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Thursday, July 10, 2008

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OK, so I fought it for a while and I lived in denial for a while. At least I have faced reality now; I have bitten the bullet. I finally broke down and got glasses - mostly for reading. I had been the 20/20 kid my whole life. I just couldn't face the fact that the world was getting blurrier and blurrier. I just thought my arms were getting shorter. But finally I couldn't hold my reading material far enough from my eyes to make things stop blurring. So, hello, glasses! And what a difference! All those little words that were fuzzing out on me suddenly look big and clear! Including what I'm looking at right now! It's amazing how clear things start to look when you're seeing them through corrective glasses!

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

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A while back, some of my ministry friends decided they would accept what some might call a challenge to your manhood. They signed up for a rigorous, two-week stress camping program that is called, euphemistically, Character Building. It is - if you make it. They usually just refer to this program in descriptive shorthand - the wilderness. For two weeks, my friend Jim climbed mountains, navigated some serious whitewater, hiked for hours at a time with a heavy backpack, ate off the land, and even endured the final exam of a solo in the wilderness where you are totally on your own for a couple of days. Well, Jim's outlook on life was different after that experience. Whenever some major stress or intimidating problem would come up, he would just smile and say the words that were on one of his favorite shirts, "I can handle it. I've been to the wilderness."

Monday, July 7, 2008

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Once upon a time, there was a heifer named Muffet. She lived on a little dairy farm in the Ozarks. So did my wife - who wasn't my wife then. She was the farmer's young daughter then, and she tells me that Muffet had a harder life than some of the other heifers, but it was her own fault. See, Muffet was a stubborn heifer. Would she stay inside the fence that was there for her protection? Oh no! She found ways to crawl through that fence. Which meant Muffet got a yoke attached to her head - basically a sturdy Y-shaped branch that made it impossible for her to get her head outside that fence. Now, it was a nuisance; a nuisance made necessary by Muffet's stubbornness. Other times, they would try to get Muffet to move, and without serious coercion, she would just plant her feet. Then there was the time she refused to stand still to be milked, and she started to charge toward the door. My wife's Mom - whose job it was to keep the cows inside that little shed - quickly slammed the shovel across the door to keep her in. Well, Muffet ran into the shovel and lost part of the cap on one of her horns. They tell me that from that day on, she went right in and stood there quietly for milking.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

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I had spoken in a church that has two morning services, and I went into that little room off the sanctuary where you meet to pray with the church leaders. But the people who were there when I went in weren't praying, they were playing - their trombones, that is. Actually, they were warming up to play in the brass section of the church's worship band. Now, there were some very interesting sounds coming from that room, in fact. I was almost afraid to go in, but I did. And I got involved in a conversation with the men behind the music. One of them had just made a minor goof in what he was practicing. Of course, how would I know - Mr. Music Dork? But that led to George telling me why he would much rather play with a band than play a solo. He said, "You know, it's so much easier when the band is there to support you." When I asked him what he meant by "support you," he said, "Well, the rest of the band sort of carries you along, and they cover up your mistakes!"

Monday, July 1, 2008

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Not long ago I was in downtown Oklahoma City, and had the privilege to visit the scene of the Oklahoma City bombing back in April 1995. I don't think any of us will ever forget the images of the day that that Federal Office Building was destroyed by a terrorist bomb. The images of that devastated building and of the frantic rescue efforts there, of a baby in a fireman's arms. It was a day of heart-wrenching tragedy and it was a day of incredible heroism, too. Literally, an entire city dropped everything to respond in whatever way that they could to this life-or-death situation. The job was clear that day: rescue the dying whatever it takes.

Monday, June 30, 2008

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My father-in-law gave my wife and her sister Grandma and Granddad's little farm house in the mountains, and so we had to do some restoring on that little special spot. And since we were able to be there only occasionally, my wife decided to plant accordingly. She said, "I'm planting perennials." Now I'm sort of horticulturally challenged, so my wife had to explain a little further. See, I grew up a city boy, and cement doesn't grow much of anything, as you know. As I'm beginning to understand better now, you can actually plant annuals or perennials. Annuals will bloom for a little while - let's say, geraniums - and then they'll be gone. Unless you replant geraniums next year, which is extra work, and hard to do when you're not there. Nope. We need perennials. So my wife planted things like crepe myrtle (that's actually the name of a plant, not some long-lost aunt), she planted azaleas, she planted honeysuckle. Now as you might guess from their name, those perennials are not going to die on you; the perennials will always be there for you! And that's what we need!

