

Also, faith-based medicine in a changing political environment.

And, Justice Samuel Alito's legacy on the Supreme Court.

HEMINGWAY: He's been a very powerful, steady, courageous voice for doing difficult things.

Later: WORLD Commentator Seth Troutt on the lasting lessons of a dad who cares.

BROWN: It’s Thursday, June 18th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. 

I’m Myrna Brown.

MAST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Good morning!

BROWN: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Iran deal signed » The U.S. and Iran have signed a deal to end their war — and it's already taking effect.

President Trump signed the memorandum last night during a dinner at Versailles. A U.S. official says Iranian leader Masoud Pezeshkian signed as well. But Trump is calling it only a framework — with 60 days to negotiate on Iran’s nuclear program and reach a final deal.

TRUMP: If it doesn't get done in 60 days, that's all right — we go back to bombing. I don't want to do that, because it's so good, but we might have to.

Under the agreement, Iran agrees to dilute its highly enriched uranium and not build a nuclear weapon. In return, the U.S. waives — but doesn't permanently end — sanctions and lets Iran sell oil again. Iranian oil tankers are already moving back out through the Strait of Hormuz.

The deal also points to up to $300 billion in private investment to rebuild Iran — unlocked only if Tehran complies. That’s pledged by companies in the Gulf and beyond.

The deal also includes the release of frozen Iranian assets — paid out gradually as talks progress.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney addressed that from the G7 summit in France.

CARNEY: If you have money that's linked to — which is the case with this deal, which has conditions and is linked to the fulfillment of those conditions and being managed — sometimes you have third countries do that. Canada is of course willing to help, if that's appropriate.

Carney says no Canadian money is going in.

It’s unclear if a formal signing ceremony scheduled for tomorrow in Switzerland will still take place.

Israel-Lebanon » A key component of that framework peace deal calls for the complete end of Israel's military operations in southern Lebanon. But that hasn’t stopped Israel from continuing airstrikes against the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon — with fresh strikes on Wednesday.

President Trump issued a rare rebuke of Israel's military actions while speaking to reporters in France.

TRUMP: I think they could do better with respect to Hezbollah. I'm not saying they shouldn't protect themselves. I'm saying that when two drones are shot into the desert and dropped harmlessly, you don't have to knock down buildings.

But Israel's ambassador to the United States told NPR that Israel will not withdraw from Lebanon unless Hezbollah disarms and said Tehran needs to stay out of that conflict.

And the leader of the terror group Hezbollah also issued a defiant statement on Wednesday.

KASSEM: [Speaking Arabic]

Sheikh Naim Kassem said Hezbollah has no intention of disarming. He also thanked the leadership of Iran for—as he put it—sacrificing to support Lebanon's resistance and stop Israeli aggression.

Kevin Warsh briefing on economy » The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady Wednesday — but signaled its next move could be a hike, not a cut.

It was the first meeting for new Fed chair Kevin Warsh, appointed by President Trump.

WARSH: Economic activity is expanding at a solid pace despite elevated uncertainty that owes in part to the conflict in the Middle East

But behind that steady picture, a sharp turn, nearly half the Fed's policymakers now expect at least one rate hike this year — a reversal from March, when they'd projected a cut. Inflation is running at its highest in more than three years. For borrowers, that means no near-term relief on mortgages and car loans.

Warsh also scrapped the Fed's earlier signal that more cuts were coming. And he's launching five task forces to overhaul how the central bank forecasts and communicates.

Trump appointed Warsh after pressing for deeper rate cuts. Wednesday's signal points the other way.

Tropical Storm Arthur » Tropical Storm Arthur has largely fizzled out — but the flooding it triggered is peaking this morning across the Gulf Coast. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports:

KRISTEN FLAVIN: Arthur formed off the Texas coast Wednesday, the Atlantic season's first named storm, dumping heavy rain on the Houston area. It quickly turned deadly: authorities say at least two people drowned in Texas flash floods, including a fifteen-year-old boy.

The storm was weak and short-lived. But the National Hurricane Center says the danger isn't the wind — it's the rain. Forecasters expect up to ten inches, with some spots near twenty, and flash flood warnings now stretch from Louisiana across Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle — through Friday.

