Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Mackinaw Island in Michigan is one of the special places in America. It's a romantic island. It's surrounded by three of the Great Lakes. There are no cars, just bikes, horses and carriages. For my wife and me, it's a very special place. It's where we honeymooned many years ago, and it's where we honeymooned again just a few months ago as a gift from our children. They gave us some nights on our honeymoon island to celebrate a milestone anniversary. When we were newlyweds, we couldn't afford to stay in a hotel on the island. We could barely afford a cheap motel on the mainland. This time we actually stayed on Mackinaw Island, and we had a great time. Being there actually took us back to the very beginnings of our life together, when there were no children, no grandchildren, and a lot less responsibility. It was good to get back to where it started - with one man and one woman in love.

Thursday, June 8, 2006

John Parker had it made. After two attempts to escape being a slave to a Southern slave owner, he had finally gotten his freedom. He chose to live in Ripley, Ohio, right on the freedom side of the Ohio River. He got a house and a good job as a factory worker. Ultimately, he owned a foundry and he invented many processes that were used widely in the foundry industry. He was safe, secure and successful. But night after night, John Parker risked it all. Under cover of darkness, he rowed across the river to the Kentucky side - slave territory. If he was caught, he could lose his freedom. He could even lose his life. But in spite of the risks, John Parker went looking for runaway slaves. And he found them and rowed them across the river to freedom. It's believed that John Parker was responsible for at least 900 slaves going free.

Monday, April 10, 2006

When I say this man is a veteran test pilot, I mean he's easily old enough to be comfortably retired. Instead, he's still blasting through the skies at these mind-boggling speeds, testing some of America's most advanced aircraft. He told his amazing life story recently on a national television program. It's a story of a lifelong adventure in the skies and a long spiritual search here on earth that ended - well, with the pilot of the universe piloting his life. As he concluded his story, he told about an incident where he was sent up in a state-of-the-art aircraft to help a pilot in distress.

The fog was thick; the weather was dangerous for flying, and a rookie pilot was lost in that fog and unable to get through the weather in a plane that wasn't equipped for it. Well, Mr. Test Pilot flew close to that imperiled aircraft until he was actually positioned at its left wing. And then he radioed the desperate pilot and he simply said, "Look to your left." Then he said, "Now stick with me. Turn when I turn." Then in a plane so advanced that the veteran said that it can make a game out of bad weather, he led his frightened fellow-pilot to that glorious point where they broke through the fog and they saw the bright lights of that landing strip below. When they landed safely, the rookie got out of his plane, ran to his rescuer, and hugged him as if he had saved his life. He probably had.

Wednesday, February 8, 2006

It was Valentine's Day and it turned out to be a milestone day in my relationship with the girl I considered to be the best catch in our class. I knew she had been seriously dating someone else for quite a while, and I had to plan my moves very shrewdly, you see, or I'd scare her off. So, we had what we both called this "brother/sister" relationship. Oh, sure I wanted it to be more, but at least I could spend some time with her this way without scaring her off. Well, one day I'd had enough of this platonic relationship stuff. She was actually bringing a Valentine's cake up to some radio staff at our college and I happened to be there. We got into a pretty intense discussion there, standing by the water fountain, I remember. And finally I blurted out what I'd been feeling for a long time, "I'm sick and tired of just being your 'brother'. I want it to be much more!" There it was - all or nothing. And what happened? I married the girl! (This is the part where the audience cheers.)

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

It was enough to shut a girl up for years to come - when it comes to talking about her relationship with Jesus, that is. One day in high school, God laid it on my wife's heart - who, of course, wasn't my wife yet - to share Christ with one of her fellow band members. Roger was a drummer. In my experience, drummers are usually cut from a little different piece of cloth than everybody else, and Roger was no exception. He was a wild and crazy guy with a mouth to match. But one day my wife got up the courage to rise above her shyness and tell him about her Savior. Roger didn't exactly fall to his knees in the band room and repent. In fact, he said, "Well, if you're going to heaven, I want to go to the other place!"

