Wednesday, May 28, 2008

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Well, I guess most of us began our training for public speaking back in kindergarten or first grade. Remember when your teacher had you do that "show and tell" thing? You had to bring some object to school and tell about it or what it represented. I can remember this scramble around our house many mornings. Our children would remember, of course, with one foot out the door, "Oh man, I've got show and tell today!" So we'd race around the house trying to find something that they could show. You see, the teacher wasn't interested in a student just showing up with some story that day, you had to have something concrete. No "tell" was good enough to make it without being backed up by a "show."

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

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I usually ask for a window seat on an airplane. Usually aisle seats are more popular because you can stretch your legs a little more. Mine are so short they have plenty of room, no matter where I sit! And you can get up when you want to, and when you don't want to because the two guys on the inside want to get out. Actually, I always have so much to get done during the flight I like to just set up my little nest there by the window where I can work without getting up or passing food. Unfortunately, I'm so busy sometimes I miss those things worth looking at out my window, which is right there in front of me. I was flying recently with one of our team members and I was really missing the beautiful scenery of the Rocky Mountains below me; I didn't even think about them being there. Well, my colleague got my attention, not by reaching over and pointing and shouting, "Hey, look at those mountains, man!" No, he did it with a simple little observation. He said, "You know, mountains sure look a lot smaller from this perspective don't they?" I got the message.

Friday, May 23, 2008

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I hadn't been planning to watch anything on TV that night except the news, but I got hooked by a program that followed. It was a fascinating special on the Titanic, including an interview with one of the survivors. Now, she was just a little girl that awful night when the ship that they swore was unsinkable, went down in the icy waters of the Atlantic. Over 1,500 passengers died that night. The Titanic had been constructed with these water tight compartments in their hull that were supposed to contain any flooding. Well, she left England in April of 1912, traveling according to some, at speeds and at a time that the Titanic never should have been traveling - but remember, the Titanic was unsinkable, right? Until it hit that iceberg. Actually it only scraped the iceberg. Most passengers never even knew about it, but that simple scrape had left a deep hole in the hull below the water line. For a while no one knew how much danger they were in. But within a relatively short time, the unsinkable ship was gone. The man who had designed it, went down with the ship. This crusty old survivor summed up her lifetime reflections on the Titanic in a few haunting words. She just said, "It was a monument to human arrogance."

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

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Ten seconds can make a man's name known around the world if that ten seconds happens to be in the Olympics and he happens to spend those ten seconds running the hundred meter dash! And if he happens to win the gold medal! Around the world the winner of that event is hailed as the world's fastest human. Most of us have watched that exciting event, but most of us don't realize what ultimately makes a man the winner. The obvious answer is he runs the fastest, but in a sense, the winner is the one who slows down the least.

After our coverage of the Olympics, a well-known magazine included this headline, "He who decelerates least wins!" The concept of deceleration seems pretty odd to us casual observers because it appears that the runners are speeding up continually. In fact, the sprinter usually peaks between 50 and 60 meters. Newsweek says the start can lose a race, but it seldom wins it. The coach of the US men's Olympic track team said, "Nobody kills anybody in the first 50 or 60 meters. The key is not to decelerate as much as the other guy." So, that's the key to winning huh!

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

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Hanna lives in coal country so she's been around miners a lot. Being in youth ministry for years I've been around miners a lot too. Oh wait, that's a different kind - spelled differently. But Hanna and a friend of mine were talking recently about the mines and the miners and a surprising fact came out. Hanna said the most common cause of death among those coal miners was electrocution. They live in a real remote area and the mining operation there is pretty old and relatively primitive. So there are sometimes problems with the wiring in the mine, and miners actually get electrocuted. What compounds the problems is that the nearest doctor is many miles away, which led Hanna to ask the doctor one time if there was anything the local folks could do to help while they're waiting for the doctor to arrive. She was surprised by the doctor's answer. "Well," he said, "there is one thing, hug the injured miner." Well, obviously Hanna wanted to know why. He said, "When people are about to go into shock, I think there is something about a hug, about human touch - about human tenderness.

Monday, May 19, 2008

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I guess every generation has its surprising music hits. Like a song by a Mississippi trucker driver about a hound dog - Elvis something - or a song by some longhaired British quartet about wanting to hold your hand. I think they were called The Beatles. But then, in more recent years, there was a very surprising song that sky rocketed to number one for several weeks, and to a Grammy nomination. The singer was not well known, but the song asked some questions that no popular song has ever dealt with. It had a haunting melody that was pretty hard to forget. Back then, as I played a portion of that song for 11,000 teenagers I was speaking to, virtually everyone in the room sang the lyrics. "What if God was one of us, what would His name be? If God was one of us, what would His face look like?" You know what? The questions are provocative. The answers are shocking!