Forecasters are also warning of life-threatening surf and possible tornadoes today.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

A mother and child recover from Ebola » In eastern Congo, a 16-month-old boy who had been bleeding from the mouth and nose has beaten Ebola. His mother also recovered from the disease. They walked out of a treatment center this week, among seven survivors released together — a rare bright spot in a worsening outbreak.

More than 830 people have been infected, and nearly 200 have died. The strain spreading here has no approved vaccine or treatment. And Africa's top health agency warns that if it isn't contained soon, it could become the worst outbreak on record.

I'm Kent Covington.

Coming up: practicing faith-based medicine in New York City. Plus, an interview with Mollie Hemingway about Justice Samuel Alito.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Thursday the 18th of June.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

First up on The World and Everything in It: kratom, supplement or street drug.

U.S. Poison Control says use of kratom is rising. It’s a southeast asian tree and people use the leaves for tea. It started gaining popularity in the U.S. about 15 years ago.

Now, people can buy Kratom derivatives in gas stations and smoke shops in the form of liquid, gummies, pills, and even imitation ice cream cones. Some say kratom helps people detox from opioids… others say it’s not well-regulated, putting users at risk.

BROWN: At least six states already ban the kratom plant outright, and more ban its stronger derivative 7-OH.

WORLD’s Mary Muncy reports.

MARY MUNCY: In 2022, Patti Wheeler’s twin sons, Wyatt and Gannon, were living together in Texas. They were both 27.

One day, Gannon heard a loud thumping from Wyatt’s room and found him having a seizure. He helped Wyatt onto the floor.

WHEELER: And he just died right there in his brother's arms, and you know, Gannon couldn't do anything about it.

Texas called it a combined toxicology death since he had things like NyQuil and Prozac in his system, but kratom was the most prevalent.

Wheeler thinks Wyatt started using it about six weeks before he died as an alcohol replacement. He did the same thing with natural kratom for a few months in 2014.

This time, he used O.P.M.S, a brand of liquid synthetic kratom mostly made up of the active components of the plant: mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragenine, or 7-OH.

WHEELER: I just think he, that he had no way of realizing that they were, you know, 50 to 100 times more powerful than the powder that he had consumed in 14.

The Food and Drug Administration warns against using kratom because it’s not well studied, and it specifically warns against using the brand, O.P.M.S, because of links to severe health complications and death.

It’s hard to know the exact number of people kratom has killed, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a 1,200 percent increase in exposures between 2015 and 2025. Going from a few hundred to a few thousand.

U.S. Poison Control is on track to receive about 60 percent more calls about kratom exposure than last year.

KAIT BROWN: Not all kratom products are the same.

Kait Brown is the Clinical Managing Director for America’s Poison Centers. She’s based in Utah, where they pronounce it “KRAH-tuhm.”

She says the kratom plant has very little of the active components that can make it dangerous, but synthetic products are mostly comprised of them.

BROWN: That's where we're seeing the market for kratom moving in the United States recently, which is really raising concern.

The active ingredient 7-OH binds to opioid receptors and can have the same breathing and heart-rate slowing effects as the drug. And since it’s binding to opioid receptors, some research shows that people who stop regular kratom use can have withdrawal symptoms.

As concerning as that is, Brown says the bigger problem is poor labeling.

BROWN: Someone that maybe regularly uses kratom, or just someone who's at the gas station and sees a new kind of small beverage shot, may not know that they're getting a really large dose of something that has opioid-like effects.

Kratom is considered a supplement like vitamin D or melatonin, so it isn’t subject to the same regulations as something like ibuprofen. That means it could be mislabeled.

Kratom advocates like the American Kratom Association agree that synthetic kratom is dangerous, but they point to some studies that say natural kratom is a safe alternative to alcohol or drugs, and can help people detox from opioids.

Lorenzo Guerrero owns Bulk Kratom Depot. He started selling kratom after it helped him stop drinking alcohol. He doesn’t like 7-OH products because they reflect poorly on the plant.

GUERRERO: I've been drinking it for, I don't know, a few years now, and I go to the doctor, just like everybody else, and I get checked out, and he tells me that I'm healthy.

He says all types of people buy his products and drink kratom in tea in the shops he visits. He says it’s a growing community, at least in his area near Tampa, Florida.

