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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

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We have one of our staff who has a pretty regular assignment. That is, show up at the post office every morning. Yeah. Yeah, the one who goes there is a pretty familiar figure. They know about what time to expect our person to come in, and they know it's important. See, the orders are, "Don't stop at the office. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Go straight to our post office box." See, that daily trip to the post office is really our lifeline. She checks the box and there we find the contributions that really keep us going, very important communications, maybe answers we're looking for. And I'll tell you what, if she's sick, we'll send somebody else over there the first thing in the morning. We are dependent on that daily pickup.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

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They've tried a lot of things to discourage people from smoking; especially now that we know the great health hazards of it. In fact, recently, maybe you've seen that they're trying to put some disturbing pictures on the packages themselves of people dying of lung cancer. They already do that it in some other countries. But I think one of the most impacting things I've ever seen along those lines was a commercial that was done on TV years ago. There was a great award winning actor named Yul Brynner. You may remember him; he had a very distinctive accent and shaved head. He was in a lot of great movies. He was the star of The King and I, and he died of lung cancer. His lung cancer was caused by a lifetime of smoking, and they filmed this public service announcement shortly before his death. He knew he was dying, and basically in it he says, "Take it from me, it's not worth it. It's too late for me, but you still have time to change." Man that hit hard. In a sense, he was a voice from the grave with a very sobering warning. Well, there's another one that's even more sobering.

Friday, January 7, 2011

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Over the years I've had the privilege of being in all of the United States, but one of the last ones I got to was Alaska. I've been there a few times now, but oh man, what a place! And you know what? From the first time I was there, I saw that they lived up to their license plate motto: Alaska - the last frontier. Wow! Hundreds of thousands of miles of unpopulated expanse. All kinds of abundant wildlife you just don't see anywhere else. These great, untamed areas...even some untamed people. But you know what? It really is the last frontier.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

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Our friend told us that her youngest child, Ralphie, was like "Mr. Christmas" at their house. Very early every Christmas morning, he was everyone's alarm clock to get up and get going on those presents. That's what made this one Christmas so strange. Two weeks earlier, Ralphie was doing a little exploring in the closets while his parents were gone, and he found where they had hidden their presents! He couldn't resist. He opened this one bag and he saw the major gift they had bought him. And then came Christmas. Everyone slept later than they ever had on a Christmas morning because Ralphie didn't get up. Everyone was waiting impatiently around the Christmas tree, so Dad called up the stairs, "Ralphie, are you coming?" "Yeah," Ralphie replied. All the other kids were psyched as they opened their gifts. Not Ralphie. He opened his with little emotion, sort of a halfhearted thanks. Dad took him aside and said, "Ralphie, are you sick, man? You're always Mr. Christmas around here!" Ralphie explained why his "joy to the world" had gone. "Dad, the problem is I opened my gift early, and I ruined Christmas."

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

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Over the years, we've always tried to keep the real mission and meaning of Christmas in front of our children. Taking food and clothes into New York City to give to homeless people there put a whole new face on Christmas. Only a few miles from our home we were face-to-face with the tragedy of people without anyplace to call home. I remember the time when I went into the city to talk with some homeless people for my youth broadcast - to try to open my listeners to a needy world. One man was living on the street, near a major bus terminal. His house was a large, tattered cardboard box. He actually allowed me to crawl inside that box with him, and it was heartbreaking that a box was home. At Christmastime - well, at any time - it's a tragic thing to be without a home.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

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Centuries ago, Tyre was one of the greatest cities of the Middle East, strategically located on the Mediterranean Sea...until it was leveled by a foreign invader. Actually, there was an ancient Biblical prophecy that Tyre would not only be leveled, which was unimaginable at that time, but that the site would be so swept of Tyre's rubble that fishermen would one day lay their nets there to dry. The city was gone, but the rubble still remained until Alexander the Great came along. By that time, Tyre had moved to an island offshore, confident that they would now be unreachable by a future invader. They underestimated Alexander. He ordered his engineers to use the rubble of the old city to build a causeway to the island, and that's what they did. And Alexander and his army marched across the bridge that was made from rubble and won what seemed to be an impossible victory. So the site of ancient Tyre was, in fact, swept clean. And in modern times, fishermen have - well, you probably guessed -dried their nets where the city once was.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