Friday, June 27, 2008

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A while back I heard a comedy routine that suggested some humorous ways to finish this sentence: "You know you're having a bad day when..." Well, I heard on the news about a man who might be a finalist for the "baddest day of the year" award, and there's nothing humorous about what happened to him. You may remember an Avianca Airlines plane that crashed on Long Island a few years ago. It was a flight from Colombia to New York. Well, this particular Colombian man was seriously injured in the crash. That is a bad day - that's a really bad day. They rushed him to the hospital where it was determined that they would have to do abdominal surgery. And when the surgeons opened him up, they found little plastic bags in his stomach full of cocaine. He was a drug courier, and he had ingested those little bags of cocaine to smuggle them into the country. So after he crashed and then was operated on, he was arrested. Now who would have ever thought he would be found out? He was.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

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If you're going to be a great coach in sports, you generally need to be a great motivator. The team rises to the level of the coach's motivation. Now, when your team is an entire nation that is under heavy attack, the coach had better be one incredible motivator. The nation was Great Britain. The time was the beginning of WWII, when the team seemed like it was losing badly and the coach was the Prime Minister Winston Churchill. He may have been the most inspiring leader of the 20th Century as he motivated his nation to make tremendous sacrifices and win a seemingly unwinnable victory. In those early days of the war, he desperately needed the cooperation of the leaders of Britain's coal industry. Their extra sacrificial efforts would be critical to keeping the war effort going. The way he did it was masterful. Churchill asked those industry and union leaders to picture the parade at the end of the war. Look at the proud British sailors who kept the sea lanes open, and the soldiers who valiantly fought the land war, and the airmen who heroically won the battle in the skies, followed by the coal miners of Britain whose work made those victories possible. Churchill said, "They will not be in military uniform, but they will have won a place in the victory parade."

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

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Let's see, there was Gilligan, the Skipper, too, the movie star, the millionaire and his wife, you know, the cast of that eternally rerunning sitcom, Gilligan's Island. You probably remember the story, they boarded the S.S. Minnow that day to take a what? A "Three hour tour." Little did they know a storm would come up and they would end up shipwrecked on some desert island, and they'd have to stay there trapped forever in rerunland. When they boarded that day, they had no idea how far they were going to go, or how long they were going to stay. Some three-hour tour!

Monday, June 23, 2008

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Our friend is in the flooring business; actually that's wood floors. He had been tearing the old floor out in this house he was working on, and before he threw it away, he decided to call us and see if we might have any use for it. Actually, we were pretty excited about his call because we were in the middle of a project where we'd be needing a floor. He said, "I do want you to know it's actually pretty ugly, but it's a good solid maple wood."

Friday, June 20, 2008

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When I was little, my dad used to drop me off at a nearby church so I could go to the Sunday school they had there. We weren't a church-type family, so what I saw and heard there was all new to me. And I remember this painting they had of Jesus. Now I know it's one of the most famous ones painted in modern times. You may have seen it. Jesus is in a garden, and He's knocking on what looks like a big oak door. The man who painted it was named Holman Hunt. And when he was ready to unveil it for the first time, he called his friends and family together to be the first ones to see it. Well, it was pretty quiet as each person stood there and drank in the deep feeling that that painting conveys. Then people began to comment on what impressed them about it. But one friend said hesitantly, "Uh, Holman - it's a beautiful painting. But didn't you forget something?" "What did I forget?" The friend said, "The handle. There's no handle on the door." To which the artist simply replied, "Oh! No, I didn't forget the handle. When Jesus knocks on the door of your heart, the handle is on the inside."

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

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I think most women have learned that men are never lost - or so men think. Some man's driving from Chicago to LA and his wife asks, "Honey, why did we just enter Pennsylvania?" Is he lost? No, he's exploring a new scenic route. Listen, I have to be realistic enough to admit that I can get lost - especially if it's an area I'm unfamiliar with - especially if it depends on my sense of direction, which is like no sense at all. But my wife on the other hand, oh, she has a great farm girl's sense of direction - plus I have learned over the years that she's great with a map. She's very good at evaluating our options and picking the roads that will get us there the fastest. So, on a typical trip you'd see me driving and my wife with the atlas in her lap, telling me the road or exit that's next. I don't need to see the map! I have a great navigator!

Monday, June 16, 2008

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Years ago God laid the desperate need of young Native young people on our hearts, and ever since we have been involved with some very special Indian friends. And our summers on the reservation with our "On Eagles Wings" team have given us some moments of unforgettable joy - and some moments of pain and sorrow, too. One of the toughest of those moments was the summer when we heard about Johnny's sudden and tragic death. Johnny was a Lakota young man who we had worked with and had really come to love. In the providence of God, our team was headed for Johnny's reservation in South Dakota when we heard about his death. His parents actually delayed the funeral a couple of days so the "On Eagles Wings" team could be there. His Mom said that some of the best days of his life had been with our team.

