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January 22, 2019

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I really hate to be viewed as a typical tourist. But when I went to South Africa a few years ago, I was Tommy Tourist. Yeah, I had my camera clicking everywhere. My friend, Ted, was kind enough to take me between the conferences where I was speaking to Kruger National Park; probably the finest natural game park in all the world. Of course, I was seeing things I'd never seen before. I'd see a giraffe, or a rhinoceros out in the wild or in my dream. I just wanted to see wild elephants, and I did. And I'd yell at Ted like Tommy Tourist, "Stop! Pull over the car!" I'd promptly jump out and start shooting pictures. And he patiently said to me, "Ron, move quickly, and I'll watch your back." I said, "Why?" I didn't think my back was that much fun to watch. He said, "Ron, you have to understand that in this tall grass, there may be lions." Well, he went on to tell me about the tourist that had been mauled while taking pictures in Kruger National Park recently. It's amazing how fast I could get back in the car, and what great pictures you can take out the window. I learned to take a lot of pictures from the car. You know it's great to know that there's someone watching your back when there might be a lion ready to pounce on you.

January 16, 2019

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Just a few years ago they had the battle of Little Big Horn again, and Custer lost again. Actually it was part of a movie on the life of the great Oglala Lakota, Chief Crazy Horse. My Lakota friend, Jerry, was asked to be one of Crazy Horse's warriors in the movie. Now, one challenge was riding bareback. They had to do that full speed in the battle scenes, and of course, the big scene was the portrayal of Custer's last stand. Interestingly enough, Jerry can't even find himself in those scenes because the warriors were going by so fast in a cloud of dust. Someone asked him how many warriors they needed to reenact a battle that involved so many Native Americans. He said, "Oh, about 80." Hollywood of course is all about illusion, so they just had these 80 guys keep charging up to the soldiers, turn their horses sharply and circle around again and again and again. There weren't nearly as many warriors on the other side as it looked like in the movie. Custer might have wished that the real odds might have been that even.

January 10, 2019

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Aunt Betty's wedding ring had been in the family for three generations, and it was passed down to my wife. There's probably no piece of jewelry that she treasured more than this one. But she couldn't wear it because Aunt Betty's ring size was a lot larger than my wife's little fingers. So Karen identified a jeweler whose craftsmanship she trusted and she entrusted this heirloom to him to be downsized. To be honest, she was a little nervous leaving it with anyone, but she did commit it to this jeweler. When he called that the ring was ready, she could hardly wait to see what he had done with it. Well, the diamonds were intact, the ring looked the same, but it fit her perfectly. He didn't make it into a necklace or a pendant. He didn't change the setting of the stones. Of course not. He took what was entrusted to him and just made it better.

December 30, 2019

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Our grandson couldn't wait to tell me back then. His Grandma had bought a little kit for him called the "Magic Garden." Together, they put together these little plastic pieces that formed the frame for an outdoor scene that had a mountain as its backdrop. Then Grandma helped our grandson pour the liquid from the kit over the crystals that were hiding in the designated areas of that frame. The next day our grandson came to our house to see what had happened. When he stopped by my office to tell me, his eyes got big and his hands were in motion to try to explain to me what he had seen, "It grow!" And he had this kind of sense of wonderment. He was right. The trees had sprouted full pink foliage overnight, colorful flowers and bushes had bloomed, and as our grandson said, "Mountain grow snow." Well, sure enough, the mountain had filled in with a cover of snow. Wow! So, what had been last night's plain plastic frame had suddenly exploded into this fully blooming, Technicolor show!

December 11, 2019

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When Queen Elizabeth was growing up - then Princess Elizabeth - she always knew she would one day be the queen. It wasn't that way with Queen Victoria. When she was young, she actually was shielded from the fact that she would be the next ruling monarch of England. They didn't want her to grow up spoiled. But finally her teacher did let her discover for herself that she would one day be Queen of England - the most powerful monarch in the world at that time. Victoria's response was simple: "Well, then I will be good!" She understood she needed to live her life based on her royal position.

December 2, 2019

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Oh, you can see it at an airport. You can see it in a conference. You can see it whenever people are in a new place. Right away they're looking for a plug. Yeah, you know why? Because we all have cell phones. That's why. And because those cell phones don't run forever. And it's not a good thing when you really need to communicate with somebody and that thing has a battery that's dying. So we're all trying to recharge the battery. I sometimes think I'm like that. We all are like that. Wouldn't it be nice if people could plug in and get recharged like one of those batteries? I think it's called a night's sleep probably. Well, I can't allow my cell phone to be dead. There's too much going on in this ministry, so I need to put that little phone down sometimes, plug it into recharge so it's good to go again.

November 28, 2019

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I think our granddaughter was about nine years old when she came home from school and said, "Mommy, Daddy, my favorite holiday, I know what it is. It's Thanksgiving." And they asked her why that is. Well, her daddy is our son and her mommy is Native American, so she came in with a unique perspective on Turkey Day. She said, "I love Thanksgiving because I'm a Pilgrim and an Indian!"

November 27, 2019

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You've probably been speeding down the highway as I have at times, and all of a sudden you'll come to a construction area that says, "Slow down - 35 mph." So everyone, of course, slows down by two or three miles an hour. They're down to 57 now or something like that. And then you'll see as you get a little more into the construction area these words, "Be prepared to stop." Well, I don't want to be prepared to stop. I don't know if you're like me, but I calculate how many miles I've got to go, how long it's going to take. Let's see, "Sixty miles - sixty minutes." Something like that. I don't want to be prepared to stop. I'm prepared to do the speed limit. Sometimes we live our whole lives that way. We're speeding too fast to stop.

November 20, 2019

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Motivation - that's the art of getting a person to do something. We're all in the motivating business. You may be motivating people to go somewhere, or to do a job, to correct a weakness in their life, to change their ways, to finish what they start, to do what you want them to do. Motivation comes in a lot of forms. You can inspire people to do it. You can threaten them if they don't do it. You can love them into doing it; put an arm around them and say, "Come on, Buddy." You can help them do it. You could pitch in and show them how and be willing to do your part.

October 31, 2019

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Columnist Bob Greene told a story that touched my heart. It's about a newspaperman in a small Midwestern town and the call he got from a school teacher. She wanted to tell him about something that had happened to a child on the playground. He was braced for bad news. Well, it wasn't. During a lunch break, most of the 8th graders were gathered in groups, talking and playing. This one boy - a student who actually suffered from severe physical disabilities and was new to the school - was off by himself as usual. He was, like, painfully shy.

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