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Wednesday, October 29, 2014

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Many of the world's greatest dramas are not on a stage or a screen. They're played out in that quadrennial spectacle we call the Olympics. Maybe you remember the year Britain's representative in the 400-meter race, Derek Redmond, began to falter and went down in the back stretch with a torn right hamstring. Now, when I describe the scene, you'll know it's one of the great classic moments in Olympic history. As the medical attendants were approaching, Derek Redmond was fighting his way to his feet and he's limping along in anguish. Hopping, desperately trying to finish the race. He knew he wouldn't win; he was just trying to finish.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

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Well, I watched three of our children run on this track called high school senior. Oh we know about the disease. It's a creeping disease called senioritis. I've seen it for years in other teenagers, and then finally we got to watch it in our own home. It begins with the sense of "Okay, I'm a senior now! High school is my past. I don't care about high school any more even though I have another year." At best a senior just sort of slacks off until graduation. Or at worst, he or she becomes irresponsible and maybe even destructive. Senioritis? It doesn't bring out the best in anybody at any age.

Monday, October 27, 2014

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I guess every neighborhood has its' bully. When I was growing up, our neighborhood sure did-Boomer! I'm not making that up. That was his name! This guy made all of us little kids in the neighborhood his victims. He'd beat us up, he'd tower over us, he'd threaten us, he'd take our stuff. One day I'd had enough! I was little and he was big. But I marched all the way down our little block on the south side of Chicago. I went up the steps on that back porch, and man, I pounded on the screen door there. Boomer came to the door. I said, "Boomer, I want my stuff back!" He said, "Man, you're a brave little kid." Well, he didn't really say that, but you probably said, "Well, Ron, I really underestimated you." Yeah, there was one thing I forgot to tell you. My Father went with me. That made a very big difference. Like this: Boomer was bigger than I was, but my Father was bigger than Boomer was.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

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I'm the early riser in our family, so it's not uncommon for me to be in the bathroom around 6:00 in the morning; only one awake. Even when our children were at home I made a science of being quiet in the morning so I didn't wake up my wife or anyone else who was sleeping.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

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I've stood at many a wedding altar as the minister. But this one was different. The beautiful bride, glowing in her elegant white dress, was our only daughter. What a thrill to perform her wedding and watch her commit herself unconditionally to a wonderful young man. She was a great son picker. And I watched him commit himself to her.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

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I'm pretty easily amazed by technology, so I am totally amazed by my wife's camera. She's a great photographer. You can take the same camera and get two totally different views, just by using two different lenses. She taught me this. For example, we took a lot of pictures at our local football games, because I worked with the team there. And when you put on the wide angle lens, you can see the entire field through that camera. Amazing! Now, when you change that to say a zoom lens, it really magnifies things. You can fill that camera's view with just one face. It amazes me to see how it can go from the big picture to some small, little detail.

Monday, October 20, 2014

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There are certain times of the year when the lawn grows like the set of a Tarzan movie. I remember a time when we had been gone for two or three weeks. We came home and saw the lawn taking over the neighborhood. Now, my youngest son had been very, very busy that summer. But finally he was available on this day when it was desperately needed. So he said, "OK, the lawn's high." He and the mower are outside ready to go. And then I was waiting for the beautiful music of that mower running-nothing. Why? My son came in and said, "Dad, I tried everything. That mower isn't working." Oh, man, it was frustrating. There was the need, here's the worker. Where's the tool?

Friday, October 17, 2014

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I was having a conversation with a young man who was a student in a Missionary Aviation course. Now, he had only had classroom training. He did have a little experience when he visited the flight training facility. On the second day they said, "Okay, go for it." He was flying! Now, he was carrying his notepad with him the day I saw him, and I noticed the sentence he had written at the top of his notes. It was obviously something he thought he would be tested on either in the classroom or maybe in the cockpit someday. Actually, it could be life-or-death information on a particular day. Here's what it said: "Attitude-the relationship of the known to the horizon." Now, he told me that simple discipline is what keeps an aircraft stable. Maybe you, too.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

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Our youngest son was not looking forward to the drive back to college. Oh, he liked to drive, but not 14 hours alone. In fact, his un-favorite state coming from New Jersey to the Midwest – Pennsylvania. Now, this has nothing to do with the scenery. It has nothing to do with the people. Pennsylvania is a great place. It has to do with the length of Pennsylvania. It's about twice as long as any other state between home and college for him. So, when you're driving, it seems like it's the eternal state. Please, no hate mail from Pennsylvania. You can address it to my son. This is not my fault. And that was years ago as a college student.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

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"Wake up, kids!" We were in this campground; 3:30 in the morning. You ask, "What were you doing to your kids?" Well, I had planned a trip up Cadillac Mountain. I had been told this was the first place you could see the sunrise on the East Coast. I wanted to see this. I thought this would be a great adventure for my wife and my kids. Well, they weren't as enthused as I was, especially when I woke them up at 3:30. Oh, but I thought ahead. I bought donuts the night before, so when they woke up I stuffed a donut in each mouth so they wouldn't wake up the campground. Then we started my well-planned adventure up Cadillac Mountain.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

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It wasn't the big one, but it was pretty big. It was that 6.6 earthquake that rocked Los Angeles a number of years ago. It was 4:31 A.M. and the ground began to tremble underneath Southern California again. And those who watched it will not forget the picture of what collapsed; those Northridge Meadows Apartments where 16 people died in those apartments. But in the midst of the Northridge tragedy, you heard the word miracle a lot. Maria Ballesteros was one who survived that apartment collapse and she was rescued. And she claimed she knew why. She said there were 50 pictures hanging on her wall and 49 of them were destroyed. But one was still there when the shaking was all over. Maria said this, "The one of the Lord was the only one left hanging."