Friday, June 13, 2008

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This is a true story. It happened on Long Island, just outside of New York City. A little two-year-old girl asked her mommy to drive her to get an ice cream cone. Mom said she was feeling sick and she needed to take a nap. That little girl had a very observant five-year-old brother. After Mom was asleep, he told his sister, "I'll take you." He knew where Mom's car keys were, got them out of her purse, and proceeded to get his sister settled in the car. Then he started the car, backed it out of the driveway, and then slowly drove it to the stop sign at the end of the street. He managed to maneuver the car out onto the main road. It was at that point that a policeman happened to see that car moving down the road, apparently without a driver! That will get your attention! He gave chase until the invisible driver pulled over to the side of the road. Wouldn't you love to have seen the look on the policeman's face when he walked up to the car and saw this little boy at the wheel? Thankfully, this had a happy ending. You know that car was a headed for disaster with that little guy driving!

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

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You have to stay up late sometimes to see those rare total eclipses of the moon. But if you haven't, try it sometime if you have that opportunity again in your lifetime. The last time I saw one it was really amazing. It seems like most of those disappearing moon things happen when I'm in sleepy land - but this one was at prime time. You can see why these eclipses freaked out primitive peoples - that moon, that great white light of the night, suddenly starts to disappear. That big old harvest moon darkened little by little, until finally there appeared to be no more moon. Fortunately, in the crowd I was in nobody panicked - there were lots of educated folks. We all knew what was really happening. The moon has no light of its own, of course, it's just light reflected from the sun. When something comes between the moon and its light source, something like a little tennis ball called earth, the moon just goes dark.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

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When our daughter got married there was one song I told her I did not want to hear at the wedding. Remember that, "Where is that little girl I carried, where is that little boy at play?" Mercifully - I'm not going to sing it for you, but you know the song. I'll tell you, the time really did fly, like the song says, "Sunrise, sunset, swiftly pass the years." I'll tell you, that is a song that taps into some very deep feelings about the mystery of life, and I don't think I could have handled it at my daughter's wedding. It really points out how that parade of Saturdays and Tuesdays and Thursdays just sort of seem to flow together into years - so yesterday my daughter is a bouncy little girl cuddling on my lap. And then she's a poised bride on the arm of her new husband. But that song also captures the real practical essence of this massive entity we call "my life" - it really boils down to those bite-size chunks called days. It's almost as if we die each night when we hit the bed and get resurrected each new morning to a fresh new day.

Monday, June 9, 2008

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It started on a family vacation in Southern California. The kids were asking about earthquakes which were not a part of our regular growing up years in New Jersey. We started this whimsical little exercise where I would yell, "Earthquake drill!" Now, invariably our older son would run over to his older sister and he would hug her. I would ask innocently, "What are you doing?" to which he would reply, "Dad, you told us to hang on to something heavy!" Oooh, she wasn't, but I'll tell you, that boy was lucky he lived to have a sixth birthday! Actually, when things are shaking, it's really a pretty good idea - hang on to something heavy!

Friday, June 6, 2008

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What a deal I got on a masterpiece! I was in Paris, touring what is probably the world's most famous art museum - the Louvre, as they say. All day long I had been seeing these works by great artists like Michelangelo, and Rembrandt, and you know all the biggies! And then I rounded this one corner and I was in this room jammed with people. It was lit with special lighting, it was guarded by security guards. And when I finally got into that room, there she was, the one painting you've heard of if you've only heard of one painting. That's right, the Mona Lisa! There she was smiling at me in a painting that took up an entire wall. At the bottom was this signature - Leonardo da Vinci, the artist. Now, you can't buy the Mona Lisa, she's literally priceless. But I bought the Mona Lisa for .25 that day! Oh, yes I did. It's in a drawer at home. I could show it to you. Well, actually, it's a postcard of the Mona Lisa. What's the difference? Well, the postcard is a copy. It's cheap! The one in the museum is an original, signed by the artist - she's priceless.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

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I always thought they were buzzards - but a friend of mine who grew up with them circling overhead told me they're officially turkey vultures. Most of us think of them as nature's garbage collectors, but on our last vacation I developed an appreciation for their grace in flight. Watching them every day I saw them soaring in these graceful circles above me. And, amazingly, they almost never flapped their wings once they were airborne! They ride the warm air currents that rise from the earth as the days temperature gets warmer. They seem to just go where the thermals carry them. And I've got to tell you, it's beautiful.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

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My administrative assistant decided to bring her two young nephews into the office one lunch hour. She wanted them to meet the people she works with and vice versa. Daniel was probably about five, and I'm sure he left wondering who that weird guy is that his aunt works with. When I met Daniel he flashed a big smile that revealed some missing teeth. I asked him what happened and he said, "I lost those teeth." Now, I don't know what possesses me at times like that, but I told Daniel I was sorry he lost them and I wanted to help him find them, after which, I got down on the floor and proceeded to crawl around looking for them. Mercifully, he told me I didn't have to keep looking; Daniel said he didn't mind losing those teeth. He said, "I got permanent ones coming!"

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