Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Every child's dream - Disney World! Our three-year-old granddaughter had counted down to her visit there for weeks. And she was absolutely giddy as she finally entered the Magic Kingdom. One ride she really wanted to try was the flying elephants. Actually, the flying Dumbos, named after that elephant with oversize ears that enabled him to be a flying elephant! Dumbo basically just goes around and around; he's a ride for the little kids - kids like me. Now when you pull the bar in your Dumbo car, it starts to go up. Not super-high, but high enough to get a nice view of a lot of things in the park. And our granddaughter began making those Dumbo circles with her uncle, he started to pull the bar to help the flying elephant fly. It was not to be. Our little princess would have none of this going higher business - too scary! And she made no secret of her desire (well, maybe "demand" is more accurate) that Dumbo was to fly at the lowest possible level - and stay there.

Thursday, August 3, 2006

Our family has had the wonderful privilege of spending some unforgettable ministry days on some Indian Reservations in the Southwest and when you're there, you do a lot of driving. The vehicle of choice there is not a car. No, you want a truck. See, the roads there are of, shall we say, uneven quality. Many places are only accessible by roads that are steep and bumpy, and it's a major challenge to the durability of any vehicle - or passenger for that matter. The radio stations in that area have advertised lots of trucks and they've used one phrase to promote the quality of their truck. This macho voice comes on and says, "It's reservation tested!

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 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.

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!

Wednesday, March 8, 2006

Goodbye, Chicago! Hello, New Jersey! It was time for our first major move as a young family. Our ministry was pretty consuming, even back then, so we looked for the most inexpensive moving help that we could find. We found a private moving company owned by a friend. Tom showed up with one other guy and they did a great job navigating our earthly possessions down this narrow apartment staircase. Some days later, we met them on the other end. The problem was that we were facing an even more challenging staircase to get to our new second-floor apartment. Probably the greatest challenge of all was our refrigerator. It was a heavy old bear - I mean, even to try to move it across the floor. But Tom said, "I'll take care of it." He proceeded to strap that refrigerator on his muscular back and carry it up that narrow staircase all by himself. All I could do was lamely yell, "Go, Tom, go!"

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.'"

Friday, December 30, 2005

"I don't wanna go." When our boys were little, that was sometimes what they would tell me when we were out in the woods where it was totally dark - and a little scary - for them, of course, not me. But I would reach for their hand and their little hand would instinctively reach up my way when we hit a dark stretch, and they'd grab on tight. Now the strangest thing happened. Once they had their father's hand, their feet started moving again. They could go where they otherwise would never think about going.