Monday, June 12, 2006

It's usually the most watched event of the Winter Olympics every four years: the women's figure skating competition. At the 2006 Games in Turin, Italy, a lot of America's hopes for a gold medal were riding on Sasha Cohen; especially after she managed a thin, first-place edge after the initial short program. Then came the decisive long skating program. Suddenly, all hopes of any medal seemed to disappear with a major fall early in her program. The TV commentators actually said, "Now it's going to a fight just be on the podium." With a major deficit in her score from her fall, Sasha Cohen could have easily lost heart. She didn't. She fought back with a strong and impressive showing in the rest of her performance. When the rest of the world's best had all skated, the young woman who had fallen - who seemed to have forfeited any hope of being a champion - stood on that podium with a coveted silver medal.

Thursday, June 8, 2006

John Parker had it made. After two attempts to escape being a slave to a Southern slave owner, he had finally gotten his freedom. He chose to live in Ripley, Ohio, right on the freedom side of the Ohio River. He got a house and a good job as a factory worker. Ultimately, he owned a foundry and he invented many processes that were used widely in the foundry industry. He was safe, secure and successful. But night after night, John Parker risked it all. Under cover of darkness, he rowed across the river to the Kentucky side - slave territory. If he was caught, he could lose his freedom. He could even lose his life. But in spite of the risks, John Parker went looking for runaway slaves. And he found them and rowed them across the river to freedom. It's believed that John Parker was responsible for at least 900 slaves going free.

Tuesday, June 6, 2006

This would come under the heading of, "You know it's going to be a bad day when..." My wife and I were stopped at a stoplight during the rush hour one morning. We were on a local street that intersects the busiest highway in the area at that point. Now there are two lanes, OK, but we were in the left one - left turn lane. The light turned green, I started turning left, and I noticed another car next to me on my right turning left from the right lane. No, no, not supposed to! That's illegal, and it's pretty dangerous at this intersection. Well suddenly, our friendly scofflaw sees this blinking light in his rear view mirror. He has just made that illegal turn right in front of a police officer! Duh! Needless to say, he was pulled over on the shoulder before he'd even cleared the intersection. He's not even out of the neighborhood yet and he's been caught!

Thursday, June 1, 2006

My wife and I were out for a Sunday afternoon drive and we saw a very strange contradiction. It was this church, and there were long stairs leading up to the entrance and one lone lady at the door. She was trying every door to get into that church, and they were all locked. She looked very frustrated. Now what was the contradiction? It was the name on the church, "Our Lady of Perpetual Help." Well, my wife said, "You know, this reminds me of a scene I saw when I was in Haiti." She said, "I was right near a church, and there was this very gaunt woman, probably almost starving to death and weeping at the door of this church. She looked like she was desperate to get in and every door was locked." That lady was literally beating her fists bloody on the door and there was no response.

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Our older son dreamed since first grade about playing his first high school football game, and the day finally came. And the first game was an "away" game. It was a freshman game, and let me tell you, at freshman games, the parental attendance was usually underwhelming! Well, my wife and I were huddled conspicuously in the bleachers, up there with a few others. And finally the team came in with their mix-and-match freshman uniforms. Of course, we're looking for only #76. We didn't take our eyes off of #76, our son. And he, on the other hand, oh, he's all business, man, looking appropriately all macho - staring straight ahead - game face. Oh, he wasn't about to be needing Mom and Dad, but he couldn't resist a glance. For just a moment, he glanced from under that helmet into the stands, and our eyes met. And then, he was quickly back at the field - no smile, no wave, except from us, but our son had to know we were there. Our presence was very noticeable. Our absence would have been, too.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

When you drive in the New York City area, lane switching becomes a well developed art form. Of course, the danger zone in switching lanes is your blind spot. That one area in your rear vision where you can't see in any of your mirrors - that's pretty critical. Actually, the words blind spot have taken on new meaning for my wife and me. She had some vision problems and she developed what the doctor believed to be a temporary blind spot. He injected some dye to see how much of her vision was blocked, and I was surprised as the doctor showed us the results. He said, "Now, here is the blind spot that we all have." I said, "I do?" Right around the optic nerve, there are no rods and cones to produce a visual image, so we all have a blind spot.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Ellis Island - that was the first piece of America that millions of immigrants ever touched. It's a little island in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. When you visit the island, there's a long, granite wall with thousands of names of immigrants who passed through there. This was the point of entry for all the immigrants coming through New York. They would book passage and get the cheapest price they could often down below decks. Finally, the boat would reach America, they would step off the boat and enter this long, red brick building on Ellis Island. It's cavernous; it echoes on the inside. But this is where they went through the steps that eventually permitted them to move from the island and on to their real destination, which was New York City and the rest of America. The tour guide says the people carried all their belongings in a basket. That was okay. They knew the island wasn't where they would live, so out of all those thousands who came there, not one ever set up a house there. They weren't going to be there very long.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