GUERRERO: Everybody should use everything responsibly, whether it's kratom, whether it's coffee, whether it's sugar, everything, everything in moderation, and kratom is included in that.

Right now, kratom remains legal in Florida, and the state’s 7-OH ban is set to expire at the end of this month.

Last summer, the FDA recommended the Drug Enforcement Administration schedule 7-OH as something that doesn’t have health benefits and does have potential for abuse. The DEA currently lists it as a chemical of concern.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy in Seminole, Florida.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: Fixing college sports.

Today, members of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee will mark up the Protect College Sports Act. The bill aims to regulate the wild west of college sports law.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Legal fights in recent years have turned up the heat for schools recruiting talent for basketball and football teams, while cutting other programs to keep up with costs.

Can Congress fix what’s broken?

WORLD’s Harrison Watters reports from Washington.

HARRISON WATTERS: In 2025, Saint Francis University returned to the NCAA tournament after 34 years.

ANNOUNCER: St Francis is out of fouls…

The game with Alabama State was tied with two seconds to go. Then a layup sent Saint Francis home.

TASSELL: Before some of our players were even back to campus, they were announcing that they were going to go in the portal.

Father Malachi Van Tassell is the Catholic school’s president…and he’s referring to the transfer portal. It allows Division 1 players to change teams without sitting out a full season in between. That started in 2024.

TASSELL: Once that happened, we felt that effect immediately at Saint Francis.

The school had fewer than 2,000 students. Players across the school’s 23 teams started finding better deals elsewhere.

TASSELL: You know, out of 125 players, to have your top 35 go in, then you're not only recruiting a freshman class, then you have to replace all these guys who transfer out.

American schools have long attracted students with athletic scholarships, and many paid for them with media deals.

But in the last decade, spending has ballooned, and student athletes found it unfair the coaches make millions of dollars while amateur athletes got nothing. Here’s Andrew Zimbalist, Professor of Economics at Smith College in Massachusetts.

ZIMBALIST: There was finally a settlement in the House case, which said that athletes could get paid NIL money.

NIL name, image and likeness. House v. NCAA was a trio of cases where student athletes successfully argued the association violated antitrust laws by using athletes’ names, images, and likenesses, but prohibited them from getting paid.

The 2025 settlement set off a spending spree, as top universities fought bidding wars for athletes using lucrative deals on top of scholarships. Smaller schools cut sports like tennis and diving to shore up their football and basketball rosters.

At a recent hearing on Capitol Hill, retired University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban said there’s no end in sight.

SABAN: Now you have schools that have close to $40 million rosters. So, if we continue to do that, we're going to lose Olympic sports, we're going to lose non-revenue sports, we're going to lose scholarships.

In May, Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz and Washington Democrat Senator Maria Cantwell released text for a bill to address some of the problems exposed by the House Settlement. Here’s Cruz.

CRUZ: If we do nothing, the current trajectory will concentrate more power in fewer hands and will widen the gap between the richest programs and everyone else.

The bill covers a lot of ground. It would protect the NCAA from future lawsuits about rules limiting athlete and coach transfers. It would also give schools more options to make money on college sports, though sports economist Zimbalist says that approach focuses on the wrong issue.

ZIMBALIST: The financial problems in college sports need to be dealt with on the cost side, not on the revenue side.

Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno pointed out another problem:

MORENO: …it does nothing about protecting biological women from competing with men in sports.

After last year’s tournament loss, Saint Francis University moved ahead with a plan in the works for several years.

TASSELL: Our decision to become a Division Three institution in the President's Athletics Conference…

NCAA Division III schools operate under a different structure–with no athletic scholarships. The school finished its D-I career last month, and will compete in D-III come this Fall. President Tassell says it’s unlikely Saint Francis will ever return to Division 1.

TASSELL: Should small schools be in the athletics business, you know? Should any of us be, and that's a question that only an institution can answer for itself.

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation committee convenes later today to work on the legislation.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Harrison Watters, in Washington.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Coming next on The WORLD And Everything in it: Standing firm!

In 2006, the state of New York got its first faith-based, federally certified, nonprofit health center, health care, backed by the government, grounded with a Christian worldview.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: I recently spent an afternoon with the two doctors who founded Beacon Christian Community Health Center. We talked about healing and hope in an ever changing political environment.

