February 8, 2022

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Summer heat time is not when you want your car air conditioner to go out on you. No, especially when you're driving a long trip. That's tough! That's when the A.C. decided to die on us. Yeah. Now I know that brave people survived without air conditioning for centuries. I'm not one of them. Somehow that philosophical observation doesn't make me feel any better. No, not as we're speeding along with our windows open and hot air slowly putting the driver to sleep. Oh, but wait! There's more. More than once, belching black exhaust smoke came blowing in our open windows. Then there was the discarded cigarette butt that bounced off the window, narrowly missing the driver. (I wish I was making this up.) We really enjoyed that spider that came in too. Yeah, and the clumps of pollen. They were great. Probably our favorite thing of all was what came flying at us from two tractor trailers that passed us. Now, I'm not going to give you all the gory details but I will tell you that those trucks were carrying cattle. Open window: kind of a nasty trip.

February 7, 2022

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Usually Presidential debates will command quite a viewing audience. Well, unless there's a baseball series going on, especially World Series. And that happened one year. It came on the last day of the regular baseball season; the first Presidential debate that year. And there were still decisive games being played. One of which gave my Yankees (no booing - I can hear it anyway) - they get the division championship. But in the midst of some of these cliffhanger baseball dramas being played out, there was another baseball story that really captured people's attention about one guy having his one time at-bat.

February 4, 2022

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It was the moment this young man had waited for and had prepared for over many months. It was his premiere appearance as a concert pianist. The audience had heard a lot about his amazing talent, so they packed out this prestigious concert hall to hear him. They weren't disappointed. In fact, his masterful playing brought them to their feet for a thunderous standing ovation at the end of the concert. Backstage, the young man's manager said, "They want an encore, man! Get out there!" The pianist looked strangely dejected, and he said, "No, I'm not going to go back out there." And the manager said, "But they love you, man! Look at them! They're all on their feet!" "Not all. Look in the balcony." The manager peeked around the curtain and he saw one white-haired old man in the balcony who wasn't standing or applauding. "Hey, come on! One old guy? So what?" The pianist looked down at the floor and he said, "That's not one old man. That's my teacher."

February 3, 2022

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There's a little boy or girl inside of you. Yeah, and you don't want to lose that little person no matter how many birthdays you have. Oh, the little boy in me, well, he's brought out by - well, let's say maybe three life experiences. The first snowfall - that's one.

February 2, 2022

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Okay, let's get the controversial part out of the way first. I'm a New York Yankees baseball fan. All right, "Boo!" Okay, good, got that out of the way. Now, I remember a very heated time when the Toronto Blue Jays came to town to play the Yankees. Some years ago actually.

February 1, 2022

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There was a time in my life when I had once a month responsibilities in Chicago. I was living in New Jersey. Well, that gave me an opportunity to see what weather was going to be in New Jersey when I got back. Of course, the weather in our country usually moves from West to East. So, usually, in New Jersey we got Chicago's yesterday; well, that was our today.

January 31, 2022

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I spoke at a conference where the director decided to take me backstage by means of a route worthy of the Secret Service. The meeting was at a hotel conference room, and the director guided me through a back hallway, into a kitchen area, through a series of twists and turns that are usually navigated only by their waiters I think. I don't usually expect to find great wisdom at times like this. This time I did. It was a sign on the wall, obviously designed to minimize employee injuries. Five little words that struck me as great advice for my everyday life: "Bend knees for heavy lifting."

January 28, 2022

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When you're a kid, you're wet cement. Impressions, well, they get written on you so easily and so deeply. And then they harden into beliefs or un-beliefs, and that kid becomes an adult. You know, the late Steve Jobs was no exception.

January 27, 2022

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When you travel a lot, you eat in restaurants a lot. And so I've seen my share of waiters and waitresses - some who do a good job, some whose service leaves something to be desired, and a few who are outstanding at what they do. You try to say a special thank you with a special tip for that kind of server, right? One example of stellar service: those servers who check regularly to see if you need more water, without being asked for it; who automatically check to see if you want ketchup or steak sauce or more bread or more anything. It just feels good when someone cares enough to anticipate what you might need.

January 26, 2022

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You know, some of God's most impressive artwork is under the water or under the ground. I was reminded of God's extravagant beauty when our family toured some caverns. You know, there were a few touches from man there; walkways, lights. But all that did was help us see this rare beauty of soaring stalagmites and underground canyons and rock formations of every conceivable texture and shape.

January 25, 2022

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I could tell that our first grandson was going to be a busy little guy when he was just a little guy. He wasn't even in school yet, and he was already immersed in a project of some kind. And when I mean he got immersed, he got immersed. One day he was involved first in a detailed coloring project where he was intently working to have it just right, you know. And then there was a large puzzle he was focused on completing. And what he hadn't taken time for recently, well, was what a lot of little boys don't take time for...a bathroom stop. Too busy you know. Knowing this boy understood video functions very well, his Dad just said, "Time for a bathroom break. Don't you think it's time to hit 'pause'?" Without looking up from his current project, our grandson said in all sincerity, "I don't have a 'pause.'"

