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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!

Monday, April 14, 2008

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Well, it was our turn again for the locusts to pay us a brief visit. Now, you can't really complain, I mean, they only drop by every seventeen years. What a life these critters have! They suck on a root in the ground for a while, they finally emerge, they climb a tree, they make a lot of noise for about three weeks, and they die. You talk about "get a life!"

Thursday, April 10, 2008

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One of our sons announced an interesting system of weight control some years ago. He said he would eat what he wanted for a while, and then suddenly declare a day or two where he reversed all engines and he ate nothing. He announced, "Today is a Slim Fast day." Just those diet milkshakes, three times a day. When you like to eat, drinking all three meals is not very satisfying. I was out running errands one of those times, and he went with me. We stopped at this bagel store, and I came back to the car with the aroma of fresh bagels coming out of this bag. Has to be one of the most tempting smells I know. I said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I did this on this day!" He said, "Oh, Dad, I can handle it. It's only one day."

Monday, April 7, 2008

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It's a good thing that out of our three children, we had only one daughter. I could only afford one wedding! Now my wife did all kinds of resourceful things to keep the costs way down. It was so nice of those guests to bring a sack lunch, I'll tell you. No, no, I'm only kidding. It was modest, but it was beautiful. But it certainly wasn't free! We enjoy watching the video of the wedding once in a while, but we won't have to do the wedding again! Can you imagine if her husband kept saying every few months, "I think we need to have another wedding. I want to make sure we're married." They haven't needed to do that! Neither have her mother and I because we know we got married that day.

Friday, April 4, 2008

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Metal mouth! That's what they called my daughter in Junior High. Of course, there were plenty of kids you could call that. Those pre-teen and early teen years are the braces years, right? All our kids got to take their turn at braces, and we were thankful, frankly, that we had a friend who was their orthodontist. The work was important, but oh the bills were challenging! Our friend allowed us to pay in installments, but even that was hard. We still had this large unpaid balance the day our latest bill arrived. We opened it and we couldn't believe the three beautiful words that were stamped across the bill: PAID IN FULL!

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

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Every once in a while we think someone left the floodlight on in the backyard, so I look outside the window to discover the floodlight isn't on - the moonlight is! It's one of those really impressive full-moon nights. The most beautiful one, for my wife and me I think, was when we were on vacation in the mountains. Our cabin was nestled in this quiet valley next to this gentle little stream. Not long after dark, I noticed that the valley was like ablaze with light! The full moon was rising in the eastern sky and it was casting this celestial glow over everything. It was perfectly positioned in the sky to just totally illuminate the valley we were in. But then, something made me realize what I was really looking at, and I said as we stood on the porch in admiration, "You know, that moon really isn't producing any light at all. It's only reflecting the light of the sun."

Monday, March 31, 2008

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On some of my trips I can travel pretty light, but there have been a few that I felt like a mule carrying the things I had to take. One trip I had to pack for three different seasons; professional settings, youth settings, and well, you get the idea. Because I was going to be gone for quite a while, of course, I had to basically take my office with me too. I had a lot of baggage! When I arrived, someone from the area met me at the gate and they said those magic words, "Let me help you with your baggage." I did.

Monday, March 24, 2008

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Our three-year-old grandson was turning out to be quite an engineer. He loved to figure out how things work and loved to build things that do. When he was at Grandma and Granddad's house, he would play with our Lincoln Logs. One day he had built a couple of cabins in the middle of our living room and we noticed he'd stopped and he was just lying on his tummy with his head cradled in his hands, studying the pictures on the Lincoln Logs container. When his mom asked him what he was doing just staring at that container, he said, "There are some pieces missing here." And he began to point out exactly what pieces were pictured on the can but missing in front of him.

Monday, March 17, 2008

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I'm a city boy. Where I grew up, kids were about the only things that grew. We didn't even have grass in the backyard of the apartment building where I lived - just dirt. So I've had a lot to learn from the farm girl I married, as well as my many friends who are or were farmers. I was traveling in the heartland with one of our leaders recently - a man who spent years in farming, and he taught me a pretty memorable lesson as we were driving down a country road just past a cornfield. He was explaining how a farmer harvests his corn and how the end row may get knocked down when he turns the corner from one row to another. That leaves some corn stalks knocked down, lying horizontal and broken. And they're often in the shade of a stalk that’s still standing near it. But don't count that stalk out just yet! The pollen from the overshadowing corn stalk filters down onto that broken corn. And amazingly, that plant that has everything going against it starts developing another crop and eventually you'll be able to pick corn off that old boy!