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

I used to think flying would be glamorous. When I was a kid, we'd take my Dad to the airport for an occasional business trip, and I used to think, "Man, that's exciting! I wonder if I'll ever do that?" I get to do plenty of that! Sometimes it's a two-hour flight to Chicago, a five-hour flight to the West Coast, and sometimes it's a marathon like 18 hours to Africa or Asia. Now I'm leaving something important and I'm going to something important at the other end. But for most people, the travel time in between is just dead time. Not for this kid. I ask for a window seat where I don't have to do any getting up or passing things. I make my little office nest there and I get tons of work done! For me, that time in between my two important places isn't just headphones, movies, plastic lunches, or reading about life jackets. In fact, there's no phone calls, no interruptions. It's some of my best time to write, create, prepare. Hey, the time in between is important, too!

Tuesday, January 3, 2006

When my sons were playing high school football, their job was to run their body into other guys' bodies. That's why my wife always made me sign the permission slip for them to play. Now, they were linemen; they blocked. Of course, one of their great rewards for all this body slamming was when they could stop or deflect an opposing lineman - thus opening up a hole through which their teammate could run with the ball. Usually our guys were too busy holding the line to know what was happening down field - like the man who had gone through the hole they made gaining big yardage or even scoring a touchdown. And the good ball carriers knew what they had to do: spot an opening and go through it as fast as they could!

Monday, January 2, 2006

It was before Christmas, and I went shopping for toys for my kids. Now you might not think there's anything unusual about that - unless you happen to know that all my kids are all grown up now. But that doesn't mean they can't have one little spark of childhood left in them. For example, I always buy my daughter a doll for Christmas; always have, always will. And we've got one son who was always a big fan of a certain Sesame Street character, and he still has a collection of everything Ernie. But recently a certain Ernie toy was one of the hottest Christmas items on the market. I wanted one for my son, the Ernie enthusiast, that is. I discovered the toy in September actually in a store - before it became an officially hot item. I held it in my hand - I could have bought it. But I said, "Naw, I can always get it later." Wrong. When "later" came, there were none to be found.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

My wife grew up on a small farm where her Mom and Dad and she and her sister were all the hands they could afford. It was a lot of hard work and it was a struggle to survive. So even though I'm a city boy, I care about the struggles that so many independent farmers face today. In many cases, it seems like a struggle to survive, especially with so many large, corporate-type farms coming on the scene. But I was heartened to read in a recent USA Today article a new idea that some are trying with a fair degree of success. Basically, these farmers have customers who pre-order what they would like to buy, and the farmer then plants it and sells it to them later. So if I wanted so much corn or so much beans, I'd order that and even do some pre-paying for it - which takes some of the pressure of upfront expenses for the farmer. In a sense, it's buying a share of the harvest before it comes in - and then enjoying the fruits of your investment when it does.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

He invited Jesus Christ into his house, and things were never the same again. That's the picture actually portrayed in a classic old Christian booklet called "My Heart, Christ's Home." As the story unfolds, the man whose life is symbolized by a house, begins to let Jesus move beyond the front parlor and into the various rooms. In each room, Jesus changes things. Like some of what's in the library that doesn't belong in a house where Jesus lives. Some of what's done in the recreation area. Ultimately, he even lets Jesus clean out the garbage in this closet that's been sealed shut with several locks. But the picture I remember most is the one that portrays the man having personal time with Jesus in his study every morning - until one day when he's running late. He races out the door thinking he'd be there as usual the next morning. Didn't happen. For some time, he just ran out the door in the morning without ever stopping in his study. Until one morning when he hurried in there to find something, and there to his shock and surprise, was Jesus, sitting in a high-backed chair. Awkwardly, the man asked, "Jesus, what are you doing here?" Jesus' reply goes straight to the heart: "I've been here every morning - waiting for you."