Friday, December 28, 2018

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When our daughter and son-in-law became parents the first time, they also became an aunt and uncle. Their niece was a little younger than their first son, but you can imagine that both sets of parents enjoyed swapping stories about their first child. For example, he would set out a toy or a puzzle on the floor. He'd select one of us adults as his designated playmate. It sounds like this - now, he called me "Dada" because he couldn't say "Granddad" - he would go, "Dada pay." That's "play" for those requiring translation. And he patted the floor exactly where he wanted me to sit and "pay." Apparently, their niece was issuing similar invitations to the adults in her world, like her Daddy, for example. He was moving around the living room doing whatever, and she would look up at him with big eyes and asks a simple question, "Papa down?" She really wanted her father to come to her level. And he did.

Tuesday, December 25, 2018

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One Christmas, a friend gave us one of the most unique ornaments I'd ever seen. As soon as you see it, you think how beautifully and exquisitely this glass decoration is painted. But what's amazing is that none of that artwork is on the outside of the ornament. It's been painted entirely on the inside! For centuries, I guess the Chinese have perfected this "inside painting." Through a small opening in that ornament, the artist repeatedly inserts a miniature brush to paint the artwork. Of course, the process is painstaking and time consuming. It takes two days just to paint one ornament, but the result is a beautiful, one-of-a-kind miniature masterpiece.

Monday, December 24, 2018

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It was World War I. It was Christmas Eve. The German and British soldiers were dug in just hundreds of yards apart. But it turned out to be much more than just another tense and violent night on the battlefield. There had been so many of those. It actually began when one German soldier began singing "Silent Night" from his trench. Pretty soon he was joined in German by many more of his fellow soldiers. Amazingly, the voices of hundreds of British soldiers began to join in the carol from their trenches, sung in two languages - same carol. Now that has to have been a moment those soldiers never forgot. Just think, opposing armies singing "Sleep in heavenly peace" in the middle of a battlefield.

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

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"Avalanche." "Tsunami." "A cultural watershed moment." "A day of reckoning." Those are just some of the words the news used to describe the increasingly relentless accusations of sexual misconduct by powerful men. That quake has been shaking cultural epicenters of this country from Hollywood to corporate boardrooms to state capitals to the halls of Washington D.C.. And most observers believe this is only the tip of an iceberg.

The blizzard of revelations is new. Men using power to exploit someone sexually; sadly, that's not new. From athletes to politicians, from bosses to clergy sometimes. Tiger Woods outed an abuser's rationale when he went public with his extramarital relationships. He simply said, "Normal rules didn't apply...I felt like I was entitled."

Monday, December 17, 2018

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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 he pushed a wheelbarrow, and he cooked an omelet in the center. 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 of the 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, he arrived safely on the other side.

Thursday, December 13, 2018

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Narnia was a mythical land, created by C. S. Lewis, where the animals talk and where four children experience a series of incredible adventures. The seven-part series, The Chronicles of Narnia, have long fascinated children and adults alike. (I'm one of them.) 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 says it was "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 that 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.

Tuesday, December 11, 2018

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Christmas shopping is really fun for a while. But after a few stressful trips to the mall, after spending more time looking for a parking place than you do in the store, after battling the crowds and trying to find a store that still has what you're looking for, well Christmas shopping starts to lose some of its glitter. But then there's that golden moment when you walk in the house with your last installment of shopping bags, you collapse in the recliner, and you declare in a loud, triumphant voice, "I'm done with my shopping!" What a feeling!

Friday, December 7, 2018

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In just one year, a whole lot changed for my wife and me. We sold our home of 24 years, and we disposed of a quarter century of accumulated "stuff"! We relocated to a home way out in the country in another state after our Board decided to relocate the entire ministry to that part of the country. So, we got a new personal address, we got a new ministry address, we had all new phone numbers, and new license plates, and new co-workers. But with all the changes, there was one thing that didn't change - our email address. No matter where we are, our email address is always the same!

Monday, December 3, 2018

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For many years, my wife's father managed to squeeze out a living for his family on this little farm in the Ozarks. It was always a battle financially, but the battle got really intense the summer of the long drought. My wife talked about it so many times. First, he emptied all three of their ponds to get water; then all of the ponds on his parents' adjacent property. Then a friend let him use his well that had never gone dry. Well, it did go dry that summer. Finally, Dad had no choice but to find water and dig a well on his property. But that meant mortgaging a lot of his cattle. And as the well diggers had to go deeper, it eventually meant mortgaging all his cattle. And they never found water. His farming days were over.

Thursday, November 29, 2018

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They just don't make garbage like they used to. Do you remember the good old days when you could throw away everything when you were done with it? Actually, those were not the good old days, because we were also trashing our environment. I don't know how it is in your neighborhood, but we lived in a neighborhood for a long time where we had the privilege of sorting and putting out what used to be just garbage; you know now they're called recyclables. It's amazing how they can take that garbage and then recycle it into something useful again.