The sign said, "Antique Auto Show." So, my wife and I decided that we'd take a few minutes and stop at this car dealership and look at the antique autos. Really, we were interested in seeing the ones that went back to the 50s and the 60s when we were young. There was this one sleek, black '66 Mustang and it had a flawless exterior, a really rich interior, and the hood was open so you could look at the horsepower underneath. And there sitting on the engine block was a thick book of photos. It wasn't the guy's children or grandchildren. It was his car, and at the beginning of this photo album there were "before" pictures of this car. Well, let me tell you, it was garbage when he started. The first pictures were of this rusted out wreck, this banged-up Mustang. That must have been what he bought. And as you look through the book step-by-step you could see the car was being slowly transformed. It took months and maybe years of the owner's patient attention to get this beautiful classic. When the owner saw that wreck, he saw more than a wreck. He saw something that others didn't see.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Our local high school football team has a history of championships and the guys work very hard to get a starting position. One of the things they do is spend a lot of time in the weight room. Our two sons played for that team and, I'll tell you, you have to be in that weight room a lot. The coach is watching. Of course, the weight room is the best place to lift. For one thing, of course, the coach sees you there and he knows you're working hard and that's what coaches like.

You also have spotters there - those are the guys who stand by you while you're lifting to help lift that bar off you just in case you get in trouble because you've lifted more than you could handle. That's what Chris was missing that day. See, Chris had a weight bench in his basement and he didn't have anybody around, but he wanted to do his lifting, and he was trying to increase the amount that he could bench press all alone. It's not smart to be pushing it when there's no one there to help, and he lost it and all that weight came down on top of him. So, Chris is there struggling, and finally he was able to roll it off of him. Naturally, he was pretty lucky because he escaped with just a few bruises, but some guys have actually gotten badly hurt that way. If you're not careful, you could end up trapped under what you thought you could lift.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

My family calls it an idiosyncrasy or is it "idiotsyncrasy"? I'm not sure. But no matter when we get home whenever we've been on a trip, I must unpack. It is the first thing to do when you get home. Oh, it may be 2am, but there's Ron putting his clothes in the closet where they go; making sure his toothbrush is where it needs to be the next morning, putting my books back where they came from. Everyone else is zonked! They're in a coma, and here's Mr. Compulsive busily restoring order. See, I'm not home until I'm unpacked and finally I fall into bed and I go, "Ah, I'm finally home!" See, once everything is put away, I can finally start enjoying being home. Actually, we should unpack even sooner

Monday, May 15, 2006

Our son brought a playful little Shih Tzu puppy into our house years ago. She loved to play with bubbles. Yeah, she would chase those bubbles that we would blow on the floor, and it was crazy to watch. And she also loved bottles. You know, the plastic bottles? She would enjoy a good battle with any two-liter plastic soda pop bottle, and we'd throw it on the floor. She'd attack that thing! You could hear it all through the house! Here's this plastic bottle being thrown into the air, she forces it up against the wall, it thuds along the floor (oh, this is great when you're trying to sleep, believe me). Finally she would fight that thing until she was totally exhausted. And then you'd hear nothing. You'd go in and she was totally flopped on the kitchen floor. There she was, almost out cold. She had literally worked herself totally out of energy in combat with a dumb, plastic bottle.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

My wife is anything but a typical American TV watcher. First of all, she seldom watches it. And secondly, when she does, I often find her watching nature shows. I walked in one day, and she was watching a program on whales. Even though it did make me blubber a little bit, I learned a lot watching it. It was about how the killer whale is really not as vicious as you might think he is in spite of his name. They actually had film footage of a killer whale lying in the water, while smaller animals were playing with him and on him. The commentator said the killer whale is usually pretty gentle. He can afford to be. He knows no one can threaten him, because there is no one stronger.

Tuesday, May 9, 2006

They just don't make garbage like they used to. Do you remember the good old days when you could throw away everything when you were done with it? Actually, those were not the good old days, because we were also trashing our environment. I don't know how it is in your neighborhood, but we lived in a neighborhood where we had the privilege of sorting and putting out what used to be just garbage: bottles, newspapers, cans and glass. They're now called recyclables. It's amazing how they can take that garbage, and then recycle it into something useful again.

