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Monday, February 27, 2006

This may come as quite a surprise to you, but there were a lot of rumors in college that I was behind many of the practical jokes and pranks that happened while I was there. That's hard to imagine, isn't it? It wouldn't come as a total surprise to some of those folks that I finally ended up in the penitentiary; Alcatraz, in fact. Fortunately, my sentence was only about four hours. Actually, we had taken some young people out to that famous prison in the middle of San Francisco Bay to do a special radio program. Of course, it's been some years since any prisoners were held there on what they called The Rock, but it is still quite a place to see. While we were there, we experienced the awful claustrophobia of being locked in one of those little cells and the isolation of being in solitary confinement. For the closing segment of the program, we walked out of one of the prison gates and down to the rocks outside that overlook the bay. One of the young people with us was walking out with me, and he made quite an observation. "Just think," he said, "there was only a wall between them and all this beauty."

Thursday, February 23, 2006

You've probably never heard of the "Pig War" between the United States and Great Britain because it's a war that almost happened. That war almost started in 1859 on the disputed San Juan Island between Canada and the State of Washington. In the midst of that tension between England and the U. S., an American settler named Lyman Cutler shot a pig who was rooting through his potato patch. Unfortunately, that pig belonged to Englishman Charles Griffin. That incident was like a match to a powder keg in this already inflamed situation. For 12 years, there was serious hostility and tension between the U.S. and British authorities - over a pig. Finally, General Winfield Scott brokered a peace deal. So, fortunately, the only fatality in this conflict was a pig.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Our granddaughter was almost three when her parents took her to the place that blew her little mind - Disneyland. She loves Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh and Cinderella, and this was where they live! For many months afterward, she continued to talk about the experiences she had there. But it was her first reaction that was the most priceless of all. They got off the tram and walked onto the main street of Disneyland with a castle in front of them and Disney characters greeting them. Her reaction wasn't verbal, so it's a little hard to convey it. But imagine a dark-haired, dark-eyed, round-faced little girl stopped in her tracks with her eyes wide like saucers, her hands suddenly covering her mouth, and only one audible reaction - gasp!

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Your 40th birthday; it's one of those milestone birthdays. For many, not an especially welcome milestone. I've heard many women, in particular, who are dreading hitting that 40 mark. My wife handled her fortieth like it was no big deal; no trauma, no counseling, no plastic surgery, no sobbing. I only hope I can handle my fortieth as gracefully. (I guess it's a good thing I'm not talking about integrity today.) It was our son who threw the curve ball in all of this. He was around 12 years old, and a few weeks after Mom's big 4-0, he announced a calculation he had, for some reason, just concocted. He said, "Hey Ma, did you know you've been alive for 14,686 days?" Forty years she could handle, but 14,686 days? That sounds prehistoric!

Friday, February 10, 2006

When you're a five-year-old girl, going dark places alone can be pretty scary. When my wife was that age, she lived in the country and she had this long, often dark, road that she walked to get to the school bus. Part of the way, there was a grandma, and then a neighbor who watched and waved at her as long as she was in sight. See, it was that last stretch that was the problem. Trees covering that road, making it dark on the sunniest day, and the sounds in the woods that reminded her of the wild critters that lived in their area. She told me how, "There was one thing that got me through that stretch every day. I sang this little song, 'Jesus loves me, this I know.'"

Wednesday, February 8, 2006

It was Valentine's Day and it turned out to be a milestone day in my relationship with the girl I considered to be the best catch in our class. I knew she had been seriously dating someone else for quite a while, and I had to plan my moves very shrewdly, you see, or I'd scare her off. So, we had what we both called this "brother/sister" relationship. Oh, sure I wanted it to be more, but at least I could spend some time with her this way without scaring her off. Well, one day I'd had enough of this platonic relationship stuff. She was actually bringing a Valentine's cake up to some radio staff at our college and I happened to be there. We got into a pretty intense discussion there, standing by the water fountain, I remember. And finally I blurted out what I'd been feeling for a long time, "I'm sick and tired of just being your 'brother'. I want it to be much more!" There it was - all or nothing. And what happened? I married the girl! (This is the part where the audience cheers.)

