How you can own Marie Antoinette’s jewels

The personal jewels of Marie Antoinette are going on auction in November. You can buy her diamond and pearl pendant valued between $1 and $2 million, a pearl and diamond necklace valued between $200,000 and $300,000, and a diamond brooch valued between $50,000 and $80,000. There’s also a diamond ring containing a lock of the queen’s hair worth an estimated $20,000 to $50,000.

For slightly less money, you can own a box of cereal based on The Golden Girls television show, which aired on NBC from 1985 to 1992. The cereal features a toy figure of Rose, Blanche, Dorothy, or Sophia. It is selling out quickly, but you can buy a box for $50 on eBay. Someone is selling a single lot of eighteen boxes for $2,000.

In other news, the floor of a clubhouse near Clemson University collapsed yesterday morning, sending thirty people to the hospital. A train derailed yesterday in Taiwan, killing twenty-two and injuring 171 others. And three former Florida police officers were sentenced to prison for conspiring to falsely arrest people in order to improve their department’s crime statistics.

As long as people yearn to be more successful than they are, there will be a market for celebrity possessions and memorabilia. In our broken, unpredictable world, we yearn for security that transcends our circumstances.

But neither public celebrity nor personal security meets the deepest need of our souls.

Greetings from Israel

I’m writing this morning from Israel, where I’ve been leading study tours for the last two weeks. It’s been my privilege to travel to the Holy Land multiple times a year since 1995, but each time I come is like the first time. It is always a great joy to be here.

Yesterday, our group walked through Hezekiah’s Tunnel, one of the most astounding locations in Israel. In the eighth century BC, as the Assyrian Empire threatened his nation, King Hezekiah built a tunnel to protect the Gihon Spring and bring its water inside the city (2 Chronicles…