Friday, May 16, 2008

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I'm in our van sitting at a red light - and suddenly this cloud of dark, acrid smoke starts belching out of my exhaust pipe. It was disgusting! Apparently, the motorists behind me felt the same way - they started honking at me. That helped tremendously. I just wished honking would have solved the problem. Believe it or not, it didn't. One mechanic told me, "I wouldn't leave town with that van if I were you." He was right - of course, the smoke wasn't the problem - the problem was the engine. No, it didn't need to be fixed. It was far too gone for that. It had to be replaced!

Thursday, May 15, 2008

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If you ever spend any time near the ocean, I'll bet you've got some photos of seagulls. They just soar around above the surf, you know, almost as if they're posing for some of us amateur photographers! Now, seagulls are impressive until they get together. I remember sitting on the rocks along the Maine coast trying to feed some corn chips to this seagull - see, they're into junk food too - and as soon as one gull started to go for the food, another one would land and start yelling at him. Then they were joined by a third gull - they got pretty nasty contesting who's going to get this little corn chip! Now, that's standard operating procedure for seagulls. Like the time we were enjoying this picturesque New England harbor. The highest point was this weathervane and one gull would land on it - sometimes he'd even trumpet the fact that he was number one. That lasted about ten seconds until another gull came plowing into him, knocked him off, pretty soon he's followed by another gull who knocked number two off, so he could have his ten minutes on top! Scientists have even put a red band on a seagull to see how the other gulls would react. They literally pecked him to death because he had something they didn't have. Nice birds, huh?

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

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It was a great day for me when I went bowling and found out that they now had automatic score keeping. I never could figure it out, especially on the more complicated stuff, when you just had to add it up on these cards. Now, we never went bowling often, but, when we did we used to fumble around trying to figure out how to score the game. There are some folks who say, "Let's just have fun and in this sport (whatever it is), forget about the score!" Well, we're not among those folks. In fact, no matter what the sport, most athletes wouldn't be too interested if no points were kept for goals, or runs, or touchdowns, or whatever. But I have to wonder if the people who just enjoy the game without keeping score have a little less stress in their lives.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

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We were driving with some of our young Native American friends in Arizona and we were returning from a little sightseeing outing. And even though men never get lost, right? The man driving did. As we were debating which way to go to get back, one of our Indian passengers described exactly how we had traveled to this area and exactly how we could get back. We listened, we tried it, and we weren't lost anymore! Now maybe it's just been my experience, and sometimes I even joke about it with my Native friends - Native Americans just don't seem to get lost! I've tried to figure this out. Maybe it's just instinct, but over and over I've noticed something. My Indian friends pay very close attention to where they're going. Seldom do they have to travel there twice to know where they're going. Now, they have taught me a very valuable lesson - the way to know your way is to pay close attention to where you've been!

Thursday, May 8, 2008

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In the fall I really got exercise in our yard. We had lots of trees in that yard, and lots of leaves. Our sons were gone, and I got to do just about all the raking. There was this one corner of the yard that was kinda nice to rake because it smelled nice. I'd be raking away and suddenly I'd smell the strong aroma of spearmint. Now, I don't chew gum and I don't wear spearmint scented deodorant usually. So, it had to be coming from what I was raking - and it was! That was my wife's herb garden, and when some of the spearmint plants got bruised by my rake the spearmint scent started to fill the air. My wife told me that that's the way it is with lots of herbs, like with lemon balm, for example. If you take a little piece of that plant and you crush it between your fingers, the air will suddenly be sweetened by this scent of lemon. Crushing a plant releases its scent.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

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I had a mountain of work to do to prepare for some radio programs I was scheduled to record, and the way things worked out, I had to travel by van about twelve hours with two of our team members. Now, I'm going to make one thing clear. I am a driver, okay, I'm not a passenger. I hate to ride. I love to drive. Problem: I had so much work to do it could easily fill the twelve hours we were traveling. So they set up this little office for me in the back of the van and they brought along a power pack that would allow me to use my computer all the way. So, very reluctantly I went to the back of the bus and settled into work and to watch someone else drive. Now, at first it drove me nuts. But by the end of the trip, I realized how much creative work I had completed in this office on wheels! Man, what a productive day I had, all because I let someone else drive.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

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Every other Wednesday morning it's hard to sleep in our neighborhood - not that I ever had that opportunity very often. But early in the morning you hear this clinking and clanking all over the neighborhood. The recycling convoy is moving through with these trucks collecting all the bottles and cans and newspapers we all saved for them, and off they go into recycling land. The other day I got behind one of those recycling trucks and I was in a hurry and I was not thrilled, but, because I had to slow down I got to read what was printed on the back gate of these trucks. Can you believe it? An inspirational message! Here's what it said: "Give your trash a second chance."

