Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Sometimes you see hitchhikers by the side of the road. What are they usually holding? A sign, usually crudely lettered, and it doesn't have the name of the car they want to ride in on it. It has the name of a place on it; the place they want to go. On Indian reservations, hitchhiking is a way of life. I asked one of our Native American friends recently about her hitchhiking experiences. She told me she asked only one question before she got in a car. She didn't care about the make of the car, the driver's IQ, or where the driver was from. She only had one question, "Where are you headed?"

Monday, September 26, 2005

How did we know it was a stupid question? Our family was in Alaska some years ago and we asked some of the folks there what seemed like a reasonable question, "Where can we go to see a moose?" The only moose we'll ever see in New Jersey are those guys at the lodge hall. You know? Most folks just laughed at our question. Turns out seeing a moose is really no big deal in Alaska. In fact, some people we talked to had hit one recently! So, they're everywhere. Sure. While I was busy speaking, my wife and kids drove all over the countryside looking for some moose. Nada. Maybe people hit them all! They even went to the Moose Sanctuary and they saw no moose there; frustrating, tired of looking, and pretty sure those moose were only in pictures in the tourist brochures. One morning we walked out of the house where we were staying, we piled in the car, and we started driving down the driveway. Suddenly, one of the kids shouted, "Moose!" And sure enough, there were three members of the antler gang right there at the bottom of our own driveway! What we'd been looking for all that time was right in front of us.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Jerry and I were best friends in high school, and then we didn't see each other for several years. But we were able to get together again when we found out that he and his wife had moved to an apartment in New York City. He was training to become a 747 pilot for a major airline. My wife and I went in to have dinner at their apartment, and we realized that Jerry and Gail were making the big bucks. They had an exclusive apartment, expensive furniture and a brand new Cadillac. Jerry took us down to the high-security garage to show the Caddy to us with a lot of pride. A couple months later, they drove out to our little apartment in a New Jersey suburb. We didn't live in a fancy neighborhood, but you know, it wasn't a bad neighborhood. Jerry had to park his Cadillac where we parked our un-Cadillac - on the street. We prepared a nice dinner, but Jerry couldn't enjoy it. He couldn't enjoy the conversation we tried to have after dinner. The whole time he was really nervous. Every five minutes or so he would leave the conversation, go over to the window, and check on his Cadillac! I assured him it would be OK, but no, no. He spent the whole night worrying about losing his expensive car. At first, I though Jerry owned a Cadillac. It turned out that a Cadillac owned Jerry!

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

People in the real estate business will tell you that three things really matter when it comes to the value of any property: location, location, and location. Apparently, the President's White House team believes that, too. After Bill Clinton's re-election, "Newsweek" described the efforts of various officials to get the best office spaces at the White House. It happens with every administration. The article was named, interestingly enough, "The Geography of Power." What makes an office at the White House a good office? Well, if you had a choice about your office, you'd probably want the one with windows and plenty of space. But that's not what matters most in the White House office scramble. It's how close are you to the Oval Office! You must be near the President! The way they put it is this: "proximity is power." Yes, it is.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

We lived in the same town for over 25 years, so I could almost drive our town blindfolded. And sometimes I acted like it. Then one day, I suddenly realized how casual I was cruising the streets close to home - too casual, really. When I'm in an unfamiliar situation; both hands on the wheel, all eyes and ears. I'm intent. I'm focused. But, hey, these streets? I've driven these a thousand times, so I just sort of would go on automatic pilot, and frankly sometimes I didn't pay much attention. For some reason, one of those National Safety Council factoids popped on the screen in my brain: the vast majority of accidents take place within a few miles of home. Interesting - it's when you feel the safest that you're really in the greatest danger of all.

Friday, September 16, 2005

For a long time, I've been fascinated with the story of the Titanic. The sinking of that seemingly "unsinkable" ship after a collision with an iceberg is filled with human drama that has inspired endless movies, books, and documentaries. Finding the Titanic at the bottom of the Atlantic fueled greater interest - and greater information - than ever before. Some of the drama of those discoveries has been within our reach as the Titanic artifacts exhibit has been on display in some of America's leading museums. You can see many personal items recovered from the Titanic's debris field along with displays that recreate the feeling of being a passenger on that doomed ship. When I went in, I was given a boarding pass with the name of a real person who had been aboard that awful night. At the end of the exhibit, there's this big wall with the names of everyone aboard - first class, second class, third class, crew. Every person is either on the list that says "saved" or "lost." I looked hard for my name - and I discovered that I was one of the few crewmen who was "saved."

A pastor I know, who I had told about my experience there, well, he went to see the exhibit for himself. But he told me about it. He looked me in the eye and said very soberly, "Except I was lost."

