Thursday, September 1, 2005

I was teaching at a training school for people entering youth ministry when I learned about a call home that must have been heartbreaking for the dad who made it. The school was three weeks long, and dad had already been gone for over two weeks. He was seriously missing his wife and two-year-old son, and they were missing him. After waiting patiently in the long line that formed every day after classes at the lobby pay phone, he finally got to talk to his wife. When he asked how his son was doing, she said, "Not too well, honey. Yesterday he came up to me and said, 'Mommy, is Daddy dead?'" Ouch!

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

As each of our kids has fallen in love, I have had what sounded like a strange piece of advice for them. I've said, "Make sure you make a good 200-year choice." Needless to say, that's been greeted with an expression that says, "You doin' okay, Dad?" It turns out none of our kids expects to ever celebrate their 200th wedding anniversary. But that's not what I'm talking about anyway. I'm talking about the impact the choice of a mate will have for a long, long time - along with a lot of other family choices.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Over the years we've lived near the ocean, and we were blessed to have a friend who was a veteran sailor. He'd been sailing the East Coast since he was a boy. And he was generous enough to allow us to go sailing with him sometimes and to watch a master at work. I tried to apply for "first mate," but he always said, "Don't call us, we'll call you." Which he never did. But I was a grateful, and I was a curious passenger. He told me some great stories of sailing adventures. He showed us how to do some of what he did, and he related times that he had seen one sailboat after another fall over as they were unprepared for a shift in the wind. You don't have to be a seasoned seaman to understand a fundamental law of a successful voyage: It's the set of the sail, not the force of the gale, that determines the way you go.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Senior year in college - somehow our son had maneuvered himself into a coveted on-campus house for his senior lodging. About a dozen guys set up their own little universe there (not necessarily an orderly universe, of course). He told me that one day he and several other guys were talking about a student leader who was a friend of theirs. We'll call him Marty. And in the "talk, then think" atmosphere of college guys in a room, our son was reviewing some of the dumb things (that was his opinion) Marty had done in his leadership choices. As he was finishing this little barbecue, someone drifted into the room from the kitchen - the room right next door. It was, of course, Marty with his cup of coffee in his hand. He'd been right next door making himself some coffee - no doubt listening to this critical review of his leadership. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to. Our son felt about an inch tall when he realized who he had been hurting.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Onions taste great on your hamburger. And they keep tasting long after the burger is a memory. Garlic tastes great on your pizza. But it will be there for you for the rest of the night. In fact, the onions and garlic will be there, not only for you, but for anybody who gets close to you - which won't be very many. Many teenagers have discovered the interesting aftermath of a scrumptious hot fudge sundae or a chocolate bar - acne appearing tomorrow morning on center face. The chocolate was great - briefly. The acne is ugly - not briefly. And what about that ancient wisdom "a moment on the lips, forever on the hips." Those super-size fries or that creamy milk shake will taste wonderful - briefly. And possibly enlarge your body for months or years to come! Here is Science for the Simple, just in case you haven't figured this out already: What you eat affects you later.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

For those of us who have traveled many summers with our Native American outreach team, it will always be remembered as the Night of the Bat. I was with a team of about 35 young Native Americans on a reservation in the Northwest. Most of us were staying in tents or teepees, and a few girls were sleeping in the dining hall. A few of us were in that hall wrapping up for the night, and suddenly a bat somehow got in the room and began doing aerial laps around the room. The reactions were priceless. The girls crawled into their sleeping bags, they covered up, and they screamed like "wolf man" was on the loose. There, huddled in one corner, was this mound of moving, screaming sleeping bags. And the rest of the camp was waking up fast. Everyone was running toward the dining hall to see what awful terror had invaded.

Meanwhile, the bat continued to dart and fly and dive around that room. Some of the guys tried to intercept the bat by throwing bath towels in the air. Needless to say, that was totally ineffective. One team leader was wildly swinging a mop handle in the air. It’s great exercise, but the bat soared on, continuing to terrorize the girls in the room. Except for my wife - Ozark Mountain Woman! She watched that bat make a couple of circuits around the room, she raised a broom above her head, and she took one mighty swing - bam! Direct hit! The dazed bat was taken outside in one of those useless bath towels. And the next morning, one of our Native leaders conducted a brief ceremony to honor my wife with an Indian name - Kills With One Swing.

Tuesday, August 9, 2005

Some people get a lot of recognition at their high school graduation. I got a lot of recognition at my graduation practice. We were out on the athletic field one beautiful June day, lined up in the alphabetical order that we would be in at commencement. Now the idea is: listen to the familiar strains of that traditional graduation march, "Pomp and Circumstance," and march up to the platform in step with the music. Sounds easy enough. Sure, I was listening to the same music as everyone else, but I just had my own original cadence. So, all I can remember from that commencement rehearsal is the faculty coordinator yelling, "Hutchcraft! Will you please get in step!"

Thursday, August 4, 2005

My friend, Jerry, was a pilot. And not long ago, he went home to be with the Lord that he loved. At his memorial service, his son told some of the stories of Jerry's very adventurous life. Like the time just a couple of years ago when he was flying a twin-engine plane over our area. This made the headlines - both engines went out on him! Jerry was pretty unflappable. That's a pretty good characteristic for a pilot, huh? He quickly surveyed the ground to find the safest place to make an emergency landing. His choice - the local golf course. There weren't any golfers out there. It's a good thing. (They would have really been teed off, I suppose.) He started to bring the plane down for a landing, but as he neared the ground, he saw the one obstacle between him and a safe landing - a huge oak tree coming right at him. And he had no power to help him miss it. So Jerry quickly talked to God about it. He just said, "Lord, it will take a miracle. Please do one." And at that moment, one engine leaped to life for just a moment; just long enough to give Jerry the lift he needed to clear that tree.

Thursday, July 28, 2005

I've never seen the TV show, and based on what I've read about its moral content, I don't plan to see the show. But there's no denying it has skyrocketed to being a hit from its very first season. Maybe, in part, because so many women can relate to its provocative title, "Desperate Housewives." There are more than a few of those.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

We're not horse racing fans, but I happened to stumble onto a horse race on TV when I was looking for the evening news. It was The Preakness; the second race in a three-race series called the Triple Crown. Those races are, in essence, horse racing's World Series. The first race in 2005 had been won by a horse whose odds of winning were 50 to 1, beating out the odds-on favorite, Afleet Alex. Then came that second race, The Preakness. As the race passed the halfway point, Afleet Alex made his move. He quickly caught up with another horse who had been in the lead - who, for some reason, swerved unexpectedly right into his path, and both horses started to collide and stumble. Afleet Alex's jockey ended up hanging onto his horse's neck, fully expecting to go down in a potentially deadly fall that could all be trampled. But amazingly, Afleet Alex somehow managed to regain his balance, surge into the lead, and win the race in a dramatic finish. The headline the next day said it all: "From stumble to stunning finish."