Friday, May 5, 2006

Over the years I've noticed a fairly predictable formula for some of those TV adventure series: there's a victim you like, a villain you don't like, a hero you really like, and a major predicament near the end usually resolved in the last five minutes. But occasionally the predicament isn't resolved by the end of the show. As the minutes run out of the hour, the villain you don't like is winning, the victim and hero you do like are in grave danger, and it ends right there - causing a serious Maalox Moment. You're protesting, "It can't end here!" And then one hope-giving word suddenly appears on the screen - continued.

Wednesday, May 3, 2006

One of the wonderful gifts the Lord has given us in our Ministry Headquarters is a great studio for producing our radio programs. As our building was being built, the builders had to keep the concrete floor of the studio area separate from the floor of the rest of the building. It's called a floating floor, which simply means that the studio floor is totally isolated from the floor under everything else. The reason? A radio studio has to have an environment where no outside sound affects what you're recording. So to help create a totally controlled sound environment, you have a floating floor so other sounds won't travel through the floor and infect the studio area. If you want a pure sound, you have to isolate yourself from all outside vibrations.

Tuesday, May 2, 2006

The man in the Disney movie was an inventor. One of his inventions was a shrinking machine. Some have suggested that's what happened to me - a shrinking machine. It did happen to his kids' baseball. It crashed through the window of his laboratory and it landed in dad's shrinking machine, turning it on as it landed, and the kids were amazed to see how their ball suddenly shrank. Thinking this machine was really cool, they started playing with it - until the machine suddenly shrank them to an almost invisible size. And the anguished cry of the father is the title of the movie: "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids!"

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Apparently, the drunk driver liked our side of the road better than his side of the road. With our whole family aboard, our car was suddenly hit head-on. By God's grace, none of us was seriously injured, but our car went to car heaven, or wherever totaled cars go. I had a busy ministry schedule during the next few weeks, and our only car was gone. Then a friend called and offered to lend us his car while he was in Florida for the next six weeks. That was awesome! An hour later, he drove into our driveway with his brand new Cadillac Coupe DeVille. That was good news and bad news. The good news was that for the next six weeks I'd be driving my friend's brand new Cadillac. The bad news was that for the next six weeks I'd be driving my friend's brand new Cadillac! I've never driven so carefully in my life! I stayed well under the speed limit, I got the oil changed about three times a week, I didn't allow one scrap of food or drink in that vehicle. Hey, this was somebody else's treasure I was driving!

Friday, April 21, 2006

Over the years, our family has had some great times at the New Jersey shore. And I love to see the Atlantic Ocean with all of its many moods. Relatively calm. Tide out. Tide in. Building surf. Towering breakers. Angry in a storm. When the waves really start getting high, most swimmers make a wise choice. They get out of the water and they call it a day. Some of those massive waves could totally swamp you and then probably carry you all the way to England. But there's another breed out there. They're called surfers; some on surfboards, some body-surfing, and they don't run out when the monster waves start coming - they run in! And they ride those monsters!

Thursday, April 13, 2006

My wife and I kept two special remembrances of our wedding: a tape of the ceremony and a piece of wedding cake. The tape was a much better idea. We froze the cake and then we ate some of it on our first anniversary. You've heard about chocolate cake? This was more like chalk cake. But the tape was a great idea. Often, even now on our on anniversary, we replay it. We relive that wonderful day that our marriage began. And we are there! Some couples go way beyond a tape - they actually dust off the old wedding dress, reconvene the wedding party, and do it all again for their 25th. You know, it's good for a couple to remember their wedding day. A trip back to the beginning can rekindle that spark.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Sometime in your life, you've probably run into a waiter or waitress with a stinky attitude; maybe even two or three. But a lot of times you can't blame them totally, if you see the way a lot of them get treated in a day's time. They're not America's best treated people. Maybe that's why I've made it sort of a personal crusade to brighten their day a little bit by remembering their name, smiling, saying thanks and sometimes even goofing off with the server a little bit. Sometimes, when they come back during the meal they ask, "How is everything?" I'll say, "Wonderful! You're a great cook!" It's always fun to watch their response. Usually they just stop cold for a minute. Sometimes they'll laugh; sort of embarrassed and they'll say, "Oh, I don't cook it!" I know that. They're delivering what someone else created!