Friday, March 14, 2008

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Living in the busy suburbs of New York City, it was always nice to scoop up the family and go for a little Sunday afternoon drive in the country. Just to our north was a beautiful rural area where we often went to wander, explore, or just revisit some favorite places we found. Seldom did I offer the family a detailed advance itinerary. That was okay with two of our kids. Not our oldest son. When I said, "We're going for a mystery trip today," he didn't jump up and down with excitement. In fact, he suddenly went into interrogator mode. "Where are we going, Dad? How long will it take to get there? How long are we going to go there? How long are we going to be there? What time will we get back? Where are we going to eat? What are we going to do there?" Finally, I just turned to the back seat, looked him in the eye, and said those two bottom line words: "Trust me." And we had some great mystery trips!

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

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Since we call our outreach among Native Americans "On Eagles' Wings," it's natural that I would have learned a lot about eagles in recent years. You only need to have seen one in flight to know that there's something singular and almost regal about these magnificent birds. It's no wonder they have been the symbol of great empires. One of the many amazing facts about eagles is the way they respond to an approaching storm. Other birds sense that storm coming and they head for cover. Oh, but not the mighty eagle. No, he literally sits on the edge of his nest, waiting expectantly for the storm to come. When it does, he locks his wings in an ascending position and he uses the storm's strong winds to help him spiral round and round, rising higher and higher all the time. Ultimately, the eagle begins to see sunlight around him and the storm below him. He rides the storm until he rises above the storm.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

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Ronald Reagan led one of the most extraordinary lives of the 20th Century - a life which he sadly and progressively forgot in the last years of his life. His long battle with Alzheimer's Disease acted like a cruel eraser. It removed recollections of what he had done and even who he was. After Ronald Reagan's death, we learned a lot more about what happened during his long journey into darkness. Memory of his years in Hollywood just disappeared, and then of being Governor of California, and ultimately he lost all that happened even in his years as President of the United States. But one memory stayed alive almost until the end. In the office Nancy Reagan set up for him, there was a picture on the wall; it was a picture of the Rock River in Illinois. When visitors would ask him about it, after most of his life was there no more, he would brighten and say, "Oh, that's where I was a lifeguard when I was 17. That's where I saved 77 lives!"

Monday, March 10, 2008

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While I was speaking at a conference, our hosts gave my wife and me a picturesque cabin to stay in, right on the side of this beautiful mountain. I was unusually motivated to get my exercise there, because it involved hiking up this scenic mountain all the way to the top. As I headed back down and neared our cabin, I had this notion that it would be nice to make the last stretch a romantic walk with my honey. There's a song I used to whistle to her outside her dorm window when we were in college and we were engaged - a song we later had sung at our wedding. It starts with the words, "Because you come to me." Lapsing into romantic mode, I started whistling our song. Little did I know my wife wasn't there! No one came. I walked alone.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

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Not long ago, someone told me about a pastor who stood at the pulpit one Sunday and announced this to his people: "Folks, I have some bad news, some good news, and some bad news." He had everyone's attention. "The bad news is that the roof on this church is shot. We have to replace it. But the good news is - we have the money. The bad news is - it's in your wallets!"

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

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We knew some folks who owned a convenience store, and they were people who worked some very long hours to make a living, but we enjoyed teasing them about the prices in their store. We'd kid about $5.00 for a half-gallon of milk, $10.00 for a box of cookies, $2.00 candy bars. Now it wasn't quite that bad, but you usually do pay noticeably more for things in a convenience store. See, that is the profit factor in being open at times and on days when other stores are closed. Our storeowner friends were quick to defend those prices. They reminded us of a simple fact of life - convenience costs more. They're right.

Monday, March 3, 2008

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Our daughter was always a curious little thing, and she asked endless questions, especially when it was time to go to sleep at night. And she liked to look into things that she found, even trying them at times. Most of those little explorations were harmless. Not the day she got into a drawer in the bathroom and pulled out some stuff she saw Daddy using to get ready in the morning. Deodorant - no problem. Toothbrush, toothpaste - no problem. My razor - problem. She'd seen her father run that razor up and down his cheeks, so she decided to do what she saw Daddy do. Bad idea! Scratches and cuts on her face. No permanent damage, but not something she did twice.

Friday, February 29, 2008

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Not long ago, someone told me about a pastor who stood at the pulpit one Sunday and announced this to his people: "Folks, I have some bad news, some good news, and some bad news." He had everyone's attention. "The bad news is that the roof on this church is shot. We have to replace it. But the good news is - we have the money. The bad news is - it's in your wallets!"

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