June 21, 2019

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It was a wonderful/awful day in my life - the day my mother took my hand and walked me the two blocks over to Park Manor School in Chicago. It was the day I went to school for the first time. Kindergarten, here I come! It was exciting, but it was hard, too. We didn't do any pre-school stuff back then - my family didn't even go to Sunday School. So here was little Ronnie leaving the safety of his apartment, leaving his mother, leaving everything that was safe and familiar for a place I had never been. It sounds a little silly, knowing what I know now. Still, the fears and the feelings were very real then. But if I hadn't left home and stepped into the unknown called school, I would have missed so much!

June 20, 2019

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My sister-in-law used to be involved with insurance claims. And it was not uncommon for her to have clients who had major messes to clean up. Imagine the damage flood waters could do to a home, or a major fire, or even frozen pipes that burst in the winter. That's when they called on a major company known for their specialty - they come in and clean those grossly soaked carpets, they restore that damaged furniture and those smoke-saturated drapes. They are known for being the ones who can clean up a mess that folks could never clean themselves.

June 19, 2019

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Shades of the '60s: angry, discontented young people, occupying public places, trying to call attention to their cause. We've seen that before and we're seeing it a lot these days.

The '60s demonstrations were about a war, and they turned more violent. Then there were the 2011 crowds. They were occupying high-profile public areas like Wall Street, for example, around the world, with a different cause - they were claiming their protest was about jobs, and corporate greed, concentrated wealth, economic injustice.

June 18, 2019

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Our kids played with it when they were little. Our grandkids have been playing with it since they were little. I play with it every once in a while. It's that colorful clay in the round can - it's Play-Doh! You can squeeze that Play-Doh into something flat, something round, something long. You can turn it into any shape you want it to be. Which is OK for a toy - it's not OK for people.

June 17, 2019

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Lake Cumberland is a nice place to go in central Kentucky. It's not a nice place to have come to you. That's what the Army Corps of Engineers has been concerned about. The Wolf Creek Dam holds back millions of gallons of water from Nashville and other communities along the Cumberland River. Well the Army engineers had expressed some growing concerns about a possible dam break. They said a break could kill many residents and it could cause over three billion dollars in damage. A Corps spokesman said that the failure of the dam wasn't imminent at that time but that evacuation plans would be a good idea. So they decided they would lower the water level in the lake and try to fortify the dam, because they said that dam was all that stands between a lot of lives and a major disaster.

June 14, 2019

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When I was in South Africa, our hosts were kind enough to take me to an incredible game park where I could see African animals in the wild. And I did! Rhinos, giraffes, ostriches, and baboons - not the kind of animals you usually see wandering around, say, New York. But the highlight was coming around this curve and meeting a great bull elephant in the road. He put on a real show for us for several minutes. I picked up a local newspaper a while later and saw a news article with that game park as the dateline. The article was about the young male elephants there-the ones the rangers call the teenagers. Apparently, in recent months, those teenage male elephants had been on a reign of terror in the park, doing things that elephants don't usually do. They had attacked other animals like rhinos. They had attacked tourists, inflicting death or serious injury. And finally the park officials got it figured out what had gone wrong with these young males. When they were newborn, they were taken from another game park and brought to this one. But their fathers - the bull elephants - were not brought with them. So these teenage elephants grew up without a model of how a grownup male should act - and they were out of control.

June 13, 2019

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When one of our kids would be going through a sick spell, I used to tell them they needed to get lots of sleep. That's because (this is what I'd say) "when you're asleep, the good soldiers come out and fight those bad soldiers that are making you sick." Okay come on, it's not advanced microbiology, but it works for me. Actually, one of the amazing things about these bodies God has given us is how our body kicks into action when it's been invaded by an infection. All those antibodies go to work (good soldiers), and those white blood cells start coming out in force. In fact, one way doctors look for infection is to check your blood for the elevated presence of white blood cells. They're multiplying fast when the "bad soldier" germs try to take you out.