Thursday, September 15, 2005

There are some decent, even values-oriented things on television for children these days. But, as you know very well, there's a lot of garbage, too. And in between those two extremes, there are shows that are mostly good but have some words scattered in them that little ears shouldn't be hearing - or big ears, for that matter. Along comes a service called TV Guardian - which automatically replaces a naughty word with a nice word, thus removing what could be bad for your child. Occasionally, the replacements are actually a little amusing. Like the word "sex" for example. The new word is "hugs." Which gets a little interesting when someone asks, "So what will be the hugs of your baby?" But I do think TV Guardian is a pretty good idea.

Friday, September 9, 2005

Years ago I heard a friend tell about a scene from his childhood that he never forgot. My friend was around on that black day in 1929 that marked the beginning of the Great Depression. One of the great traumas of America's financial collapse was that many banks went under almost overnight. My friend remembered seeing a neighbor at the locked gates of his bank - and he was literally pounding his fists bloody on those gates, screaming at the top of his lungs, "Give me my money! Give me my money!" There was no money to give.

Thursday, September 8, 2005

Some friends of ours are involved in a ministry whose offices are out in the country. The setting is beautiful and far enough out that it even has some interesting four-legged neighbors. Like the mountain lion several workers and neighbors have spotted. There's not supposed to be a mountain lion in their area, but someone forgot to tell the mountain lion. I understand this has caused the folks who work there - especially if they're around after dark - to be just a little more vigilant when they're coming or going from their car. Personally, I think it's better for the person to see the lion before the lion sees the person.

Wednesday, September 7, 2005

Man, did our one-year-old granddaughter look happy! It was a milestone day. You know, ever since she started riding in a car with her parents, she has been in the back seat in her infant seat, facing backward - just like the safety folks recommend you should do. Well, her Mom and Dad travel a lot of miles, and she's seen a lot of country after it's gone by. Oh, but not anymore! She crossed that magic threshold - she weighs twenty pounds. By the way, I'm not surprised. I have seen this girl eat. She's definitely her father's daughter. But when you get to twenty pounds, you reach that great milestone - Mom and Dad turn your seat around and you get to see where you're going instead of where you've been.

Tuesday, September 6, 2005

My cell phone died. I wish I didn't need one, but I'm traveling so much and there's so much going on in our ministry, I just have to be able to stay in touch while I'm traveling. So we had to get a new cell phone. The old phone served us well for a long time, but now the buttons just refuse to work anymore. Like the button that says "power." Oh, you can press it many times, you can hold it down for a while, and probably not have it come on. And if it does and you enter a phone number you want to call, you will not enjoy what happens when you push the button that says "send." Actually, nothing happens usually. It is very hard to place that call. And if the "send" button finally works, then you'll have a lot of fun when your call is done and you push the "end" button. No response - and a very big bill. It's really frustrating when you push the buttons you've always pushed and you don't get the response you've always gotten.

Monday, September 5, 2005

There were many dramatic images from the military action known as Operation Iraqi Freedom - but few more dramatic than the middle-of-the-night rescue of prisoner of war Jessica Lynch. As Coalition forces advanced quickly from the Kuwaiti border to the capital of Baghdad, Pfc. Lynch's unit of Army maintenance troops made a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of an enemy ambush. No one knew Jessie Lynch's fate - she was listed as missing in action. But acting on the tip of Iraqi sympathizers, a Special Operations Force fought their way into the hospital where she was imprisoned, found her, and quickly carried her to a waiting helicopter. And then, they had to fight their way out, too. But Private Lynch was safe - saved by rescuers who risked it all to bring her out.

Friday, September 2, 2005

Allison, her daughter, and two friends were out for a trail ride in a remote area recently. They were to rendezvous later, actually, in the afternoon with other family members at their overnight campsite. When it came time to head back, they were somewhere on the side of a mountain, picking their way through very rocky ground. No matter which way they went, they could not find the main trail that would take them back down the mountain. They could see where they needed to be, but the terrain was too rugged to get down any other way. Hours wore on, dark began to fall, and Allison's two friends finally made an attempt to get to a cabin they could see but not ride to down below. Well after dark, Allison and her daughter finally saw flashlights moving up the mountain. Her friends returned with the man from that cabin - a man who knew this area like the back of his hand. He helped them pick their way to a point where they could actually get right back on the trail. And much to their surprise, while they had been lost, they had been very close to the trail all along!