Monday, February 6, 2006

I thought she was the cutest little thing in junior high. She didn't think I was the cutest little thing in junior high, though. See, I decided to make an all-or-nothing play for her. I went downtown and I spent all my allowance money on this necklace for her; the finest rhinestones you have ever seen. Then I wrote this eloquently mushy note to go with it and I sealed them both in an envelope which I proceeded to hand her one day as she passed by my desk in study hall. The next day, she passed by my desk again, and I looked down and there was a familiar looking envelope with the note and the necklace in it. Ouch!

Friday, February 3, 2006

I couldn't just sit down and start using your personal computer. Of course, you couldn't just sit down and start using mine either. If you work in an office, changes are they make sure they can have access to the company computer that you use. Your computer, my computer, your company's computer are all protected from any funny business by something called a password. I can't get into my computer without typing in my password. Would you like to know what it is? It's... a secret.

Wednesday, February 1, 2006

Connie was in the campus outreach club I ran near her high school. In some ways, she was a typical teenager. In other ways, her life was very different from her peers. Every morning about 5:00 A.M. - while her peers were still sound asleep - Connie was at the local ice skating rink, practicing. And when her friends were all enjoying their summer off, well, she was in Colorado in a rigorous training program for ice skaters. A few years later, we were in Holland, teaching a European youth workers conference. As I was in our bungalow, preparing for the next meeting, I had the TV on in the background, with a telecast of the Winter Olympics going. I wasn't paying much attention because the commentary was in Dutch, and my Dutch is slightly limited. But suddenly I heard a name I recognized - Connie's name. I looked up in time to see her on the screen, proudly representing her country in the quest for Olympic glory. Well, I knew how she got there.

Monday, January 30, 2006

When you see how cute our three-year-old granddaughter is, it's hard to believe she's actually related to me. But she really is our little princess. I started calling my daughter "Princess" when she was just a baby, and I've never stopped. But I can't help calling our granddaughter that, as well, and she loves princesses. In fact, she's got a princess skirt and top and tiara that she likes to wear around the house sometimes. She looks like Cinderella at the ball. When she answers the phone, I'll say, "Hi, Princess." And sometimes she'll say, "I'm not a princess!" Then, I have been told, she actually runs the phone like a scanner over the jeans and the shirt that she's wearing. I'm supposed to be able to see what she's showing me with the phone. When I ask her why she's not a princess, she lets me know a clear-cut reason, "I'm not wearing my princess clothes."

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

It was enough to shut a girl up for years to come - when it comes to talking about her relationship with Jesus, that is. One day in high school, God laid it on my wife's heart - who, of course, wasn't my wife yet - to share Christ with one of her fellow band members. Roger was a drummer. In my experience, drummers are usually cut from a little different piece of cloth than everybody else, and Roger was no exception. He was a wild and crazy guy with a mouth to match. But one day my wife got up the courage to rise above her shyness and tell him about her Savior. Roger didn't exactly fall to his knees in the band room and repent. In fact, he said, "Well, if you're going to heaven, I want to go to the other place!"

Thursday, January 19, 2006

We were just beginning the process of building our Ministry Headquarters. At that point, all that was on the field was the footings for the building and a barn that was on the property. Volunteers were in the process of renovating and weatherproofing that old barn for storage when some friends donated a truckload of office furniture to our ministry. It would be a few days before we could bring that furniture into the barn, so we had to leave it next to the barn, which meant it had to be covered to protect it, of course.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

When I was in college, there were certain times of the year when there was a huge crowd of guys jammed into my little room. One was when my mother or my girlfriend had sent homemade cookies. Somehow, everyone knows when those arrive, and then your popularity suddenly skyrockets, of course. But the busiest time in my room was before mid-terms and final exams. One simple reason: I had the notes. I always scoped it out this way. You have to be in class anyway, and you have to learn all this eventually. Right? Why not make the most of the class time, get good notes, learn all you can while the teacher's presenting it. That system worked pretty well for me. It's not that I was particularly smart. Maybe I was just smart enough to realize that it pays to listen and record it when someone's teaching you something!