June 12, 2019

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My friend Dave got tired of wearing glasses. But if he didn't, he was dangerous. After consulting with a specialist, he determined that he was a candidate for this Lasik eye surgery. During the procedure, a laser beam was aimed at the parts of his eye that limited his vision and the light of that laser changed everything. Guess who doesn't need glasses anymore? All because of the power of focused light.

June 11, 2019

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Tommy Rieman was a teenager pumping gas in Independence, Kentucky, when he enlisted in the United States Army. Today, he wears the Purple Heart and the Silver Star of an American hero. He was, in fact, introduced to the nation during President Bush's 2007 State of the Union Address. There's been been a lot of disagreement about the war in Iraq, but there wass no disagreement about the heroism of soldiers like Sgt. Rieman. The day his squad was ambushed by enemy fire in the midst of a reconnaissance mission, they were outnumbered ten to one. Their vehicles kept moving as Sgt. Rieman dove into the backseat and used his body as a shield to protect his gunner. As they sped away from the ambush, they found themselves ambushed again by some 50 enemy attackers. Rieman was shot in the right arm, he was shot in the chest, he had shrapnel wounds to his chest and stomach and ear, and his squad was out of ammo. In spite of all those wounds, Tommy Rieman began firing away with his grenade launcher at their attackers. Finally, the enemy's guns fell silent. Then Sgt. Rieman began tending to his wounded.

June 10, 2019

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We were between ministry engagements, and we took a short timeout in a picturesque mountain community in the Southeast. It's the oldest town in the area and its buildings make you feel like you've stepped back into the 1890s. It's got rambling Victorian mansions, soaring spires, it's got this classic railroad station. We stopped to ask a local man directions, and somewhere in the middle of his answer he made this observation about his town, "You know, this place is sort of like a movie set. There really isn't much here, but it sure does look pretty."

June 7, 2019

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I know advertisers have to hate it, but the truth is that a lot of times we remember their commercial, but we forget their product. Recently, I saw a commercial like that. The ad really impressed me, but I have no idea what they were advertising. Anyway, it showed some scenes from explorations of space and some appropriate galactic scenery. And then, these words appeared on the screen, "The last frontier isn't space." OK, then what is it? The next words answered that question. "It's the human imagination."

June 6, 2019

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When our friends got married some years ago, they decided they wanted to live and farm in a largely undeveloped area of the Ozark Mountains. They had some interesting neighbors - one in particular. He looked and talked and smelled like a true man of the mountains who had little use for "civilization." After they declined his invitation to dinner a few times, they finally consented. It was a memorable night. They stood on the porch of his cabin as he pointed to the hens running around the yard and said, "Tell me which chicken you want for dinner." They did and then they got to participate in executing the lucky winner. The conditions in which dinner was prepared would have given chest pains to any health inspector.

June 5, 2019

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I think my fascination started at a historic old life-saving station on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It was there that I learned about the heroism of those crews who once manned those life-saving stations all along the maritime Atlantic coast. Their heroism actually gave birth to what we know today as the United States Coast Guard. Their motto says it all: "So others may live." Some of that modern-day heroism was portrayed in a movie called "The Guardian." It's a story about that elite group of 280 men and women who are known as rescue swimmers - the first responders who jump from choppers into violent seas to rescue people who otherwise would die there. In the movie, a veteran rescuer shows a film of a burning ship from which he helped to rescue some desperate crewmen. He frames the essence of their mission in some sobering words: "They're looking for a miracle to save them. You have to find a way to be that miracle."

June 4, 2019

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Our friends Roy and Judy have been married for almost 30 years. But there are two words that took a beating early in their marriage and they still get a rise out of Judy to this day believe it or not. The words "trust me." You know there's got to be a story here. Years ago, Roy decided to try his hand sailing one of those little Sunfish type sailboats. He wanted Judy to go with him. Her back was really bothering her, but he assured her that he knew what he was doing. Of course, every guy does! "Trust me," he said. One problem: as they sailed away, the rudder kept coming off. That's all. That's rudder, as in what steers the boat. Well, Judy was extremely unhappy when rudderlessness ultimately led them to capsizing - a boat with a ten-foot mast stuck upside down in six feet of water. Beautiful picture huh? So much for "trust me."

