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A Pope's visit to Cuba is not an everyday thing by any means. Pope Francis more recently visited. When Pope John Paul II made the very first visit in 1998, he saw a very different Cuba than Pope Francis saw.
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Most of the courtrooms I've been exposed to are on TV. But there was a moment in a courtroom I will never forget. It began when we learned the whereabouts of a young Native American friend we had been trying to locate for a while. Let's call her Cathy. We learned, almost miraculously, that after a dark time away from God, Cathy was in jail in Nebraska. We got that word on Friday as I was leaving Michigan to meet our Native American summer team in South Dakota on a Monday night. We ate up the Interstate trying to get to Nebraska before Cathy went before the Judge. She had no idea we were coming - until we saw her during her Sunday afternoon visiting hours.
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Now there are happy video tape recordings. You know, audio recordings of our kids when they were little before their voices changed, Karen and I giving our vows to each other at our wedding.
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There was a young man we knew who was pretty distraught over a death in his family. He acted it out by deciding to just delete a bunch of Facebook friends. And think we all know someone that has been "deleted" or "canceled." It's just the world we live in today and it hurts! You can delete a relationship with a stroke of your finger. Sometimes it can be really brutal.
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So there have been several Supermen, well, you know, men who have played Superman over the years. From TV to all the movies. The first one was George Reeves, on the TV show many years ago. Some supermen have had tragic lives. George Reeves who played Superman from 1951 to 1958 actually committed suicide after his career had stalled. He was forever typecast as Superman. Then another actor, Christopher Reeve, who played Superman in five films, became paralyzed in 1995 from an equestrian accident where he was thrown from his horse. These actors played the part of a man who was invincible, but "behind the role" was the awful reality.
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If you've always been skinny, you can just give it up because you're not going to understand what I'm about to say. But if you're like me and you've battled over that scale your whole life, if you've ever been overweight, you'll probably understand this. Once you've battled that, you always tend to think of yourself as overweight even if you're not any more. Now, I've managed to lose some of it. Others may say you're okay, and the scale might even say you're okay. But there's this voice that keeps whispering, "Overweight!"
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My son was a shrewd and wise baseball card collector. There are certain ones he kept really really well in these plastic folders. He would let anybody get near them. Why? Well, he said, "Dad when they're in mint condition they're really the most valuable and then they're really rare. And rare means valuable."
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There was a miracle in the wildfire that night on an Indian reservation where we have many dear friends. We watched the news with growing concern that summer - and with intensifying prayer - as the path of that fire's destruction grew steadily. We learned that some of our kind of unofficial "family" there had their church and some loved ones in a town that was surrounded by the flames. And they told us about the miracle.
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It's interesting when your kids become parents they start to tell you how you parented. You get a review whether you solicited it or not. Sometimes Karen and I found it hilarious. Sometimes convicting. Sometimes affirming. Sometimes even touching.
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Oh sure, Mom and Dad thought it was just another excuse to stay awake longer. Adults don't believe what kids know to be the awful truth - that there are monsters in your closet at night. And they expect you to close your eyes and just start having sweet dreams? Come on!
