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Wednesday, October 11, 2017

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Ronald Reagan led one of the most extraordinary lives of the 20th Century-a life which he sadly and progressively forgot in the last years of his life. His long battle with Alzheimer's Disease acted like a cruel eraser. It removed recollections of what he had done and even who he was. After Ronald Reagan's death, we learned a lot more about what happened during his long journey into darkness. Memory of his years in Hollywood just disappeared, and then he couldn't remember being Governor of California, and ultimately he lost all that had happened in his years as being President of the United States. But one memory stayed alive almost until the end. In the office that Nancy Reagan set up for him, there was a picture on the wall; it was a picture of the Rock River in Illinois. When visitors would ask him about it, after most of his life was there no more, he would brighten and he'd say, "Oh, that's where I was a lifeguard when I was 17. That's where I saved 77 lives!"

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

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Birds had moved into the vent in the exhaust fan of our kitchen range while we were on vacation. Isn't that nice? They set up their little nest and made themselves really at home. And, man, were they noisy neighbors! The nest was so huge it made the fan unworkable. And some lovely spiders were hanging down from the hood on the stove. Our problem was that trying to remove that nest might have killed that nest full of baby birds. Well, we couldn't see them, but man, we could sure hear them when they were hungry! So, we waited until Mom and Dad bird took the babies out. A couple of weeks later, after we were sure they were gone, I got a long stick and I proceeded to rake out the rest. But when we removed the nest, we discovered a little surprise. Well, no, actually, a big, fat surprise. There was the fattest bird we had ever seen, sitting in the nest. As my wife went to get gloves and a box, he got away. But it literally took a major earthquake to get that bird out of his nest!

Friday, September 22, 2017

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The folks at our local bakery are some of the most effective marketers I know. They don't just give you a sales pitch. No, they don't have highly creative advertising. They just offer samples. For free...one of my favorite words - free. So, I walk in to buy two bagels. There, on a plate on top of the display case, are these little bites of cheesecake, and a little sign that invites me to try one for free. So, I do, and I walk out of that bakery with my two bagels and a cheesecake. I had not planned to get a cheesecake, but they sold it in the best possible way...just by letting me taste it. The taste made me want the whole cheesecake!

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

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Usually a total eclipse of the moon seems to happen when I'm counting sheep in the middle of the night. But this one started about 9:00 at night, and this one I got a chance to see. It's a pretty amazing sight to watch that shadow slowly move across the moon until it eventually covers it completely. I said to the friend who was assisting us with ministry that weekend, "I just wish we had binoculars." "Me, too," he said. Then it dawned on him, he said, "Hey, I do have binoculars in my truck!" All of a sudden we moved from seats near the back to something like front row seats on this eclipse. Those binoculars revealed the craters and all the fascinating details of that disappearing moon. What a difference it made to see it up close!

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

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We lived in a house for twenty-five years, and there was this little bare spot in the grass in our backyard. It was there since our boys were little. That was the first home plate they ever knew. Yes, that's where I taught them their first lessons in how to play baseball. Now our yard wasn't very big, so we had to start with a plastic bat and that little white plastic ball called a wiffle ball. But as I pitched and the boys learned to swing, there was one lesson I tried to permanently tattoo on their brain. It was the lesson my father taught me, that his father probably taught him, that somebody has taught every person who ever picked up a baseball bat. The most basic secret of success in sports...keep your eye on the ball!

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

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It's always been challenging to take our "On Eagle's Wings" team of young Native American believers to do reservation outreach. But going to Alaska to do it? Well, that meant a really challenging challenge! There's a suicide rate there 20 times greater than that of the rest of the young people in America. The young Native Alaskans are a desperate mission field. You can probably imagine the logistics of this kind of outreach were pretty exciting-especially when some of the villages you're in are 400 miles from the nearest road! The entire team had to be transported by missionary airplanes and fishing boats! Since the planes are just single or twin-engine aircraft, you can choose between taking less people with more luggage or more people with less luggage. Since we need every seat filled with a team member, the sacrifice is going to be, believe me, in how much baggage each of us takes. The limit is 20 pounds per person for five weeks! It's hard to travel that light, but it's important. When you carry just the basic essentials, you can move more people and go a lot farther!

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

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As a New York Knicks basketball fan, I've had some victories and some play-off games to cheer for. But, oh yeah, I've had my share of disappointments. And too many of them came at the hands of one particular opponent some years ago when we were living in the New York area. It was a player named Reggie Miller. He had done more to stop my team than just about anybody I could think of because something happened to this man in a close game, when there was suddenly just a minute or two left. He was like on fire! He may or may not have had lots of points earlier in the game, but somehow – boom! - save your best for last. With time running out, Reggie suddenly became a scoring machine, making fantastic shots, often scoring enough points to send my team home for the season. Any player is a powerful force when he knows the end is near and lights up to make a difference!

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

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Spring was planting time on the little farm my wife, Karen, grew up on. And in her early years, that was no small job. Her Granddad actually would hitch up Betsy and Jack-who I thought might have been her cousins but actually Betsy and Jack are mules-and they would start plowing that hard, Ozark ground. Karen would follow behind in her bare feet as Granddad and his team turned up that dirt, broke up those big dirt clods, and smoothed out that broken soil. Then came the seeding…and then the waiting. At that point, it was pretty much up to God-the weather, the warmth, the moisture, and the sunlight. Then, when the corn finally matured, Granddad swung into action again with the big work of harvesting what God had grown. It was really a neat balance of what a man could do and what only God could do.

Friday, July 28, 2017

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Back in the day, millions of Americans visited the emergency room once a week - well, on television. That was a blockbuster TV hit called "ER" and it very convincingly took its viewers into the tension and crisis environment of a hospital emergency room. They kind of made you feel like you were there. Of course, they're not the only medical personnel involved in a crisis care situation. I was reminded of that the other day on the interstate as this ambulance passed us. Of course, the back has those big red letters: "AMBULANCE." But this particular ambulance had sort of a subtitle - the one that raised my eyebrows and made me smile. The whole sign on the back said, "ambulance - the real emergency room." OK!

Monday, June 26, 2017

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Missy taught me about dogs. Missy was our Shih-tzu dog. Our son was given Missy when she was a puppy and he was in high school. And I was amazed at their relationship. When he came downstairs each morning, Missy came to life. Then, as soon as he left, she'd just kind of hunker down under this cabinet in the kitchen and kind of be bla-bla there all day long...until she heard that car pulling in the driveway late in the afternoon. I couldn't hear it pulling in, but Missy sure could! In an instant, she came alive! She shot out from under that cabinet and stationed herself at the back door with her tail in overdrive. When our son came through that door, Missy freaked out! Her whole day revolved around one big event-her master's return.

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