September 16, 2020

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Every time I hear anyone mention the first Gulf War, it brings back to my memory an interview with a soldier who was there as they were about to go to war from Kuwait and into Iraq. She said, "You know, we've gotten training when we were in boot camp about chemical warfare. We kind of dozed off, you know, and didn't take notes, It was boring, threw paper wads, whatever. It was just boring stuff." She said, "Now they're covering chemical warfare again, because we're about to go into Iraq where they have them." She said, "We're taking notes, we're asking questions this time, we're staying late after class." I thought, "Wow! What a big difference; same material, same information." What was different? All of a sudden soldiers knew that their life could depend on what they were learning, and they were going to need it, not just know it.

September 2, 2020

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My children always braced themselves when we were on a vacation and I'd say, "Hey, it's time for one of Dad's adventures!" See, my adventures don't have a great history. I remember one morning I promised them a great adventure. We were going up to Cadillac Mountain in Maine to see the first place, supposedly, where you can see the sun rise on the East Coast. So, I woke them in our campground about 3:00 a.m. We drove up to the top of Cadillac Mountain to watch the clouds rise. Yeah...no sun!

August 5, 2020

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You know, for many years there's been a crusade going on in America. It was driven by mothers. There's actually a television movie some years ago that portrayed how one woman started an organization called MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) because her own daughter was killed. Now, drunken driving was just a theoretical issue to her until, well when her own daughter was killed. That began the crusade that has actually begun to really make a change sometimes in people's driving habits and across the country. I guess in every area of our life a lot of us, well, we don't join a battle until someone we love is wounded in it. And you might be in that position. There's a spiritual battle that has all of a sudden become very real to you because someone you love is a casualty.

July 29, 2020

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Somebody stole the cross! Go figure.

July 22, 2020

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It's sure not uncommon to hear that a hurricane coming up the East Coast is headed for the Outer Banks of North Carolina. When I hear that, I flash back to an old white frame building there and to the story I heard there that has followed me ever since.

July 15, 2020

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The basis of a good working relationship is a clear job description. All of the good management people will tell you that. When you take a job, you should be able to get an answer to the question, "So what do you expect me to do?" When you're in college, they give you this syllabus with all that's going to be expected of you. Now, here's when the papers are due, here's all the reading you have to do. And even though it's a little overwhelming, it's sort of a job description for a college student. Here's what we're going to expect of you. When you go to football practice and you work on the plays, the coach lets you know that we're in this situation, this is your job; this is where you're supposed to be. That's your job description.

July 8, 2020

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So I'm settling into my hotel room. I'm out of town, and I'm going to turn on the TV probably to get a little of the local flavor. I especially like to watch the local weather and the local news. That's pretty much what I do at home. Now, if I'm in the U.S. listening to the local news and weather, that's easy. It gets kind of frustrating in another country sometimes.

June 24, 2020

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It wasn't just another news story. It was loaded with so many layers of tragedy. It was one of the worst I'd ever seen. Maybe you remember several years ago when Japan had a massive earthquake and then a massive tsunami, and then the nuclear emergency. Now, those kinds of things tend to disappear from the front page. But, I'll tell you what, this particular situation, well, it's had lasting effects for a long, long time.

Like the workers at the damaged nuclear power plants. They had to know that something bad was happening to their bodies and their futures as they kept working in that radiating place, but they continued to go in there. They also knew that lives were at stake in their efforts to try to contain the invisible killer that was leaking from those plants. And they heroically risked it all.

June 22, 2020

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Our sons had always dreamed of playing high school football. When they finally got to realize that dream, they got to play for one of the winningest coaches in our area. He turned what was once a team known for losing into a team that was usually in a championship series. And because I worked with the team for several years as sort of a spiritual coach, I had an opportunity to observe one of the great secrets of his success. He was a genius at knowing what position each player could play best. A lot of times they disagreed with the coach; they saw themselves as being a star at some position they really wanted. But he could size up their capabilities like no coach I'd ever seen. And invariably, the guys who thought he was wrong about the position he gave them, well, they'd end up being all-conference and all-county in that spot.

June 17, 2020

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It was always pretty exciting traveling with my wife. Well, but my wife with her camera was really exciting, because she could see things that I didn't see. Oh, yeah, I'd have to stop the car for what appeared to be no reason because she'd go, "Stop! Quick!" And, you know, when I'd see the picture, then I'd realize why we had to stop back then.

Oh, sometimes it was a little sign that later told a powerful story, or she'd seen one face in the middle of a hundred faces, or that one face captured on film some very poignant human emotion. Or we all got to see that glorious sunset, or that bird she saw in flight, or some very interesting scene that she saw and I missed.