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March 20, 2020

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I can't begin to count how many hundreds of thousands of miles I've flown commercially. And I don't think I've ever missed a flight where it was my fault. Well, almost never. Recently, I was on a ministry trip with one of our young Native American leaders - not a very seasoned traveler. We had one more connection to reach our destination. It was a smaller plane - so our gate was at the far end of the airport with flights being called right and left. No call yet for our flight. So I excused myself to go to a nearby counter for some health food - actually, a pastry. There are different kinds of health, don't judge me. There's like emotional health you know. When I got back to our gate, I went to check on our flight. That's when I saw the dreaded words I had not seen before - FLIGHT CLOSED. NO FURTHER BOARDING. My young associate was quite impressed with Mr. Seasoned Traveler. No way we were going to get on that plane!

March 19, 2020

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Over the years, with the arrival of each new grandchild, I've watched this device appear in their home - a little transistor radio-like looking thing. Really not much channel selection on this little radio. In fact, there was only one channel. It's tuned to Baby. When Mom put the little angel to sleep, she'd go into another room and turns on what they call a baby monitor. With it, you can hear unusual noise coming from the baby's room, and then you know baby needs you. My observation in our family was that no matter what else was going on in the room, Mommy remained mentally tuned to that one channel; always listening for a sound from baby.

March 18, 2020

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Frankly, I have never enjoyed eating worms. I don't know about you, but I assume you would agree with that. It's never really been appealing to me. But I know the saying, "The early bird gets the worm." Well, if that's the case, why would anyone would want to be the early bird? I mean, fish like worms. Oh, yeah! I never understood that, but they really do. I like pizza. But how would you like to go fishing and try to put a slice of pizza on the hook? See how many fish you catch when you use what you like to eat. Now, if you're not catching fish, I think any fisherman would tell you it's time to check your bait.

March 17, 2020

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Most of us don't have a friendly neighborhood blacksmith anymore. Some of us city folks might never see one if they didn't have them at historic sites and some old-time American theme parks. I'm pretty sure the first blacksmith our three-year-old granddaughter ever saw was the one at the park we took her to. When we stopped by the blacksmith's shop, we were the only ones there. Our granddaughter was really interested in his fire and how he pounded those hot, shapeless metal things into useful objects. Later, as we started to leave, Mr. Blacksmith stopped us. Even though he does some pretty tough work, he's obviously a caring man. He caught up with us because he wanted to do something special for our little girl - he handed her a nail that he had just made. She wouldn't let go of that nail for most of the rest of the day. And last I knew, it was still one of her treasures.

March 16, 2020

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Snacks. Oh, I know a lot of them aren't the most healthy stuff in the world to put in your body. But when you're driving, I view them as something that helps with an essential function. It's called staying alive. As in staying awake at the wheel, you know. A number of times I've asked my wife to open up some cookies or chips or some other goodies for me, only to find that when she passed them to me that they weren't all there. At first, I thought maybe the company had robbed me. No. No, see, I only had to look across the seat to the passenger side to find the culprit. It was the woman I love. Yeah, the crumbs on her lip and the chewing in her mouth; that was my first clue. Our conversation predictably would go like this: I would say, "What happened?" Then, with a whimsical smile, she would answer: "Tax. There was a small service tax." Right!

March 13, 2020

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Who has any idea when they're standing there at the altar looking all goo-goo eyed at each other what those vows really mean? But there's a reason for those vows. They anticipate what a marriage commitment to someone really means over a lifetime. I'm glad they video record or audio record weddings. As the years unfold, you need to listen again to what you promised. Our wedding was recorded. Actually it was chiseled on stone tablets by a stenographer. It was a long time ago, but it wasn't that long. No, really. It was too soon for a video tape, but we did get an audio tape. We had the privilege of writing our wedding ceremony, so we got to make a very personal commitment to each other in our vows. But for all the words we said that day, three words capture the essence of what it means to totally commit the rest of your life to someone: "forsaking all others."

March 12, 2020

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My oldest son was always a challenging child: creative, active, a mind of his own, a different drummer he marched to than his sister or brother. But we had our share of tender moments, too. Some of the ones I treasure in the photo album in my mind are the times he'd slow down a little and climb into his Daddy's lap. And we'd just cuddle for a while. Sometimes I wasn't sure how he could breathe, he had his head so buried in my chest. And then he'd look up at me with those big blue eyes and he'd say something I've obviously never forgotten, "When I'm in your arms, Daddy, I feel so safe."

March 11, 2020

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Now, I don't really go see many movies. I mean, my popcorn is much cheaper than theirs, and actually, I don't like the sticky "cinemuck" on the floor. Now, I haven't seen this movie, but the story's fascinating. I read about it. It was called The King's Speech, and that year it walked off with all kinds of Academy Awards.

March 10, 2020

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Mine's in my shoulder, from replacement surgery. Our grandson, well, his is in his chest from heart surgery. Country singer, Carrie Underwood's was on her face from a bad fall and 40 stitches a while back. But most of ours are deep inside, where no one can see them.

March 9, 2020

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I've got a lot of friends who live on some pretty isolated Indian reservations in the United States. And, frankly, there just aren't many jobs there. But recently, a couple of them have suddenly found themselves making some pretty big money on a construction job. One of my Native friends said, "Man, this is a great job! They're building a road, and I got hired, and it's great money!" Actually, when you're working construction, it usually does mean some pretty decent pay.

