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Wednesday, December 19, 2007

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This time of year I think back to that unforgettable night of the annual Christmas musical at our college. All the school choirs were there to present a powerful musical evening. The backdrop of the stage was all black, to simulate the night of Jesus' birth. And as the choir sang, costumed Christmas story characters would re-enact some of those familiar scenes on the stage. The one I'll never forget is "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night." My friend Al was the angel. The shepherds were all shepherding on the stage, and Al was to step out of the black velvet night and onto this little platform to announce Jesus' birth - good plan. I guess being coordinated is not a qualification for being an angel. See, Al stepped out onto that platform and promptly lost his balance and fell out of the night sky and right onto the shepherds. Now, that is being touched by an angel! But on his way down, Al did manage to get his opening line out, "Fear not!" Well, that is the important part.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

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It's the Christmas season, and everywhere you go these days you see those brown trucks - it's UPS running everywhere, delivering Christmas surprises to people. Those UPS drivers work really hard this time of year - lots of long hours to get everything where it's supposed to be in time for Christmas. I expect they sleep pretty well at night. Even though they have a big job, at least they don't have to go out and buy all those packages that they're bringing to people's doors. Their job is just to deliver what someone else has paid for.

Monday, December 17, 2007

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Every class has its clown, and Johnny was one of those. He was one of the first teenagers I met when we moved to New Jersey years ago, and he was always fun to be around. There was always a joke. He was always a clown - always the life of the party. That's why his call late one night came as such a shock to me. I was still a little bleary from being awakened by the phone ringing when I heard him say, "This is Johnny. I called to say goodbye. You're the only one I thought it was worth saying goodbye to." I didn't like the sound of that goodbye, so I asked him to tell me where he was, and he had actually broken into my office to call me. I asked him to wait there until I could get there. We talked most of the night. No clown, no jokes, no life of the party that night. The life of the party was about to check out of the party for good. Johnny poured out the pain that he was feeling from a messed up family and some disappointing relationships. He'd been on his way to kill himself. Thank God, by dawn, he had decided to live. And I knew there was a darkness now that had been hiding all along behind a mask that said, "No problems."

Friday, December 14, 2007

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Our son and daughter-in-law own a little piece of rhodochrosite since a recent western vacation. (I hope I'm saying that right.) And with the stone came the story. Their host told them about the men in search of gold who didn't care much about this rock they found on their way to the gold. Initially, they just tossed it aside. But they noticed that embedded in the granite was an attractive rose-colored stone. As they refined it, the rare and rich, almost ruby-like color of that stone revealed its beauty. There was a time when it was just used for making driveways or even just discarded. But today a relatively few ounces are worth thousands of dollars.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

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If you were the baby of the family, you may be able to relate to the occasional complaint filed by our youngest who's now all grown up. He kiddingly talks about how many pictures were taken of his older sister, then his older brother, and how we seemed to run out of film by the time he came along. You know, the last-in-line complex. When reflecting on another sibling comparison it led him to a happier conclusion. He said, "You built this big dollhouse as a gift for my sister. Then you built this big, fully loaded barn for my brother. Then you built a general store for me - about half the size of the dollhouse and the barn." At first, he thought, "Here we go again. They'll run out of gas by the time they get to me." But then, he said, he noticed that his store had something neither of his siblings' gifts had - a sign on the store with his name, identifying him as the proprietor. Our son said, "You know, I felt really good when I realized that what you gave me had my name on it!" Let's hear one for the baby!

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

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When our family was with us one Christmas, I walked into the family room and saw our cute little two-year-old granddaughter with a sword in her hand. Sounds shocking, I know. But before you begin to question the parental competence of our children, I should tell you that it was a kind of sword I had never seen before. The "blade" was made entirely of feathers. It turns out that on her favorite children's TV show is this happy pirate who carries one of these feather swords. We tried the sword on me - it doesn't hurt. It tickles. I'd hate to be in any kind of a real battle with it. It's a little difficult to be intimidating as you're waving your feather sword!

Monday, December 10, 2007

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A friend of ours is an avid hunter; so much that he's been known to skip church occasionally during duck hunting season. He's well known in the church, so the pastor notices when he's not there. With a twinkle in his eye, our friend explained recently how he's prepared to handle pastoral questions like, "Where were you on Sunday?" He said he's named the duck blinds where he hides to hunt those birds. One is named "The Word." The other is named "Prayer." So when he's asked where he was on Sunday, he can simply answer, "I was in 'The Word,'" or, "I was in 'Prayer.'"

