Tuesday, July 17, 2007

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We get our share of storms where we live, and we’ve got our share of trees. So, you can probably figure out the rest. After almost every storm, I make the rounds in the yard, picking up the souvenirs the storm left behind. I haul all those downed branches to my special brush pile place, even if they’ve got leaves on them. Even if I am a city boy, I know there’s no use planting those branches in the ground and hoping they’ll grow more leaves. In fact, those leaves they have are soon going to fall off. As soon as the branch gets separated from the tree, it starts dying.

Monday, July 16, 2007

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My wife and I will never forget our time on the little island of Haiti, some years ago. It's the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and a heartbreaking place for anyone with a little compassion in their heart. While we were there, missionaries told us about one recent tragedy; one indicative of so many in the lives of these beautiful people. There had been an epidemic of conjunctivitis, or "pinkeye" as it's often called. Women were frustrated by having their eyes crusted over or running with conjunctivitis, so they tried what they thought might cure it - bleach. They rubbed bleach in their eyes. You know the outcome.

Monday, July 9, 2007

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It was pretty scary for a four-year-old little girl. My wife's grandfather had somehow managed to drop his favorite pen down a cistern in his yard. She remembers it as being about 25 feet deep, and she remembers that because she was the one who had to retrieve Granddad's valuable pen. Her Daddy made this makeshift harness for her to sit in, tied a tope around her waist, and began to lower her down into that hole. Her mind was focused partly on the lost pen, and partly on what snakes might be down there in that damp hole in the ground. As she dangled in space in a scary place, she was counting on one thing: her big, strong Father was holding the rope.

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

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It's got to be one of my favorite plays - "Fiddler on the Roof." The story is virtually a modern classic, telling with this incredible charm and warmth the story of 19th-century Jews in Russia. All the joys of Jewish faith and Jewish family are there, along with the pain of persecution for being Jewish. Tevye, the milkman, is the colorful father of the family; a man who is forever arguing with himself. If you're familiar with the play, you'll remember how his conversations with himself - and even with God - will go back and forth as he talks himself in and out of opposite viewpoints. Tevye will present one view, and then inadvertently he will say, "On the other hand..." and he'll talk himself out of it. He doesn't actually reach many conclusions!

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

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When I'm speaking for some event, my needs are pretty simple. Just get me a bottle of fresh water, and I'll be able to keep going like the Energizer Bunny. Recently, I realized that I was heading into a speaking session without my trusty bottle of water. Someone directed me to a hospitality room the host had set up for those on the program. I bypassed all the goodies and I reached for the first bottle of water I saw. As I sat on the front row of the auditorium, awaiting my time to go up to the platform, I mindlessly twisted open the cap on the bottle so I could get a swig. Well, much to my surprise and chagrin, the contents immediately began erupting out of the bottle! I hadn't read the label, and I didn't know what was inside until I opened it. It was sparkling water, and it was sparkling all over me!

Monday, July 2, 2007

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It's a ghost town now. But in the 1880s, she was one of the boomtowns of California - all because of some silver in the ground. When the price of silver soared, so did their fortunes and so did the population of this little town that we visited not long ago. But when the price of silver crashed, well, so did the town. Back in some of her better days, a fire hit the town and it burned a lot of it to the ground. The only original buildings still standing there today had one thing in common. In a town that was mostly wood structures, these were the ones that were made of adobe. They've reconstructed some of those wood buildings, but hey, they weren't there long ago because they couldn't survive the fire.

Friday, June 29, 2007

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We hear millions of words in our life - especially if you spend much time around me or our family. We forget most of the words we hear, except for some that are just too important to forget. Like our baby's first words, or the last words of someone we love, or the words that end up changing our life. Our five-year-old grandson called me one day and said, "Granddad, I stayed up extra late tonight till I could talk to you and tell you what I memorized." It took me a while to recover from what he said, and I'll never forget it.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

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I am much too young, of course, to be having senior moments. Although I think I've been having them since I was about 25. One of those is when you seal an envelope and you suddenly realize you left something out; maybe it's a check or a letter. And you've already gone to the trouble of addressing it, putting your return address on it, maybe even stamping the envelope. Then, too bad. You're going to have to open up what you just sealed. Good luck. You probably won't be able to use that envelope. Once it's sealed, it's meant to stay that way.

Monday, June 25, 2007

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People who know me know that I'm a very focused person when I'm working on something. Except when it comes to the most distracting person I know - my little granddaughter. When she was only one-plus-year old, there was just no way to resist her when she came my way. She'd pull herself up by my pant leg, she'd stretch her arms my direction, and then made these cute little noises and irresistible faces - virtually begging me to pick her up. I'm not the only one who's gotten nothing done when she's around. No, she was that way with other family members; reaching out to be held. And I'll tell you this: our arms were always open.

Friday, June 22, 2007

On the September 11th we'll never forget, she was the last person brought out alive from the rubble of the World Trade Center. Fleeing down the stairs from her office on the 64th floor of the north tower, Genelle Guzman got as far as the thirteenth floor when the building collapsed around her. Suddenly, she was in total darkness, she was buried alive and she was unable to move much of her body. Genelle cried out to God for help. And that help came in the person of a rescuer breaking through the rubble and grabbing her hand. In her darkest moments, Genelle Guzman promised her life to Jesus Christ. Her emotional miracle was the total peace she has had every day since then; a peace that her psychiatrist, who's worked with many nightmare-plagued survivors, simply could not understand. In his book "Breakthrough Prayer," Jim Cymbala quotes Genelle's bottom line on what happened to her as she told it to her amazed psychiatrist. She said, "The tragedy I suffered was something I needed to go through in order to know Him."