March 6, 2020

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Our friend Steve has been involved with horses most of his life. He's even owned a couple of champions. But one day at the barn, in one moment of carelessness, Steve allowed himself to get in what horse lovers know as the "kill zone" - that area behind a horse where they can kick you with those potentially deadly hooves. In one life-changing moment, Steve was kicked in the leg, shattered his bones. Even though he was in excruciating pain, he did manage to drag himself to the highway near his house where he pulled himself up and started waving for help. Car after car just drove right on past this seriously injured man - even his friends and neighbors. They didn't know he was hurting. They thought he was just waving "Hi!" Really?

March 5, 2020

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North Dakota's a long way from Wuhan, China. But our friend Wes has been seeing more and more customers wearing masks in the local Walmart. He says he's going to start telling them "to calm down." Then, thinking of how fear can spook the stock market, he said, "Then I'm going to thank them for destroying my 401(k)."

March 4, 2020

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It was one of those unexpected phone calls that leaves you stunned. Our friend Curt, one of the most experienced private pilots we know, had crashed two hours earlier. He was landing on a grass strip near his home, a strip where he's landed hundreds of times. This time he somehow went into a skid that propelled his plane right into a tree. The plane caught fire and exploded, and our friend Curt was in heaven. As a beloved leader in our community, I can tell you that his death rocked a lot of people, including me. Because of a collapsed wheel, he had been in a crash fourteen months earlier; one which should have been fatal but which he actually escaped from with serious but survivable injuries. I can't tell you how grateful I am he did not die then. See, something very important happened between those two crashes.

March 3, 2020

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For some people, a long drive is anything more than an hour or two. Over the years for my wife and me, well, it just had to be many hours before we could call it a long drive. Oh, good night, I think back! We've driven so many marathon trips over the years and, for the most part, we've enjoyed it...if we traveled together. It's not fun driving a long haul alone. In fact, unless you're a professional long-hauler, it's not even safe to drive a long trip alone. It never is a good idea to nap and drive simultaneously I believe. If you really want to cover a lot of miles, take somebody with you. You can go a lot longer. Oh sure, that second person might slow you down a little sometimes, but hey, they're worth it. There's an old African proverb that says it pretty well: "If you want to travel fast, travel alone. If you want to travel far, travel together." That's cool, huh?

March 2, 2020

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I think most of us remember hearing that news first about Kobe Bryant's sudden death in the helicopter crash. I notice a deep sense of sadness people have. A lot of times it was like they almost had lost somebody that they knew. And then we learned his 13-year-old daughter had died and seven other extraordinary people were also lost in that crash.

February 28, 2020

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Several years ago, it was like the talk of people watching TV. It was that show "Lost." I never got hooked on that series, but a whole lot of my friends did. I would often see the day after that they'd be shaking their heads, rolling their eyes, and they're kind of tongue-tied when it came to trying to explain what happened the night before. Well, one Sunday night, their long journey ended with this 2 ½ hour finale, creatively titled, "The End." I don't know how long they worked on that title.

February 26, 2020

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It still sickens me to see it on a news replay. Those plumes of smoke over Cape Canaveral - the awful trail from what had been the Space Shuttle "Challenger." Teacher Christa McCauliffe and six other crew members were gone before our eyes. Hard to believe it was so many years ago. Hard to believe the memories and the feelings are still so vivid.

February 25, 2020

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It was a stark picture of what's happening on Indian reservations across this country. It was the funeral of another Native American young person. There are so many of them, and I've been to too many of them. Their number one cause of death is accidental death. It's often attributable to alcohol or drugs, honestly, followed by suicide, and then homicide. Seventy-five percent of Native young people die a violent death, and James was one of those. Our On Eagles' Wings team of Native young people had brought the hope that they have found in Jesus Christ to his reservation. Later, James and his brother actually traveled with our team to other reservations in the early years of our ministry there. But one deadly night, James became one of those awful statistics. We were honored to be invited by his family to the wake, the funeral and the burial in a small tribal cemetery. The men there stepped up to the open grave and they threw a handful of dirt on James' casket. Then most of the folks there left, except for his family and a few close friends. We stayed. There was a large, homemade wooden cross at the head of the grave. I'll never forget the scene of James' brother, visibly just shattered by shock and grief, hugging and just resting all his weight on that cross, like hanging onto it for dear life.

February 24, 2020

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Both our boys played high school football if I signed the permission slip. My wife was not willing to sign on for what football might do to the bodies of her sons. And the more that's happening in the news these days, the wiser she looks. Well, part of the standard preparation for the next week's game was to study films of their upcoming opponent. You wanted to see how they operated because, well, you wanted to know how to defend against them. Most teams have a coach who is called the "defensive coordinator." It's a good idea to have a coordinated defense, or else your opponent is going to run right through you or right over you, which doesn't go over well with a mom who didn't even want to sign the permission slip!

February 21, 2020

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There's been a run on graveyards these past years. Not because more people are dying, but because more people are connecting the dots in their family tree. There were some TV programs that show famous people pursuing the story of their family's past, and those have fueled an explosion of interest in genealogy research. Just ask the librarians who are welcoming visitors from all over to their newly-enhanced genealogy resources.

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