Wednesday, July 31, 2002

My regular routine doesn't allow me as much exercise as I'd like. So when we get a few days away, I enjoy picking up the pace a little with some biking or hiking that I don't usually get to do. Of course, I can usually feel that I haven't been doing it enough. The next morning I'm hurting in places I didn't even know I had places. I remember one time we were away at the shore, and I did this sunrise jog on the beach. I felt so healthy - and so beat. I was pounding back on the sand, all tired and sweaty and out of breath, thinking about walking the rest of the way. Suddenly, I saw my wife in the distance. And suddenly my motivation was back! I picked up my pace like an Olympian. Now I had almost reached her when I saw what she had written in huge letters in the sand, "I love you, Ron." Oh! What a happy ending to a long, hard run!

Monday, July 22, 2002

One of the most amazing Christian warriors in my lifetime is a man who has come to be known as Brother Andrew, or "God's Smuggler." He's risked everything to get God's Word into spiritually closed countries where that was virtually impossible. Many consider him a real spiritual hero. No one can doubt that he is, at the very least, a bold risk-taker for Christ.

In his biography, he tells about an incident in his early life as a follower of Christ that showed him the kind of God he was serving. After some pretty wild years without the Lord, he came to Christ and almost immediately felt the call to begin training for the ministry. He went to this small Bible school in Scotland, and before the students were allowed to graduate, they were given a very unusual assignment. They were asked to go out for a month to do evangelistic outreaches in Scottish villages, and they were given some money to live on - one British pound, to be exact. For those of us who are Americans, it would be like being given a dollar to live on for a month. The students were to go with that one bill and eat, and sleep, and rent halls, and buy refreshments, and hold outreaches, and return that one bill at the end of the month. Brother Andrew's team went out and did just that. Except he returned with enough money for the school to send out two missionaries!

Friday, June 28, 2002

As the kids were growing up, my wife and I would sometimes sneak into the kitchen to - well, the kids said it was to "smooch." We were known to occasionally grab a quick hug and kiss in what we thought was a private spot. One time when I started "smooching" with my wife, I forgot that our baby son was sitting there in his high chair. Suddenly, in the midst of this romantic moment, I hear this laughing, and clapping, and banging on his high chair tray. It was like he was saying, "Go for it, Mommy and Daddy!" And over the years, we would be hugging sometimes when we suddenly felt a little person wiggling in between us - sometimes two little persons, or even three. And invariably, we'd see big blue eyes looking up at us, and one of our kids saying, "Mommy, Daddy - can I be in the middle of your love?"

Monday, June 24, 2002

I've got a friend who has a lot more beautiful jewelry than her income can afford. She's just really good at getting terrific deals in pawn shops. She only goes to the reputable ones and over the years, she's managed to keep trading up. My friend has an unbelievable instinct for a good deal and she's got the savvy to land that deal. The other day I saw her with this beautiful full-carat diamond ring on. The store price was $2,000 - which there was no way she had. But she had her little bag of trading treasures with her. She traded items that didn't really matter much to her - and she ended up getting that ring for $200.

Friday, June 21, 2002

I had an opportunity to spend a little time recently with a young man who just finished his hitch in the United States Marine Corps. He must have been a good one - he was trusted with some very sensitive, very strategic assignments. He reminded me of that tremendous two-word motto of the Marine Corps - "Semper fidelis." That's Latin, of course, for "always faithful." But then he told me that there is another unofficial motto that Marines have - one that helps them respond effectively to their assignments. "Semper Gumby." You're probably saying what I said when I heard it - "Uh, what did he say?" Well, you and I both heard it right. And, yes, he was referring to that animated clay figure, Gumby, that can bend any direction. So what is "Semper Gumby"? Always flexible!

Wednesday, May 22, 2002

My wife and I passed a sign for a town with what I found to be an amusing name - "Girdletree." Now, if you live there, I'm sorry - but I did get a chuckle out of that name. And then my wife let me know that "girdletree" really described a process I had never heard of. She said, "When I was a kid, my Dad used to girdle trees on our farm." Now without further explanation, that's going to get some ridiculous images going in your overactive imagination. Now, what she described to me was a process her Dad, and other farmers, used to soften a tree so it would be easier to bring down the next year. He took his ax, and he cut a ring in the bark that "girdled" the entire trunk at that point. The idea was to cut off the tree's sap delivery system. And it worked. The next year, that tree was softer and pretty easy to bring down. So, I'm not laughing anymore.

Monday, May 20, 2002

Let's say you have a friend who's a classical music fan - and he really likes the music of this composer named Beethoven. Now, you don't know much about this Beethoven guy, but you accept your friend's invitation to go to a concert where Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is going to be presented. The performers are the local junior high band. Now your friend has told you repeatedly that Beethoven was a genius and his music spectacular. But, after hearing the squeaking and squawking of 13-year-olds giving that symphony a go, you walk out saying, "Man, forget this Beethoven guy and his music!"

Monday, April 29, 2002

Now, I'm a passenger on airplanes, not a pilot. And that's a good thing. But I have a lot of friends who are pilots - and they've taught me a lot about my attitude. They tell me that "attitude" is actually a pilots' word. As they've explained it to me, the attitude of your plane has to do with its relationship to the horizon. Other things are variable - terrain, weather, even the pilot's perceptions. But the horizon is the one thing that doesn't move. So you want the nose of your plane properly aligned with that horizon. When it isn't, problems can develop - like friction, for example.

Monday, April 15, 2002

I'm not really excited about telling you this frankly - but, then again, maybe you were as psycho about trying to get out of school as I was sometimes. There were just days when, well for one reason or another, I just didn't want to go. Which meant, of course, that I had to be sick. Which I wasn't - at least physically. And at our house, being "sick" meant having a fever. Which I didn't. But I thought I could change that. I sat on a radiator. There - I said it. Now, in case you weren't alive during the Ice Age, radiators were these iron structures that sat on the floor and radiated steam heat into the room. And, of course, they became very hot in the process. And, yes, I sat on one. Did I get a fever? No. Did I get blisters where I sit? Yes. Did I need my head examined? You decide.

Wednesday, January 2, 2002

Several of our team members were driving together to ministry events in a nearby state. We were in two cars, but we stayed in touch by means of walkie-talkies. At a couple of points, one of the men in the car behind me pointed out a hawk he spotted soaring gracefully above us. We saw several of them, actually. Now, when you see a hawk or eagle, it is always an event for a city boy like me. But as my friend - who was not driving at the time - pointed out one of those hawks, the man who was driving said, "Well, I just saw a dead coyote on the shoulder." As our walkie-talkie conversations went on during the trip, that wasn't the last hawk the one man saw - or the last road kill that his driver saw.