Friday, May 2, 2008

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All of us airline passengers have just squeezed down that narrow aisle to our seats and everyone is just getting settled in. And the ground agent comes onboard and says, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is a destination check. This is flight 305 to Atlanta." The next part is what I love - it's so diplomatic, it's almost ridiculous. If Atlanta is not in your travel plans for today, this would be a good time for you to exit the aircraft." Translation: "Hey, pal - make sure this flight is going where you want to end up!"

Friday, April 25, 2008

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The first hurricane that I was in made me think of the Three Little Pigs story. It also made me think of the wolf, "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down." We were on vacation with our family at the time, and the hurricane was moving into where we were on the coast. We moved downstairs from our upstairs bedroom. We listened to the local station go off air because the water was coming into the station. We tried to sleep but the wind was howling; the rain was pummeling the house. Well the next morning we went out and we surveyed what had happened. The power was out. The trees and wires were down. There was like wreckage everywhere. We had to actually wash and flush using the water that we had wisely stored in the bathtub before the hurricane hit. We ate by candlelight. We changed all our plans, but we were safe. See the storm had beaten up everything around us and it affected our life style. But the things that really mattered - they were safe.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

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It seems as if the movie comes around again about once a year on TV, and again we get a chance to see that charming story called "The Wizard of Oz." What a quartet - Dorothy, the little Kansas farm girl blown to the Land of Oz She wants to see the Wizard to get help to get home. Then there's the Scarecrow, he wants to see the Wizard to get some brains. The Tin Woodsman, well, now he's looking for a heart. And last but not least, there's that lovable feline, the Cowardly Lion. Now I know some people who could use some brains, I know some people that could use a little more heart; but we're surrounded by people who could use more of what that Cowardly Lion was looking for - courage.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

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My Grandpa John lost his hair, not all of it but enough to expose a sizable portion of the top of his head. Then there was my dad faithfully following in his father's footsteps - or maybe scalp-steps or whatever. He was bald in most of the same spots that his dad was. Hello third generation! My forehead seems to be growing, and behind me are two sons with great hair - for now. But the other day in church, our Pastor said something unsettling. He said, "One day you get up in the morning and you look in the mirror, and suddenly there is someone else there." You are looking at someone a lot like your father. I glanced down the pew at my son, and he had this anxious look on his face as he felt his forehead and he checked his hair.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

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Now I am not much for playing board games. That's B-O-A-R-D games, because I usually end up bored like the other spelling. But there's this one game we have played over the years - it's called "Acquire" and I like it. We don't play it often, but my wife usually wins. (Maybe that's why we don't play too often.) Now in this game there are seven hotel corporations and you win a game by having the most valuable stock at the end. Now I think I know why my wife always wins. She doesn't make the mistake of buying a few stocks in a lot of companies which a lot of us do. You don't know which ones are going to take off, so you get a little in each one. She is very good at anticipating which company is going to grow, so she invests heavily in that company. She ends up with the majority in it. She gets this big bonus at the end of the game. Meanwhile I'm sitting there with lots of stock, but it's in several different companies and it just isn't worth as much as a lot of stock in a few companies.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

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The flight attendants call them "white knuckle flyers." It's those passengers who are scared of flying and they hang on for dear life. Now, we've seen an occasional plane crash over the years, and it makes some people nervous about airplanes. We also know the statistical probabilities of a person being in a plane crash; they're really pretty low. But fear doesn't always respond to statistics. When you're on a train you usually don't think much, or if at all about a crash. I mean, we know about plane crashes, but train crashes? But after a series of train derailings and accidents and collisions, the idea of a train crash suddenly becomes front-page material. Of course, it's like flying. The likelihood of a crash is minimal, but it still makes an impression when you see on the news the aftermath of two trains colliding. There's been discussion of one possible cause in crashes like these. They call it engineer fatigue. Someone suggested that some engineers run their shifts so close together that they don't have adequate time to rest. So some accidents might be caused in part by someone literally being sleepy or even falling asleep on the job.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

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If you offer a candy bar to my sister-in-law she just might shake her head in disgust and say, "Nuts!" Now, she's not being rude. She's telling you why she doesn't dare accept your offer - nuts. You see it all started one Saturday when she was doing computer work in our office and she was munching on some hazelnuts. Eventually she noticed this rash breaking out. Within a few hours she could hardly breath, and my wife was rushing her to the doctor. Her throat was literally swelling shut! Well, the doctor pulled her through that scare and then he took a battery of allergy tests. Well sure enough the tests showed that she has a serious allergy to all nuts and eggs and anything that has peanut oil in it. Those ingredients are in a lot of things that she loves to eat, but she doesn't dare. It could be fatal. Nothing tastes that good!