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Friday, May 23, 2008

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I hadn't been planning to watch anything on TV that night except the news, but I got hooked by a program that followed. It was a fascinating special on the Titanic, including an interview with one of the survivors. Now, she was just a little girl that awful night when the ship that they swore was unsinkable, went down in the icy waters of the Atlantic. Over 1,500 passengers died that night. The Titanic had been constructed with these water tight compartments in their hull that were supposed to contain any flooding. Well, she left England in April of 1912, traveling according to some, at speeds and at a time that the Titanic never should have been traveling - but remember, the Titanic was unsinkable, right? Until it hit that iceberg. Actually it only scraped the iceberg. Most passengers never even knew about it, but that simple scrape had left a deep hole in the hull below the water line. For a while no one knew how much danger they were in. But within a relatively short time, the unsinkable ship was gone. The man who had designed it, went down with the ship. This crusty old survivor summed up her lifetime reflections on the Titanic in a few haunting words. She just said, "It was a monument to human arrogance."

Monday, May 19, 2008

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I guess every generation has its surprising music hits. Like a song by a Mississippi trucker driver about a hound dog - Elvis something - or a song by some longhaired British quartet about wanting to hold your hand. I think they were called The Beatles. But then, in more recent years, there was a very surprising song that sky rocketed to number one for several weeks, and to a Grammy nomination. The singer was not well known, but the song asked some questions that no popular song has ever dealt with. It had a haunting melody that was pretty hard to forget. Back then, as I played a portion of that song for 11,000 teenagers I was speaking to, virtually everyone in the room sang the lyrics. "What if God was one of us, what would His name be? If God was one of us, what would His face look like?" You know what? The questions are provocative. The answers are shocking!

Friday, May 16, 2008

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I'm in our van sitting at a red light - and suddenly this cloud of dark, acrid smoke starts belching out of my exhaust pipe. It was disgusting! Apparently, the motorists behind me felt the same way - they started honking at me. That helped tremendously. I just wished honking would have solved the problem. Believe it or not, it didn't. One mechanic told me, "I wouldn't leave town with that van if I were you." He was right - of course, the smoke wasn't the problem - the problem was the engine. No, it didn't need to be fixed. It was far too gone for that. It had to be replaced!

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

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We were driving with some of our young Native American friends in Arizona and we were returning from a little sightseeing outing. And even though men never get lost, right? The man driving did. As we were debating which way to go to get back, one of our Indian passengers described exactly how we had traveled to this area and exactly how we could get back. We listened, we tried it, and we weren't lost anymore! Now maybe it's just been my experience, and sometimes I even joke about it with my Native friends - Native Americans just don't seem to get lost! I've tried to figure this out. Maybe it's just instinct, but over and over I've noticed something. My Indian friends pay very close attention to where they're going. Seldom do they have to travel there twice to know where they're going. Now, they have taught me a very valuable lesson - the way to know your way is to pay close attention to where you've been!

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

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I had a mountain of work to do to prepare for some radio programs I was scheduled to record, and the way things worked out, I had to travel by van about twelve hours with two of our team members. Now, I'm going to make one thing clear. I am a driver, okay, I'm not a passenger. I hate to ride. I love to drive. Problem: I had so much work to do it could easily fill the twelve hours we were traveling. So they set up this little office for me in the back of the van and they brought along a power pack that would allow me to use my computer all the way. So, very reluctantly I went to the back of the bus and settled into work and to watch someone else drive. Now, at first it drove me nuts. But by the end of the trip, I realized how much creative work I had completed in this office on wheels! Man, what a productive day I had, all because I let someone else drive.

Friday, May 2, 2008

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All of us airline passengers have just squeezed down that narrow aisle to our seats and everyone is just getting settled in. And the ground agent comes onboard and says, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is a destination check. This is flight 305 to Atlanta." The next part is what I love - it's so diplomatic, it's almost ridiculous. If Atlanta is not in your travel plans for today, this would be a good time for you to exit the aircraft." Translation: "Hey, pal - make sure this flight is going where you want to end up!"

Friday, April 25, 2008

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The first hurricane that I was in made me think of the Three Little Pigs story. It also made me think of the wolf, "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down." We were on vacation with our family at the time, and the hurricane was moving into where we were on the coast. We moved downstairs from our upstairs bedroom. We listened to the local station go off air because the water was coming into the station. We tried to sleep but the wind was howling; the rain was pummeling the house. Well the next morning we went out and we surveyed what had happened. The power was out. The trees and wires were down. There was like wreckage everywhere. We had to actually wash and flush using the water that we had wisely stored in the bathtub before the hurricane hit. We ate by candlelight. We changed all our plans, but we were safe. See the storm had beaten up everything around us and it affected our life style. But the things that really mattered - they were safe.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

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My Grandpa John lost his hair, not all of it but enough to expose a sizable portion of the top of his head. Then there was my dad faithfully following in his father's footsteps - or maybe scalp-steps or whatever. He was bald in most of the same spots that his dad was. Hello third generation! My forehead seems to be growing, and behind me are two sons with great hair - for now. But the other day in church, our Pastor said something unsettling. He said, "One day you get up in the morning and you look in the mirror, and suddenly there is someone else there." You are looking at someone a lot like your father. I glanced down the pew at my son, and he had this anxious look on his face as he felt his forehead and he checked his hair.

Monday, April 14, 2008

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Well, it was our turn again for the locusts to pay us a brief visit. Now, you can't really complain, I mean, they only drop by every seventeen years. What a life these critters have! They suck on a root in the ground for a while, they finally emerge, they climb a tree, they make a lot of noise for about three weeks, and they die. You talk about "get a life!"

Monday, April 7, 2008

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It's a good thing that out of our three children, we had only one daughter. I could only afford one wedding! Now my wife did all kinds of resourceful things to keep the costs way down. It was so nice of those guests to bring a sack lunch, I'll tell you. No, no, I'm only kidding. It was modest, but it was beautiful. But it certainly wasn't free! We enjoy watching the video of the wedding once in a while, but we won't have to do the wedding again! Can you imagine if her husband kept saying every few months, "I think we need to have another wedding. I want to make sure we're married." They haven't needed to do that! Neither have her mother and I because we know we got married that day.

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