Doctors David and Janet Kim dreamed of opening a Christian, community health center in Staten Island, where Dr. David was born and raised.

DR. DAVID KIM: Because when everyone thinks of New York City they think oh yeah, Manhattan, the Bronx, Brookly, Queens. But nobody even remembers that Staten Island is part of New York City.

And in the early 2000s, even fewer had ever heard of faith-based community health care.

DR. DAVID KIM: I got a phone call. The call is from a fairly high up guy in the department of health. You know it says here that you’re a faith-based health center. What does that mean? Do you do exorcisms? Do you put holy water on people?

Dr. Kim explained the center’s mission: to honor God by caring for the physical, mental and spiritual health of the community. Then, he had to have the same conversation with the uninsured families he wanted to serve.

DR. DAVID KIM: You’re not just coming here to take money from the community and run off somewhere else. And so it took some months and actually years to gain the community’s trust.

Beacon Christian Community Health Center was finally up and running. President George W. Bush had just established the White House Faith-Based and Community Initiative. The Kims applied for funding through the new program, but their application was initially rejected. They applied again, but this time during the Obama administration.

DR. DAVID KIM: So, I like to say I thank president Bush for getting me in the door and I thank President Obama for giving us the money. But I think this also speaks to the fact that as Christians if we’re going to be able to function we need to be able to find that common ground.

The Kim’s have been reaching across the aisle ever since.

DR. JANET KIM: We came to learn we had to know how to speak with our local elected officials. We had to learn who represents us in the City Council. Who are our state officials? And then learning about the federal level. I think that was one part of the job we didn’t really realize we would have to get very heavily involved with.

But the hard work has paid off.

DR.DAVID KIM: This one was a proclamation in honor of National Health Center week…

Several city and state proclamations line the walls of Beacon.

MYRNA BROWN: Who was the mayor?

DR. DAVID KIM: That was Bill DeBlasio

But what happens when ideologies clash? The last six months have brought big changes to New York’s medical landscape.

KATHY HOCHUL: I realize we’re not talking about ending life early or about ending dying early…

December 17, 2025. New York Governor Kathy Hochul announces plans to make medically assisted suicide legal.

January 1, 2026…

SWEARING IN: I Zohran… Mamadani.. do solemnly swear…

…Democratic Socialist, Zohran Mamdani is inaugurated mayor of New York City.

Friday June 12th… New York City Hall….

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: Happy pride everyone![applause]

…Mayor Mamdani unveils a massive healthcare initiative…

As a first step, my administration has made a 15 million dollar investment in gender affirming care over the next two years.

Dr. David says these and other issues keep him up at night.

DR. DAVID KIM: Janet watches me staying up at night with these things. Certainly the national transgender discussion has been one of those times that we’ve kind of looked at and said God you need to help us figure out a way through this. But because of our ability through the grace of God to sit and talk with people, we’ve been able to get through a lot of those situations without really having to compromise anything.

And now that medically assisted suicide is legal in the state of New York….Dr. Kim says some of his patients are curious.

DR. DAVID KIM: I’ve been asked by some patients if it made sense. Patients who are suffering from various conditions. But again because of our relationships with our patients, we’ve been able to kind of dig underneath the surface.

And through prayer and conversation they’ve addressed the issue from a biblical perspective. The Kims say those who disagree with their methods can’t argue with the outcomes.

MYRNA BROWN: So what are we doing now?

DR. DAVID KIM: We’re going to walk over to the other building…

Just two blocks from their original site…Beacon’s second location…opened in 2014.

DR. DAVID KIM: The other site where we were before does mostly adult medicine, GYN and optometry. This site does most of our pediatrics as well as our nutrition, our mental health is in this location as well our future dental suite, which is actually at the far end over there.

They estimate they serve more than 5000 different patients a year. Moms like Damaris Barrios.

DAMARIS BARRIOS: For a doctor to take the time to say you know what, let’s pray over you. Let’s pray over your situation. Let’s pray over your children.

The 50-year-old breast cancer survivor is not only a patient, she serves on Beacon’s board of directors.