Thursday, September 1, 2005

I was teaching at a training school for people entering youth ministry when I learned about a call home that must have been heartbreaking for the dad who made it. The school was three weeks long, and dad had already been gone for over two weeks. He was seriously missing his wife and two-year-old son, and they were missing him. After waiting patiently in the long line that formed every day after classes at the lobby pay phone, he finally got to talk to his wife. When he asked how his son was doing, she said, "Not too well, honey. Yesterday he came up to me and said, 'Mommy, is Daddy dead?'" Ouch!

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

As each of our kids has fallen in love, I have had what sounded like a strange piece of advice for them. I've said, "Make sure you make a good 200-year choice." Needless to say, that's been greeted with an expression that says, "You doin' okay, Dad?" It turns out none of our kids expects to ever celebrate their 200th wedding anniversary. But that's not what I'm talking about anyway. I'm talking about the impact the choice of a mate will have for a long, long time - along with a lot of other family choices.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Over the years we've lived near the ocean, and we were blessed to have a friend who was a veteran sailor. He'd been sailing the East Coast since he was a boy. And he was generous enough to allow us to go sailing with him sometimes and to watch a master at work. I tried to apply for "first mate," but he always said, "Don't call us, we'll call you." Which he never did. But I was a grateful, and I was a curious passenger. He told me some great stories of sailing adventures. He showed us how to do some of what he did, and he related times that he had seen one sailboat after another fall over as they were unprepared for a shift in the wind. You don't have to be a seasoned seaman to understand a fundamental law of a successful voyage: It's the set of the sail, not the force of the gale, that determines the way you go.

Monday, August 29, 2005

When you're little, your parents seem immortal. They're not. Sooner or later, most of us get the kind of call I got not long ago - a parent is gone. In my case, the hospital called to say my Mom had been admitted due to a medical emergency, but her body gave out and she was gone. No matter what the circumstances, the death of someone you love is always a shock. When you're the only living child and your other parent is already gone, there can be a numbing list of arrangements that you suddenly have to make. Thankfully, that wasn't the case with my Mom. Mercifully, funeral arrangements had been made and paid for years ago.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Senior year in college - somehow our son had maneuvered himself into a coveted on-campus house for his senior lodging. About a dozen guys set up their own little universe there (not necessarily an orderly universe, of course). He told me that one day he and several other guys were talking about a student leader who was a friend of theirs. We'll call him Marty. And in the "talk, then think" atmosphere of college guys in a room, our son was reviewing some of the dumb things (that was his opinion) Marty had done in his leadership choices. As he was finishing this little barbecue, someone drifted into the room from the kitchen - the room right next door. It was, of course, Marty with his cup of coffee in his hand. He'd been right next door making himself some coffee - no doubt listening to this critical review of his leadership. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to. Our son felt about an inch tall when he realized who he had been hurting.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

If you're from Texas, you know that Alamo is more than just a rental car or pie with ice cream on it. The Alamo is that old Spanish mission in the heart of downtown San Antonio where 189 brave freedom fighters took their stand against the army of Mexico in the battle for Texas independence. I visited the Alamo recently, and once again I was moved by the sacrifice of those men who gave their lives for the cause of freedom, but only after inflicting some pretty heavy losses on the enemy army and inspiring the ultimate victory with the Texas battle cry, "Remember the Alamo!" Colonel William Travis was in command of the garrison as his valiant band stood against those overwhelming odds. I was especially moved as I read the letter that Colonel Travis wrote addressed to "the people of Texas and all Americans." In fact, I was so moved that I read part of it to the 5,000 young people I spoke to that night. He said, "The enemy has demanded a surrender. Otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword if the fort is taken. I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat." That's more than history. It's a battle cry for you and me.

Monday, August 22, 2005

"Family secrets" - that was the bold headline in Newsweek. The story was inspired by what happened in the life of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who as she was being considered for that position, learned a secret her family had kept for decades. She thought her grandparents had been Czechoslovakian Catholics who died peaceful deaths. They were in fact Jews who'd been murdered in a Nazi concentration camp. But Newsweek was using that incident to point out how many families have secrets in their closets, from hidden adoptions to hushed-up romances, sometimes with painful consequences. Like Deborah Blanchard for example, she was a student at a music conservatory when she married an African-American man. She's white and she had two sons before that marriage ended in divorce.

When Deborah moved back to her parents' white neighborhood, her sons were not accepted there, so she decided they'd be better off living with an African American family. She put them up for adoption and tried to resume her life. But she was tormented by that decision. In fact, she lost her trained lyric-soprano voice. She said, "I was never able to sing after that." When she remarried, she kept her past a secret for ten years. When she finally confessed it to her husband, he responded compassionately, and they went on a search for her sons and there's a happy ending. In Newsweek's words, "The family was reunited, the secrets were told, and almost miraculously, her singing voice came back."