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Friday, August 13, 2010

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There have been a number of airplane crashes over the years. A few of them are the kind you just don't forget. One was the crash of United Flight 232. Captain Al Haynes and his crew were desperately trying to control a plane that was almost out of control due to an equipment failure. They were diverted from Chicago to Sioux City, Iowa. There was no way they were able to maneuver that plane to the airport. Their best hope of saving at least some lives was to try to bring it down in a nearby cornfield. Captain Haynes became a national hero when he somehow managed to do just that. Tragically, some lives were lost in the crash landing and the subsequent fire, but there were many survivors from a crash that could have easily killed all aboard. Captain Haynes said he had a hero that day. His crew had checked every procedure book to see what to do in an emergency like they were facing. They found no procedure. So Captain Haynes' hero was the flight controller that talked him through that terrifying crisis. Here's what the captain said: "There's nothing like a calm, soothing voice talking to you, telling you everything you need to know."

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

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It seemed harmless enough when I entered. I was just a kid at an amusement park in Chicago, and the ride was just a big cylinder that made you feel like you were walking into a washing machine. They called it The Rotor. I stood against the edge and I waited for it to do its thing. Then it started to do what something called The Rotor might be expected to do - rotate. As it began to spin faster and faster, the floor started to disappear in front of my feet. I was plastered against the side of the cylinder, looking down into this yawning black hole. I hated it. I wanted off. Too bad!

Thursday, May 20, 2010

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On a foreboding day in the spring, the tornado warnings were out for a small town in Illinois. Knowing they needed to find a safe place, some folks there ran for shelter into the basement of a restaurant that was housed in a hundred-year-old stone building. What they didn't factor into their choice was the old sandstone foundation on which that building rested. A tornado roared right through the middle of the town, and it made a direct hit on that building. It destroyed everything - the building, the foundation, and the basement. And eight people died there that day.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

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In recent years, there's been a stretch of Oklahoma, including Oklahoma City, that has seemed like "Tornado Alley." On the Weather Channel, many spring and summer days show that part of the country colored in the bright red that indicates severe weather. The most powerful tornado America ever had roared through the Oklahoma City area just a few years ago. As I drove through that area on a spring day between storm systems, I couldn't help but be impressed with what I saw as I drove by a church. Right in front of the church you could see an open door sticking up out of the ground. The church actually has a storm cellar right out on the street, and the door was wide open!

Friday, April 2, 2010

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A listener shared a story with me recently that is just too powerful not to share with you. A man named George Thomas was a pastor in a small New England town. One Easter Sunday morning, he got up to speak and he set a rusty, bent-up, old bird cage next to the pulpit. You could tell by people's faces that the pastor had some explaining to do. He said, "Well, I was walking through town yesterday when I saw a young boy coming toward me, swinging this bird cage. On the bottom of the cage were three little birds who were shivering with cold and fear. I asked the boy, "What you got there?" He said, "Just some old birds." The pastor then asked, "What are you going to do with them?" The answer came back, "I'm gonna tease 'em and pull out their feathers to make 'em fight. I'm gonna have a real good time." The pastor pointed out that the boy would soon get tired of those birds and he inquired what he would do with them. "Oh, I got some cats," the boy said. "They like birds." What happened next is what puts you and me into the picture.

Monday, January 18, 2010

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It really wasn't that my wife and I were eavesdropping. Honest. It's just that the four well-dressed, older ladies at the restaurant table next to ours were so close we couldn't help but hear part of their conversation. One lady was recounting the beginning of her day. She said she was following her usual routine of getting up, taking care of some personal maintenance, and then turning on the TV for her morning Oprah fix - watching Oprah Winfrey's Show, that is. No Oprah. She began pushing buttons on her remote, increasingly more frustrated by her inability to find her morning TV companion. At that point, her daughter happened to call on the telephone. Mom began venting her frustration over how technology was failing her and soliciting her daughter's help. Finally she just sputtered, "Where's Oprah?" When her daughter could finally get a word in, she said, "Mom, it's Sunday! Oprah's not on, but church is!" Mom suddenly went into fast-forward mode - not with her TV, but with her getting ready for church; which she came very close to missing entirely.

Friday, January 1, 2010

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When you stand at the edge of the overlook, gazing across at the mighty Niagara Falls, listening to its liquid thunder, you can't help but be impressed with its majestic beauty and its tremendous power. But that's as close as I want to get. A person who somehow fell into those churning waters would have little chance of survival; maybe no chance. That didn't seem to bother the famous tightrope walker known as the Great Blondin. No, back in 1859, he made history. He crossed the gorge of the Niagara River on a tightrope. At one point, he executed a back somersault. His next tightrope trip across the Falls, Blondin crossed on a bicycle, he walked across blindfolded, then pushed in a wheelbarrow, he cooked an omelet in the center, and he made the trip with his hands and feet manacled at one point. Then came his ultimate performance. He announced he would carry a man across the Falls on his back. Most folks believed he could do it. No one wanted to be the one who went on his back, though, except his manager who climbed on the back of the Great Blondin, and to the amazement of all who watched, arrived safely on the other side.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

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It was Christmas Eve, and the Hutchcraft family was acting out the Christmas story. Our daughter was Mary, with a towel draped over her head. Our oldest son was Joseph, bathrobe and all. Our then two-year-old son was the closest we could come to a baby; he was in the giant laundry basket. I was, of course, an angel dressed in a white sheet, sitting celestially on the back of the couch. And my wife - well, she wanted to be a sheep. So she was crawling around the living room floor with our sheepskin rug draped over her, doing her very best "baaas." And the doorbell rang. It was two teenage girls from our youth group. Their folks were home getting drunk, and they were wondering if they could come to our house for a little while. When they came in, our Christmas players were in full gear, baa-ing and all. The girls looked at one another, wondering if we were in any better shape than their parents. But, hey, the door was open and we invited them right into our Christmas.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

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Narnia was a mythical land, created by C. S. Lewis, where the animals talk and where four children experience this series of incredible adventures. The seven-part series, "The Chronicles of Narnia," have long fascinated children and adults alike. And then came Disney's movie version of the first Narnia story, "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," and it was a blockbuster. In the story, the wardrobe is the closet through which the children discover Narnia. The witch is the evil ruler of the land. She's creating an endless winter where it is "always winter but never Christmas." And the lion is Aslan, the great son of the Emperor from across the sea. He is, in C. S. Lewis' imagery, the Christ-figure of Narnia. As the children begin to experience the icy and dangerous world that Narnia has become under an evil ruler, one of the animals announces that there is hope on the horizon. Hope turns out to be five words: "Aslan is on the move." Indeed, he was, and Narnia would soon be set free.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

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Our daughter and son-in-law and two grandsons were driving through the Midwest a while back and not liking the drive very much. For most of that day's drive, they were in the thick of a powerful storm system (maybe you've done that), with drenching rain, and more significantly, a lot of dangerous lightning until they got to Springfield, Missouri. When our daughter called us, they were heading south out of Springfield and liking the trip a lot more. She said, "You cannot believe how ugly it looks behind us. The sky and the lightning back there look angry and foreboding, but the road ahead of us is clear and bright!"

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