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Our Native American outreach team traveled across Alaska one summer to villages that were a long way from the nearest road. So, we spent a lot of time on small missionary airplanes. Missionary pilots are some of the best pilots in the world. They have to be. Every travel morning, they were on the phone, carefully checking the weather conditions. And if the weather wasn't safe, we didn't fly until it was no matter how urgent our schedule. And that's a good thing. Our pilot explained to me a condition that has cost many a pilot his life - it's referred to as "get-thereitis." You know, cutting corners and rushing into your flight because you're obsessed with getting there. Then he told me a pilot's saying that I had to think about for a minute. He said, "Many a pilot has been buried on a sunny day." Translation: if only he had waited just a little longer.

Monday, January 16, 2006

It was one of those winter nights that chills you to the bone - cold temperatures, a brisk north wind, a freezing rain, some snow. Our friends were inside their house, and their horses were inside their barn. Well, actually, three out of four of their horses were inside the barn. Cassie, their Shetland, was standing outside for some strange reason. So as our friends looked out their window, they saw this pitiful scene: one lone horse under a barn light, standing there with the freezing rain and snow pounding down on her, forming ice on her mane. Now, her horse friends were all smart enough to be in their nice warm stalls, but, oh no, not Cassie.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

When our kids were growing up, it was hard to find a ride at the amusement park you could get us all to ride. We have roller coaster lovers and roller coaster no-way-ers, for example. But there was one we all liked to do - the bumper cars. You know, those little electric cars inside that fenced-in area. They turn them on, and everyone starts out together, then you start speeding around that circle. Some end up spinning out, going backwards, going forward, intentionally or accidentally running into other cars - especially those you love. Each one of us would each get into our little hot rod. We'd basically start out heading the same direction, but in no time we were heading in five different directions and occasionally bumping into each other. Sound like any family you know?

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

If you're looking for a great real estate deal, don't go looking in the metropolitan New York area. Housing in the metro New York area is just really expensive. When people from another part of the country start looking at home prices there, they usually get a paralyzing case of sticker shock. When our friend Rachel and her husband moved to the New York area to serve the Lord, they went through that cost-of-living trauma. Rachel was talking one day to my wife about this and it led her to tell about a minor, but particularly irritating, frustration she had with their house. It was about that pipe in the corner of the dining room! Rachel said, "I have wallpapered the room. I have tried everything to get that dumb pipe to blend in, but nothing works! It's ugly!" Then she paused for a moment and she said, "You know, I told God I'd live in a grass hut in Africa if He called me to, and I meant it! Why can't I live in a house with an ugly pipe in New Jersey?" Then Rachel answered her own question. "I know why." The diagnosis that followed might provide an x-ray of what's going on in you!

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

I used to think flying would be glamorous. When I was a kid, we'd take my Dad to the airport for an occasional business trip, and I used to think, "Man, that's exciting! I wonder if I'll ever do that?" I get to do plenty of that! Sometimes it's a two-hour flight to Chicago, a five-hour flight to the West Coast, and sometimes it's a marathon like 18 hours to Africa or Asia. Now I'm leaving something important and I'm going to something important at the other end. But for most people, the travel time in between is just dead time. Not for this kid. I ask for a window seat where I don't have to do any getting up or passing things. I make my little office nest there and I get tons of work done! For me, that time in between my two important places isn't just headphones, movies, plastic lunches, or reading about life jackets. In fact, there's no phone calls, no interruptions. It's some of my best time to write, create, prepare. Hey, the time in between is important, too!

Friday, January 6, 2006

If you consider yourself a religious person, boy, have I got good news for you! Recent research indicates that those who consider themselves religious tend to have lower blood pressure than the rest of the population, and they are less likely to be obese, or to have cancer, or to be hospitalized, and they have a 29% greater chance to live longer! And religious people tend to have lower rates of depression, less suicide, greater sexual satisfaction in their marriage, and overall a greater sense of well-being. What do you know, Jesus was right when He said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness" and "Blessed are the pure in heart" ( Matthew 5:6, 8). Yep, lots of good news if you're a religious person, and some very disturbing bad news.

Thursday, January 5, 2006

If you want to get into Manhattan from New Jersey, you have several choices. You can take a long bridge, one of two long tunnels, a ferry trip, or a long un-recommended swim. The Hudson River is really pretty wide when it reaches Manhattan, but it's not very powerful. If you could see the Hudson near its headwaters in upstate New York, you'd see it roaring along with a very strong current. Upstate its banks are confined and the force is greater. But by the time it reaches Manhattan, the Hudson is so spread out that its power seems almost gone. I know people like that.

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