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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!
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I was about halfway through my hamburger at a cookout when a friend of our son asked me a provocative question. She worked with a group of junior high kids and she asked them what they thought the purpose of life was. They said, "To die." She continued to probe and then she started to talk to them about hope. But she said, "Ron, they have no concept of hope. They're like concrete people. Hope is too abstract. How can I explain hope to them?"
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There's nothing in nature I love to see more than an eagle soaring majestically through the sky. That's why I enjoy the story of the farmer who once found a little eaglet all alone in the woods. And since the little bird was struggling to survive, the farmer decided to take the eaglet back to his farm to raise him. The problem was the only birds he had on his farm were chickens, and that's who the eaglet was raised with. So, as the chickens walked around looking down and pecking on the ground for chicken feed, the eaglet learned to live the same way. Now poking around for chicken feed looks okay on a chicken – no way for an eagle to live.
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Our former office was, literally, for the birds! I mean it was like they lived in the attic above our top floor offices. And you know what, they would sometimes show up flying down the hall. Every once in a while we could hear them when we were recording radio programs, it was a little "chirp" in with their singing.
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Now I don't see a lot of movies but that old groundhog one with Bill Murray, I can tell you, it's really funny. You probably know the plot if you've seen it. He's this not very nice TV weatherman who goes to Punxsutawney, PA to broadcast that American tradition that comes from there. We're supposed to be able to predict whether or not there will be six more weeks of winter weather based on whether or not the groundhog sees his shadow on February 2nd.
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It's just a humble little house in the country, but it had been a dream of a friend of ours for years. Actually, it was her grandparents' house most of her life. She lived just down the road from them as a child and she spent many hours and made many memories in that little place. After Grandma and Grandad died, her dad owned the house. But by then he lived four hours away, so he just rented it out for years. It never was a great house but it really fell apart over the last few years; holes in the roof, fleas in the carpet, critters invading the house through its many holes, rotting wood and deterioration.
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So look, there's a football game on but you don't have time to watch the whole game. Listen, turn it on near the end of the game. Some of the most amazing things happen when the game is almost over, especially after they sound that two-minute warning. Suddenly, everybody knows it's time to throw caution to the wind and go for broke, "Let's get some points on the board!" It's time for those bold series of plays that are designed for those urgent moments when you realize time is running out.
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Some years ago, I read in a news magazine about one man's very interesting response during a Papal visit to Latin America. This man owned a produce stand and it was just a couple of blocks from where the Pope was making this historic personal appearance. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the Pontiff. It seemed like everybody was going, except for "Mr. Produce Stand." And this article said that a reporter asked him, "Don't you believe in the Pope?" The dealer gave a very honest answer. He said, "Oh, yes, I believe in the Pope, but I trust in rice and beans!" I guess there's a difference!
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She was only one woman - an inmate on Death Row. And she became the center of a public opinion hurricane. Karla Faye Tucker was her name. She was convicted of a brutal pickaxe murder in Texas, sentenced to die, on Death Row for almost 14 years. Reporters from across the country and around the world descended on Huntsville, Texas in the days and weeks before her scheduled execution. And millions of us actually heard Karla Faye speak for herself as she explained the dramatic change that had taken place in her life. Karla Faye explained that she had trusted Jesus Christ to be her Savior, believing that the sin He died to forgive covered even the heinous things she had done. The way she lived in prison, the way she seemed to speak from deep in her heart lent credibility to the story of the rebirth that she told about.
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"Dad, you're on E!" Yeah, I heard that a lot from my kids for years as we drove along, as if I didn't know the fuel gauge was nearing the empty mark. Of course, I knew. But why stop any sooner than you have to, right? I did create too much stress in the process for me, and my wife, and for my kids who were leaning over the back seat, and sometimes I actually did flirt with an empty tank. And I guess they all still remembered and reminded me of the time that we sputtered to a stop along the New York throughway out of gas. Yeah, I pushed it a little too far.