January 24, 2022

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It seems like every spring, every summer we hear about those raging wildfires! It's like on the news every day sometimes. When I hear about it, my ears perk up. I mean, we've had friends who lost their home in one of those wildfires. We know Native American friends who are sometimes on the front lines fighting those fires. I hate it when we hear about a firefighter who has been lost.

Now, when there were some major fires raging in Washington State a few years ago, my mind flashed back to another Washington fire that they called the Thirty-Mile Fire. It was one of those that just exploded suddenly. It forced the firefighters to stop fighting the fire and start fighting for their lives. Most of them deployed those survival tents that can save lives in a sudden emergency like this.

January 21, 2022

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His name is Shadrach. No, not a Bible character in a fiery furnace. He's a dog; a black poodle, to be specific. A while back, we were provided some great live entertainment in an otherwise intense day of ministry. My wife and I were staying with friends in St. Louis rather than the conference hotel there, and Shadrach belongs to our friends. I was ready to run out the door one day, our friend said, "Wait! You need to take two minutes for my dog tricks." Then she started to show off what she had taught Shadrach. She started with the basics, "Sit" and the poodle did. "Stay"..."roll over"..."lie down." Shadrach responded immediately. Then "go look out the window." The poodle darted over to the window. "Jump" and Shadrach leaped about three feet in the air. Then she pulled out a hoop and just said, "Hoop." Sure enough, black poodle flying through hoop. I was amazed!

January 20, 2022

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Years ago there was a Newsweek cover story that really caught my attention. It was about twins and my wife and I had several friends at that time that had twins. Occasionally we had expressed horror at the thought of having had any two of our kids at the same time! Fortunately, God knows who can handle these incredible assignments, and who can't, so he wisely sent our three children two years apart.

January 19, 2022

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There was a group of girls at a slumber party, a plumber installing a hot water heater, the nurse who was enjoying her new home - her first home. They were all in the path of a sea of mud that without warning, suddenly engulfed a full square mile of Oso, Washington - 176 people originally "unaccounted for." Well, it went down to seven at one point, and then 39 fatalities last I had read. One of the victims was even a soldier taken leave from the Army. He went to help search for his aunt and uncle, but he couldn't find them, and his depression led him to an apparent suicide.

January 18, 2022

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There were two stories in that day's news that stuck out to me. The first troubling story said that Twinkies could be going bankrupt. Yeah, how could that be? I mean, you talk about too big to fail! But, alas, the company that was making Twinkies was talking about filing for Chapter 11. Maybe if I ate enough of them in the next couple of weeks, I could make a difference.

January 17, 2022

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If you say the word "garden," I immediately think of my friend Mel. Man, he has one of the best-kept, most productive gardens I've ever seen. I've eaten some of the fruits and vegetables of his labor. Growing up as I did in an apartment in Chicago, I've got a lot to learn about gardens, believe me. I'm horticulturally challenged shall we say. Well, Mel taught me a lot. I mean, one section of his garden is dedicated to his grapes. And when those vines start growing, He does something that looks very strange to a city-slicker like me. He goes after those vines with pruning shears. He starts cutting away branches - a lot of branches. Of course, it's called pruning.

January 14, 2022

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"So are you planning to go on a cruise sometime soon?" It was the guy checking me out at the drugstore, and he was pointing to the newspaper I was buying and sort of asked that with a wry smile. Because on the front page was this haunting picture of that capsized Italian cruise ship that went aground a few years ago now.

January 13, 2022

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For many years I lived in New Jersey where we were blessed with a heavy dose of Italy. There were so many Italians in our area, it should come as no surprise that we had so many Italian restaurants. And what's their favorite dressing on a dinner salad? Of course, Italian dressing. Actually, I didn't know what Italian dressing was for much of my life. I always heard it called by the ingredients that make it up - vinegar and oil. And frankly, I'm sure glad they put them together. Can you imagine a salad with just vinegar dressing? You'd bite into your salad and your salad would bite you back! But then I couldn't get very excited about a salad that just had oil dressing on it either. That slimy covering...that's not going to be very appetizing. Vinegar without oil, oil without vinegar - not very appealing. But put them together, hey, you've got a pretty tasty combination there!

January 12, 2022

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It was the early winter of 1994. It was when the Sanitation Department of New York City would not forget for a while. Much of the East Coast got hit big time with this parade of snow storms and ice storms. And at one point, they were coming about every other day. You take a hard freeze and frequent storms. It just created layers of frozen precipitation on the ground. Kind of like geological strata except slippery. Olympic skaters could have practiced on Broadway or Fifth Avenue.