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Monday, July 7, 2008

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Once upon a time, there was a heifer named Muffet. She lived on a little dairy farm in the Ozarks. So did my wife - who wasn't my wife then. She was the farmer's young daughter then, and she tells me that Muffet had a harder life than some of the other heifers, but it was her own fault. See, Muffet was a stubborn heifer. Would she stay inside the fence that was there for her protection? Oh no! She found ways to crawl through that fence. Which meant Muffet got a yoke attached to her head - basically a sturdy Y-shaped branch that made it impossible for her to get her head outside that fence. Now, it was a nuisance; a nuisance made necessary by Muffet's stubbornness. Other times, they would try to get Muffet to move, and without serious coercion, she would just plant her feet. Then there was the time she refused to stand still to be milked, and she started to charge toward the door. My wife's Mom - whose job it was to keep the cows inside that little shed - quickly slammed the shovel across the door to keep her in. Well, Muffet ran into the shovel and lost part of the cap on one of her horns. They tell me that from that day on, she went right in and stood there quietly for milking.

Monday, July 1, 2008

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Not long ago I was in downtown Oklahoma City, and had the privilege to visit the scene of the Oklahoma City bombing back in April 1995. I don't think any of us will ever forget the images of the day that that Federal Office Building was destroyed by a terrorist bomb. The images of that devastated building and of the frantic rescue efforts there, of a baby in a fireman's arms. It was a day of heart-wrenching tragedy and it was a day of incredible heroism, too. Literally, an entire city dropped everything to respond in whatever way that they could to this life-or-death situation. The job was clear that day: rescue the dying whatever it takes.

Friday, June 20, 2008

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When I was little, my dad used to drop me off at a nearby church so I could go to the Sunday school they had there. We weren't a church-type family, so what I saw and heard there was all new to me. And I remember this painting they had of Jesus. Now I know it's one of the most famous ones painted in modern times. You may have seen it. Jesus is in a garden, and He's knocking on what looks like a big oak door. The man who painted it was named Holman Hunt. And when he was ready to unveil it for the first time, he called his friends and family together to be the first ones to see it. Well, it was pretty quiet as each person stood there and drank in the deep feeling that that painting conveys. Then people began to comment on what impressed them about it. But one friend said hesitantly, "Uh, Holman - it's a beautiful painting. But didn't you forget something?" "What did I forget?" The friend said, "The handle. There's no handle on the door." To which the artist simply replied, "Oh! No, I didn't forget the handle. When Jesus knocks on the door of your heart, the handle is on the inside."

Friday, June 13, 2008

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This is a true story. It happened on Long Island, just outside of New York City. A little two-year-old girl asked her mommy to drive her to get an ice cream cone. Mom said she was feeling sick and she needed to take a nap. That little girl had a very observant five-year-old brother. After Mom was asleep, he told his sister, "I'll take you." He knew where Mom's car keys were, got them out of her purse, and proceeded to get his sister settled in the car. Then he started the car, backed it out of the driveway, and then slowly drove it to the stop sign at the end of the street. He managed to maneuver the car out onto the main road. It was at that point that a policeman happened to see that car moving down the road, apparently without a driver! That will get your attention! He gave chase until the invisible driver pulled over to the side of the road. Wouldn't you love to have seen the look on the policeman's face when he walked up to the car and saw this little boy at the wheel? Thankfully, this had a happy ending. You know that car was a headed for disaster with that little guy driving!

Thursday, May 29, 2008

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Okay, let's do a little word association here. Persian - what do you think of? Ah - cat? You might have thought of cat. When I hear the word Persian, I think rug - which they don't make out of cats. I've never owned a Persian rug, and I probably never will, but I've sure seen them. And you know it's much more than a carpet, I mean, it's a work of art! Years ago Amy Carmichael wrote about the incredible process that produces these masterpieces. Try to picture this. She described two sets of workmen sitting on a bench on one side of the carpet which is hanging from a beam up above. The designer stands on the other side, he's holding a pattern in his hand and he directs the workers by calling across to them exactly what they're supposed to do next. It's like a chant actually. And then the workman chants back to the designer the word that he's heard; verifying the order. Then the workman cuts from whatever bobbin has been ordered, and he pushes that thread through the carpet warp and knots it. Now, all he can see is that one thread. He sees nothing of that pattern until the carpet's finished. That's all in the designers hands. But when he finally sees what all these commands and all these threads have made, wow!