DAMARIS BARRIOS: I’m basically praying over Beacon everyday. Every chance I get.

After twenty years of ministry in a state that’s seen so much change, the Kims are convinced the prayers of the righteous are availing much.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Here we go, pizza at the speed of pizza.

SOUND: [Dough slapping, crowd cheering]

A Domino’s manager in Virginia can now make a credible claim to being the fastest pizza maker on Earth.

At the company’s world championship competition, Richard Delcid built three complete pizzas in 31 seconds: a pepperoni, a mushroom, and a cheese.

Competition rules required them to be good enough to serve paying customers. (Which is another subject for another day.)

But Delcid shattered the previous record by eight seconds. He took home ten thousand dollars in prize money and bonuses.

SOUND: [Making pizzas in store]

He repeated the performance in his pizza kitchen back home ... and was asked, How you feeling?

AUDIO: My heart’s beating! Ha!

A reminder that, for now at least, the world’s fastest pizza maker is still a person.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, June 18th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: one of the Supreme Court’s most influential justices.

Justice Samuel Alito has served two decades and authored the majority opinion in the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, one of the court’s most consequential rulings.

BROWN: Mollie Hemingway is senior editor of the Federalist and is a Fox News contributor. She’s also the author of a new biography called Alito: The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution. She spoke recently with Nick Eicher about Alito and his influence on the court.

NICK EICHER: You call him the Justice who reshaped the Supreme Court and restored the Constitution, two really big claims right on the cover of the book, Mollie. What did Samuel Alito do that others did not?

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY: The court had become this place where people just put their politics in the place of legal reasoning. They would just say, we wish things were this way. So we're just going to say it's in the Constitution. Alito, who's been on the court for 20 years, has reshaped it into an understanding that you're not allowed to just make it whatever you want to be, but you are constrained by the constitutional limits that are there and then. He's also just been a very powerful, steady, courageous voice for doing difficult things such as overturning Roe v. Wade, which everybody recognized, left and right. Even if they liked abortion, they recognized it was a bad decision. He had the courage to overturn that and other things that needed to be taken care of as well.

EICHER: Where does that come from? Intellect? Temperament?

HEMINGWAY: Certainly known for his intellect, but I think in the case of Dobbs, that was more an issue of courage and prudence. You needed to have both of them, too. You need to be courageous, because everyone who had tried to do it previously had not been able to withstand the intense pressure campaigns that come along with the effort. And you need to be prudent in getting together and keeping together a majority to do the difficult work that needed to be done.

EICHER: I’m curious about that second part, where Alito succeeds in keeping the majority together. How does that happen?

HEMINGWAY: Alito is known for not being too particular about opinions that he's the author of, that he needs other people to be, to be with. He takes their edits. He's happy to include what he might think is an unnecessary phrase, but if it's important to someone else, he's generous with his prose. And that actually is necessary, because each of these justices cares deeply about their own particular issue, and they feel strongly about it being included, particularly on landmark decisions.

EICHER: Dobbs is respected as a reasoned decision, a really good legal decision, but there was nothing novel. There wasn't anything particularly new to people who've been in the pro-life movement or who've been involved in the legal work around the pro-life movement. But you argue in the book that a lot of people knew that Roe was wrong from the beginning and weak law, but nobody ever did anything about it. Why do you suppose that was true?

HEMINGWAY: There had been so many efforts to overturn Roe since 1973. I actually go through the history in the book of how it was an accident from the very beginning. The pressure campaigns from people who support abortion are almost unbearable, and they had previously been unbearable for members of the court. There had been a lot of attempts to overturn Roe, but people would not be able to withstand that. The entire media complex was arrayed against them, and then the well-funded pro-abortion movement as well.

EICHER: I remember the Casey decision, which predates Justice Alito, and I remember it now as an example of the staying power of the Roe abortion precedent at the court—even though there was this kind of embarrassment around Roe as just an unprincipled decision. I was writing a lot about abortion at WORLD at that time and I remember thinking, maybe the court finds its courage. But not only didn’t it. The court doubled down.