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Scotty had been begging his dad to play hide-and-seek with him for a couple of hours. Finally, Dad finished what he was doing and jumped into the game. He said, "Scotty, you count to 50 while I hide somewhere in the house." It took the little guy a while to count to that big number, but he finally got there. He began right there in the living room, looking behind all the curtains and the big furniture. No daddy. He looked in the dining room, the bathroom, the closets, the kitchen. No daddy. Which meant his father was hiding upstairs. Scotty was disappointed after he looked in the guest bedroom, the bathroom, and the master bedroom upstairs. Still no daddy. He knew there was only one place left to look; that big, dark closet in the master bedroom. Apprehensively, he slowly opened the door to that long old closet with the light switch he couldn't reach. He looked to the right. No daddy. He looked to the left, RRRRRRRRRRRRRR! Suddenly, there was a big grizzly bear, growling and coming at him. He ran as fast as his little legs would go; out of the bedroom, down the stairs, all the way through the downstairs until he was stopped by the locked door of the kitchen. That's when the growling bear caught him, grabbed him in his paws and hugged him! This was no bear trying to hurt him. This was his Daddy wanting to hold him.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

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Our family has had many great times by the Atlantic Ocean, along the New Jersey Shore. Over the years, we found a little tool that was smart to have if you were going to be spending time next to the ocean. They call it a tide table. It tells you what time high tide and low tide will be each day. That's good to know, especially if you're going to really set up shop for a while on the beach - which many people do. I've watched people bring their own little civilization to the beach with them: tarps and coolers and toys and appliances. You'd think they were planning to live on the beach. What's kind of fun to watch is the people with all that stuff who fall asleep somewhere between low tide and high tide. Slowly but surely, the waves start creeping up from the edge toward their civilization. You really should wake them up, but that wouldn't be any fun. Eventually, as the tide tickles their toes, they wake up only to find some of their civilization about to float away. It's panic city, man! But it didn't have to be that way. See, there's this little tool called a tide table that tells you when the tide...well, you get the idea.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

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My granddaughter obviously got her grace and coordination from me. She must have. Somebody's got mine, because I sure don't! She demonstrated some of that grace and coordination recently in a dance recital she was in with other four and five-year-olds. They actually had two little performances in one day. The first was in a little roped-off area in a small shopping mall. It was cute. That night, they did their real recital. Except this time it was on a big stage. You could tell the girls were excited and maybe a little intimidated when the curtain went up. And there was an audience of adoring fans: Moms and Dads, and Grandmas and Grandpas. I was thinking, "Well, I already saw this this morning. I'm here to support my granddaughter, though." Excuse me. They did the same numbers, but not the same way! They moved all over the stage like birds that had been let out of their cage. I realized that their morning performance had been on such a small stage that they could only do small things. But now they were showing what they really could do!

Monday, October 11, 2010

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"Made you look!" That's a classic line from when we were kids. As we're driving through some of this continent's steep mountain ranges, We have seen a sign that's guaranteed to make me look. You usually see it on a long drive down a steep mountain. The sign says, "Runaway truck ramp ahead." Of course I immediately look in my rear view mirror! If some big old semi with failed brakes is barreling down the mountain, about to run me over, I would like to be the first to know! I'm not sure what I'd do about it, but at least I'd like a moment for my whole life to flash before me. Those ramps are long emergency ramps, usually covered with something like sand that will help a truck grind to a halt. Now, if you've ever smelled the hot rubber of overworked brakes on a mountain, and you probably have, you know that providing a way to stop runaway trucks is really a good idea. And they must be needed. I often see fresh truck tracks in that sand!

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