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

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Well, I guess most of us began our training for public speaking back in kindergarten or first grade. Remember when your teacher had you do that "show and tell" thing? You had to bring some object to school and tell about it or what it represented. I can remember this scramble around our house many mornings. Our children would remember, of course, with one foot out the door, "Oh man, I've got show and tell today!" So we'd race around the house trying to find something that they could show. You see, the teacher wasn't interested in a student just showing up with some story that day, you had to have something concrete. No "tell" was good enough to make it without being backed up by a "show."

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

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I usually ask for a window seat on an airplane. Usually aisle seats are more popular because you can stretch your legs a little more. Mine are so short they have plenty of room, no matter where I sit! And you can get up when you want to, and when you don't want to because the two guys on the inside want to get out. Actually, I always have so much to get done during the flight I like to just set up my little nest there by the window where I can work without getting up or passing food. Unfortunately, I'm so busy sometimes I miss those things worth looking at out my window, which is right there in front of me. I was flying recently with one of our team members and I was really missing the beautiful scenery of the Rocky Mountains below me; I didn't even think about them being there. Well, my colleague got my attention, not by reaching over and pointing and shouting, "Hey, look at those mountains, man!" No, he did it with a simple little observation. He said, "You know, mountains sure look a lot smaller from this perspective don't they?" I got the message.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

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Hanna lives in coal country so she's been around miners a lot. Being in youth ministry for years I've been around miners a lot too. Oh wait, that's a different kind - spelled differently. But Hanna and a friend of mine were talking recently about the mines and the miners and a surprising fact came out. Hanna said the most common cause of death among those coal miners was electrocution. They live in a real remote area and the mining operation there is pretty old and relatively primitive. So there are sometimes problems with the wiring in the mine, and miners actually get electrocuted. What compounds the problems is that the nearest doctor is many miles away, which led Hanna to ask the doctor one time if there was anything the local folks could do to help while they're waiting for the doctor to arrive. She was surprised by the doctor's answer. "Well," he said, "there is one thing, hug the injured miner." Well, obviously Hanna wanted to know why. He said, "When people are about to go into shock, I think there is something about a hug, about human touch - about human tenderness.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

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Now I am not much for playing board games. That's B-O-A-R-D games, because I usually end up bored like the other spelling. But there's this one game we have played over the years - it's called "Acquire" and I like it. We don't play it often, but my wife usually wins. (Maybe that's why we don't play too often.) Now in this game there are seven hotel corporations and you win a game by having the most valuable stock at the end. Now I think I know why my wife always wins. She doesn't make the mistake of buying a few stocks in a lot of companies which a lot of us do. You don't know which ones are going to take off, so you get a little in each one. She is very good at anticipating which company is going to grow, so she invests heavily in that company. She ends up with the majority in it. She gets this big bonus at the end of the game. Meanwhile I'm sitting there with lots of stock, but it's in several different companies and it just isn't worth as much as a lot of stock in a few companies.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

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Every once in a while we think someone left the floodlight on in the backyard, so I look outside the window to discover the floodlight isn't on - the moonlight is! It's one of those really impressive full-moon nights. The most beautiful one, for my wife and me I think, was when we were on vacation in the mountains. Our cabin was nestled in this quiet valley next to this gentle little stream. Not long after dark, I noticed that the valley was like ablaze with light! The full moon was rising in the eastern sky and it was casting this celestial glow over everything. It was perfectly positioned in the sky to just totally illuminate the valley we were in. But then, something made me realize what I was really looking at, and I said as we stood on the porch in admiration, "You know, that moon really isn't producing any light at all. It's only reflecting the light of the sun."

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