June 3, 2019

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You are probably a believer in heliocentricity, right? Now that is not some new denomination. It just means the sun is the center of our solar system and the planets, including the little tennis ball we live on, are revolving around the sun. We do sound a little confused about this sometimes, like when we say, "Isn't that a beautiful sunset?" Actually, the sun isn't going anywhere, we're the ones who are moving. But who wants to go for a romantic walk to watch a beautiful earthset? It doesn't have the same ring. But apparently, not everyone's got this orbit thing straight even today. The American Scientific Association did a survey a few years ago and they found that 21% (that's one out of every five Americans) that they surveyed thought the sun orbited around the earth, and seven percent said they didn't know.

May 31, 2019

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We were speeding along the interstate in Texas, and suddenly there it was - a huge, illuminated metal cross. It just dominated the landscape, especially on the flatlands of Texas. That cross is actually 19 stories high and it can be seen from 20 miles away. They claim it's the largest cross in the Western Hemisphere. We've been by there before, but this was the first time we ever stopped and looked at it more closely.

May 30, 2019

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If you want a unique dining experience, you could try my wife's Javanese Dinner recipe. Actually now my daughter has picked up that and I had it at her house just a couple days ago. Actually it's from a friend's recipe, but man it is a smash hit once people figure out what it is. I love to see people's reactions when they see all the ingredients that get spread out in bowls on the table. Your first impression is, "What does all this make?" There's rice, there's some chicken, there's a bowl of pineapple, there's celery over there, grated cheese, onions, there's a bowl of coconut, there are almonds, a bowl of crunchy noodles, and there's hot broth. I'm hungry now. Our guests invariably look kind of dubious, but we assure them they'll love it when it's all put together. And they always do! In fact, they always come back for more. Well, I do.

May 29, 2019

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Roger was assistant manager of a buffet restaurant. He used to serve on our ministry team, and at one point he was telling me about a special memory from that job early in his working career. It seems there was a male customer who had been really abusive to the waitress. So Roger, being the ranking officer in the restaurant at the time, had the joy of trying to confront this gentleman - well, this man anyway. Unfortunately, this abusive customer was young, strong, all muscular and bulked up. And Roger, like me, well...not exactly Goliath. But he walked into the lion's jaws and he bravely asked that man to leave. Initially, the customer was ready for a fight. Then suddenly, unexplainably, this guy raised the white flag and he just left, leaving Roger a little baffled as to why this man had suddenly given up. That's when my friend turned around and saw one of the chefs who had been - unbeknownst to Roger - standing behind him all that time. And the chef, now he was a Goliath! Roger said, "Suddenly I understood that it was the big guy behind me that made the difference!"

May 28, 2019

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Occasionally my wife would flip the TV on to one of those home shopping channels. And there actually were some good deals that showed up there, and sometimes I couldn't get to the remote fast enough. One day she saw this 14-karat gold bracelet and she decided to order it. When it arrived, it looked just as beautiful as it had on television, until our then two-year-old grandson got interested in it. He saw it on a dresser. Fascinated with this bracelet, he picked it up, played with it for a moment, at which point the bracelet totally fell apart. My wife said there was one drawback to ordering from television or catalogs; she just couldn't hold the jewelry in her hand and feel the weight of it. The bracelet turned out to be very attractive on the outside but hollow on the inside.

May 27, 2019

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When World War II began, almost every American's life changed, including my dad's. He couldn't fight because of a medical problem, and he was working at that time in a plant that had been making some kind of industrial product. And suddenly almost overnight it was converted into a defense plant. They stopped making whatever little things they had been making, and they started to make airplane parts. Well, it was obvious what was happening. It was a war, and that plant had to be used to help win the war. During that time, not that I remember it personally (let me make that clear), people made sacrifices of gasoline, and food, and rubber tires, and money. Why? Well, because you know that everything is needed to fight the war. It was then and it still is.