Friday, December 7, 2007

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I was learning to ride a bicycle, and my dad was my teacher. Across the street from our apartment was a schoolyard as big as a city block. Like most city schoolyards, it was all concrete, no grass. In the middle of that big expanse was the only obstacle for a bike-riding rookie - a big old metal flagpole. But how could anyone run into that when he had the entire rest of the schoolyard to learn in? It can be done. There I was, wobbling along, trying to learn to keep my balance on two wheels with my dad just behind me. Suddenly I heard him saying, "Turn, boy." My hands were frozen to the handlebars and I was sure turning either way meant crashing on that hard concrete. Again, "Turn, son!" I was closing in on the flagpole. Now it was a desperate cry from the lips of a disbelieving father, "Turn or you're going to hit the pole!" Bonngggg! I hit the pole. I still have the chipped tooth to prove it.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

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I was visiting Rome, and I encountered this archway along the Via Appia. It's one of the many such structures that are still there 2,000 years after they were built. But what caught my eye about this one was the three-word Latin question carved in the archway as an inscription. It simply says, "Domine, quo vadis?" At last, those two years of high school Latin were going to be useful! It means, "Lord, where are You going?" It goes back to a legend about the Apostle Peter as he was feeling led by God to go to Rome. Knowing it was going to be dangerous, even life-threatening to go there, Peter needed to be sure that's where God wanted Him. The legend says that he encountered the risen Christ there on the Via Appia, and he wanted to know only one thing from his Lord, "Domine, quo vadis? Lord, where are You going?" Jesus was going to Rome. Then that's where Peter was going!

Monday, December 3, 2007

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Our friend had a medical procedure to repair what the doctor called "a hole in her heart." Then he told her that everyone is born with a hole in their heart. That got my attention. I called a longtime friend of mine who is a highly experienced and respected heart surgeon. He told me that before we are born, there's a hole that is the passageway for blood to enter our pre-natal heart. In most people, and I'm glad I'm most people, the hole heals up within a few days after birth. For a few, it doesn't go away. And it really needs to be repaired.

Friday, November 30, 2007

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I know this is going to come as a huge surprise to you, but radio guys like me make mistakes sometimes. Yes, believe it or not. But you don't hear them because of that wonder-worker we call an editor—our producer. To whom I must always be very nice. Yes, our producers edit out my mistakes, but that doesn't mean they throw away the tape. Oh, no. And the same goes for the random, and sometimes crazy, things I may say before or after we record a program. Oh, it's all there. The tape is always rolling. Last Christmas I was reminded of that in a most vivid way. They put together a recording of some of those mistakes and comments, stitched together in an imaginary interview with a TV reporter, which they played for our whole staff. You’ll never hear it. Sure enough, if I say it, they've got it.

Friday, November 23, 2007

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I got every baseball card but the one with my hero on it. When I was a kid, I'd go to the vacant lot near our apartment on the south side of Chicago and I'd collect old pop bottles. Then I'd go to the little store on the corner, trade the bottles for money and the money for as many baseball cards as I could afford. My team was the Chicago White Sox. My hero was an All-Star, Hall of Fame-bound second baseman named Nellie Fox. I got every White Sox player except one. I could never find a Nellie Fox card. Fast forward about 25 years. My nine-year-old son is now a determined baseball card collector. He has saved all his allowances for a while to go with me to a special baseball card show. At one of the first tables we visited, my son said, "Dad, look!" And there he was, under glass - Nellie. My Nellie! The card did exist after all. But being all grown up now and needing every dollar, I looked but I didn't buy. My son and I agreed to meet a few minutes later up front. He came with his hand behind his back. I said, "What did you get?" He looked up at me with those huge blue eyes, held out his hand, and handed me that Nellie Fox baseball card. Needless to say, I was a mess.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

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Each winter, certain parts of America get hammered with monster snowstorms. And when it's our turn, we all have stories about how we survived the winter of whatever year it is. Well, no one's got a story like a Norwegian explorer named Boerge Ousland. For 64 days, he saw little more than white. He recently became the first person to ever cross the continent of Antarctica alone and unaided. It took him 64 days to cover those frozen 1,675 miles. He harnessed Antarctica's fierce winds by strapping himself to this parachute-like sail. With the winds in his favor, he could ski as much as 140 miles a day. All the while, he's towing a sled carrying about 400 pounds of supplies, enduring monotony and even temperatures that dipped to 40 degrees below zero. After his incredible journey, Ousland talked about the huge mental challenge of facing seemingly endless fields of snow. But here's how he did it, in his own words, "It's so big and so far - you have to keep concentrating on the near future and make every day a victory." Wow!