Monday, October 13, 2014

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I've never really been addicted to TV game shows. But years ago, my son got me to kind of be interested in one. It is called Jeopardy. Three contestants, given several categories ranging from U.S. presidents to cat food, and the contestant picks a dollar value question. The host gives the answer to the question in that category. Then the three contestants vie to see who can get the right question, because the right answer is the question. I think you get that. Do you? Some of them do very well and they win lots of money; others just kind of fold up. I said to my son, "Look at those people! They wind up in the hole with their money! How did they get on the show?" He reminded me, "Dad, it's hard to come up with right answers when you have all that pressure on you."

Friday, October 10, 2014

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I was on a flight from Chicago to Newark, and I was busily working until suddenly the pilot put on the brakes. We weren't really near Newark yet, so I tried to figure out what's going on. It looked as if the plane was beginning to circle, and our wing was dipped down a little bit. So pretty soon I said, "You know, I believe I've seen that house before. I think I've seen that field before. Those trees look familiar." I got to see them again, and again, and another time. Yep, we were in that time warp that is dreaded by every frequent flier called the holding pattern. We weren't standing still. No, I'm happy to say we were not standing still. That wouldn't have been good. But we were using up time, we were using up fuel. We were in constant motion; we just weren't making any progress.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

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My wife was on this airplane flight, and she was sitting in the aisle seat, and a mother was sitting next to her in the middle. And this little four-year-old girl, the daughter of that mom, was at the window. The daughter had never flown before, so she wanted to be where she could see. So as they taxied out on the runway the little girl was kind of looking straight ahead like a business woman. Then as they climbed up through the clouds; it was one of those cloud-covered days, the little girl occasionally glanced out the window.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

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When I get sick it's a rare event in our family. I've been blessed with a pretty healthy life. But there was a time a while back when I got hit with the flu. I mean, "hit" with the flu. And it's enough to say I wasn't moving. I was too weak to talk. I honestly think I was too weak to even turn over for about 24 hours. And then I gradually started to improve. When I began to feel better, man, I tell you what I wanted most. I wanted a shower. It was my first physical triumph after the battle with the flu. I very happily piled in a corner what was the symbol of that long, dark day I had just had; those blue flannel pajamas. I'd been wearing them the whole time. They'd been sweated out several times, and they didn't smell very nice. I could give you more details, but you don't want them. They probably should have been burned, but we couldn't afford that. So, here I was showered with fresh, clean clothes on. I could tell you one thing I wasn't about to do. I wasn't about to put those rotten, old pajamas back on for anything.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

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 "I want to give you a boat!" Well, that's what Carl announced to me actually. See, he wanted to give it to the youth ministry I was working with at the time. And I was grateful, but I wasn't quite sure what to do with a boat. Carl had this little fishing boat, and honestly it was pretty run down. He couldn't use it because he had had a heart attack. And now he gave it to us to sell and get what we could for it. Well, we were really in a tight time financially, and so I accepted the boat. I asked a boating friend of mine how much it was worth. He said, "Boy, I think you might get $1,000 for it." And that's exactly what Carl said he would have sold it for.

Friday, October 3, 2014

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Now, I wasn't expecting a goat to be my teacher. But something kind of special happened. A good friend of ours actually helped a new baby goat come into the world. You might say he was "kidding" around. But you wouldn't say that. No, you shouldn't.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

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Caterpillars? Let's face it; don't tell them what I said, but they're ugly. Butterflies are beautiful. Now, I have known people with butterfly collections. I've never known anyone with a caterpillar collection. I guess it's just that every caterpillar gets fed up inching along instead of flying. They get fed up with being hairy and ugly instead of being colorful and eye-catching. But fed up won't do it. No, that caterpillar has to get into this cocoon and get metamorphed. That's a word I learned for that miraculous process. It means changing your form-metamorphosis, right? There's something, actually, for you in that cocoon, especially if you're tired of crawling spiritually or if your spiritual experience gets pretty hairy sometimes.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

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In high school our teenage son had a very, very busy life, which just might go with having the same last name as I do. And sometimes I would just find him kind of collapsed on the couch. And he deserved a rest. He'd set up his own little personal universe there, a little comfort zone. So, he'd have his New York Giants mug, and his school books, and what was going to be on TV, and of course he had his phone. Now, don't think cell phone, because we're talking before cell phones. This is like the old fashioned land line phone. Unfortunately, the phone plugged in two rooms away, which means that the cord was stretched to the max to get to his little zone with the couch, and I could tell when he had the phone there, because I kept hearing people muttering all through the house after they tripped over the cord. See, it was right where all of us had to walk to get to the living room or to the kitchen. And I'd just say, "Hey, you've got to do something about this thing that people keep tripping over!" Well, so do you and I.

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

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Ever since I was little I've been fascinated by the American Revolution, and I always wanted to see Concord Bridge, where it sort of all began. You know, the shot heard around the world? By the time I got there, I had two little boys of my own who were not fascinated by the American Revolution. I wanted to spend a while at Concord Bridge, imagining those Colonial farmers descending and the Red Coats stepping up to the bridge in their rigid formation.

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