HEMINGWAY: Republican voters and Republicans had realized there was a problem with the court. By the early 80s, at the latest, they start putting together an actual movement to put better justices on the court, and yet, for some reason, they still kept failing. Casey gets to the court in 1992. By that point, eight of the justices were appointed by Republicans, and the one Democrat was Byron White, who had been one of the two dissenters in Roe v. Wade. So everybody knew this was finally going to be overturned, this thing that never should have been passed. And instead, there was a major media blitz. There were major political factions in play, and the court was unable to withstand the pressure, and they end up reasserting Roe saying that that you can't fight about it anymore. And it began another 30 years of trauma at the court.

EICHER: Casey shows that recognizing Roe’s weakness is not enough. You needed a majority willing to withstand the pressure. So by the time Dobbs had arrived, what had changed—and why was Alito the justice to carry it across the finish line?

HEMINGWAY: It doesn't matter if you have one or two or three good justices, if you don't have a majority to do the difficult work of handing down that decision. When you look at who was on that Dobbs majority, it wasn't Chief Justice John Roberts, it was Thomas, Alito, and the three Trump appointees. They had not even been on the court that long, and they were able to withstand the pressure. I know people sometimes have disagreements with each of the justices, but that showed amazing fortitude and courage for them all to keep with that majority. I mean, on the one hand, everyone knew that Roe was wrong, and so it shouldn't take that much to overturn bad precedent. But given the pressure campaign, they all should be regarded for what they did. And also, I think you know the people who did the heavy lifting, which would be Justice Alito, authoring the decision and keeping everyone together, deserve particular praise there.

EICHER: Mollie Hemingway is author of the book Alito. Mollie, tremendous work.

HEMINGWAY: Thank you.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

This weekend, many of us will celebrate the fathers in our lives. WORLD Commentator Seth Troutt remembers lessons his dad quietly taught him about how to live in a way that honors our Heavenly father.

SETH TROUTT: When I was growing up, my dad never read a parenting book. At least not that I know of.

He didn’t talk about parenting strategies. Or develop a philosophy of fatherhood. He just lived his life, and lessons kept leaking out of him.

When I was a kid, I woke up in the middle of the night and asked if I could sleep in my parents’ room. Dad said yes, but gave me one instruction. “Don’t wake your mother.”

I said, “I’ll try.”

Dad’s response, “Trying won’t be good enough.”

At the time, it sounded harsh. Today, I hear something different. I hear a father who believed his son was capable.

That was one of Dad’s recurring themes. Responsibility wasn’t something to fear. It was something to embrace.

Years later, when I wanted to quit football halfway through a season, I told him I didn’t want to go to practice.

“That’s okay. You don’t have to want to go … but you have to go.”

Feelings mattered to my Dad. They just didn’t get the final vote.

My father had a way of reducing life to sentences you couldn’t forget. Like this one when I was a teenager.

One day, when I was a teenager, he pointed at the beer he was drinking and asked, “Do you see what I’m doing?”

“Drinking a beer?” I answered.

“Yep,” he said. “So when your dumb friends think drinking is super cool, just remember your dad does it, and it’s not that cool.”

That was Dad. Confident. Direct. A little funny. Entirely unembarrassed.

Most of what fathers do isn’t dramatic. It’s thousands of small moments that accumulate over years until they become a way of seeing the world.

A few years ago, I wrote down many of my father’s sayings.

One stood above the rest.

When I was considering leaving basketball, he told me, “You can be anything you want. But you cannot be a loser.”

He wasn’t talking about money or fame. He meant that a person made in God’s image has too much capacity, too much responsibility, and too much opportunity to drift through life making excuses.

As a father now, I find myself understanding my dad better than I did when I was young.

The older I get, the less I think my father was teaching me how to succeed.

I think he was teaching me how to take responsibility for the life God had given me.

And perhaps that’s one of God’s gifts.

Children spend years learning from their fathers. Then one day, if they’re blessed, they discover they’re still learning.

Happy Fathers’ Day.

For WORLD, I’m Seth Troutt.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: WORLD’s June Giving Drive continues. If you’ve not given yet, we still need you! You can show your support today at WNG.org/donate.

Tomorrow: Katie McCoy will be here for Culture Friday. And, Collin Garbarino reviews Toy Story 5. 

That and more tomorrow. I’m Lindsay Mast.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says, “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” —Proverbs 17:22

Go now in grace and peace.

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