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

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When I travel - which seems to be most of the time - I always try to carry some quarters. I think it started when the kids were growing up. It says in the Dad's Job Description, "must have quarters at all times." Now I carry them partially because you never know when you're going to be needing a vending machine - actually, you're going to want a vending machine. I'm in a hotel, I'm working late, and I want a snack, I want a cold drink, I want today's newspaper. I go through the familiar ritual: put the quarters in, hit the selection button, something good comes out. At least it better. It's pretty annoying if you put your money in and don't get anything back. Why, I probably won't put any more money in that machine!

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

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I was in my office, trying to crawl out of an avalanche of papers on my desk. Suddenly, there was a knock on my door - and in came one of our team members with his wife and their bright-eyed eight-month-old little boy, Zachary. My wife then joined our little Zachary party and proceeded to plop this animated little bundle right in the middle of my desk - in the middle of a mountain of paper work - right where I couldn't ignore him. And you know something, I didn't mind one bit. Little Zachary and I had a great conversation. That means I did all the talking. We played, we laughed, and Zachary creatively reorganized (shall we say) the project I was working on. It was one of the best things that happened that day. It took me a while to reconstruct my project, but it was fun having that little guy right in the middle of everything!

Monday, November 19, 2007

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"Please help us." That's what the people stranded on the roof of their house had written on the sign that they waved over their heads. They represented so many thousands of New Orleans residents who were left stranded and in deadly danger by the floods of Hurricane Katrina. The wind and the rain of that category four hurricane were bad enough - but it was when the levees broke that suddenly major parts of the city were underwater, literally up to the rooftops. Harrowing stories began to unfold of how people had moved from a first floor to a second floor to escape the toxic waters. Then, as the second floor filled with water, how they moved to their last point of refuge - the roof. And many were stranded there, without food, without water, and increasingly without hope. And then hope showed up - in the shape of a Coast Guard helicopter, hovering over their rooftop refuge. Hope was a man coming down a cable to where they were; a man who secured their rescue and saved their lives.

Friday, November 16, 2007

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Our friend Joy has become a bit of an expert on moving. Her husband is a career Air Force officer, and that means seeing a lot of different places, having a lot of different addresses, and seeing a lot of moving vans in your life. We were talking the other day about their last move and what she considered one of the greatest gifts she's ever been given. It didn't have beautiful wrapping paper or bows on it. In fact, it was a dumpster! That might not sound all that exciting to you, but it was to her! She and her family had so much stuff to move, and everything they could get rid of, they didn't have to move. Someone said to her, "I've got this dumpster I'd like to loan to you for your move." Joy said she was overjoyed! She said there was something so exciting about the first thud of the first thing they threw into that dumpster. Then it was all about lots of thuds as they threw away mountains of stuff. They couldn't wait to go get more.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

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Some years ago I heard about an unusual experiment that some scientists conducted. The scientists wired a cage with low level voltage in the bottom of the cage, they put dogs in it and then they closed the door. They sent a current through. It wasn't enough to harm the dogs but it was enough to inflict some mild pain. You can guess the dog's reaction. They jumped, they barked, they howled. Well, they kept this up several times a day, but the reaction eventually changed. After a while the dogs barely twitched when the current went through the floor of that cage. They had gotten conditioned to it. In fact, the scientists then opened the cage door, sent the current through the floor and not one dog even tried to leave. It's as if they'd given up ever getting away from the pain. One last step in the experiment: they put a dog in the cage who had not been conditioned to the current and they left the door open. Well, they turned on the juice and the new dog knew exactly what to do. He ran right out of the cage followed by all the other dogs!

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

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When five-year-old Jeremy started school, it was more than he bargained for. It was the second morning of his kindergarten experience. Mom got Jeremy up and started helping him get ready. Then came his question, "Do I have to go back?" Oops! He wasn't counting on an encore. His rationale, "Well, I already went yesterday." His mother told us, "I didn't have the heart to tell him there's 12 more years of this!" Well, he went off to day two, of year one, of twelve more years!

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

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Three feet of snow! That was a weather record I didn't really want to participate in. But, sure enough, we woke up that cold New Jersey morning to three feet of snow that had literally buried the metropolitan New York area. Even New York, the city that never sleeps, had been effectively shut down by the storm. There were cross country skiers in Times Square! Our little guy really wanted to go out in the snow that blanketed our backyard. So we bundled him up and we watched as he ventured into that white stuff. And he promptly disappeared! I went out after him - and, as short as I am, I just about disappeared myself. I almost became the Abdominal - I mean, what's that? Abominable Snowman. It took quite a while for that snow to become manageable and for life to return to normal. And it wasn't the last snow dump of the winter. But for those of us who have lived through some pretty long and tough winters, there is this one word that sustains us through it all. You know the word - spring.

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