Yesterday, my pastor was talking about the donkey Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. My mind wandered (not the pastor's fault) to a horse I met one day in Texas.

I was recording my youth broadcast with a live teenage audience on a Texas cattle ranch. I asked if they could arrange a horse for city boy Ron to ride, so I could record one segment on horseback. Two adjectives defined my equine request - "old and harmless." Dressed in a cowboy hat and chaps - all photos have been burned - I mounted the steed they'd found for me.

I should have asked his name sooner. See, this town had a monster tornado some years ago. Wanna guess my horse's name? Yup. Tornado. And there was no turning back.

The folks at the hospital asked my father-in-law if he'd like to donate his organs. He smiled and said, "Depends on how soon you want them." Great answer.

Someone somewhere decided to donate their heart if something happened to them. Today, that heart is beating in the former Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney. Doctors had done everything else science can do to save and extend his life since his first heart attack at the age of 37. Stents, bypasses, an implanted defibrillator. But now, at age 71, his life probably depended on the ultimate solution - not a heart repair but a totally new heart.

Right now, there are probably 3,000 Americans whose lives depend on getting a new heart. Their average wait for one to become available is somewhere between six months and a year. Dick Cheney had to wait 20 months for his.

At first it seemed like some apocalyptic event had hit our town. Schools are all empty...not a school bus in sight...lots of people suddenly disappeared. Not to worry. It's just Spring Break.

Of course, for many of America's young people, Spring Break is code for "party like there's no tomorrow." After downing lots of booze - and sometimes drugs...your internal censors go off duty. So a lot of folks come back from break with little memory of some big mistakes. Partying that lasts for a night, regrets and scars that can last a lifetime. Going for "break" and coming back broken.

I've lost my shamrock tie, and I'm bummed. Of course, everyone else is thrilled. I loved wearing it for St. Patrick's Day every year to celebrate the part of me that's Irish. In spite of the fact that people insensitively described the color as "barf green." It doesn't seem that anyone's missing it but me.

I'm not sure what old St. Pat would make of the holiday named for him - pouring green dye into the Chicago River and parades full of green-dressed celebrants. I do know that Patrick - who's pretty much obscured by the festivities - was quite a guy with quite a story.

Maybe it's because of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. As a boy watching that show on TV, I was fascinated watching my Mountie hero racing across the snow with his dog team. I even wore pants that were marked "husky."

And then there was my ministry trip to Alaska one February where I got to see dog team races in the snowy streets of Anchorage at their "Fur Rondy." Those memories reignited recently when our son retraced that trip to lay the groundwork for an historic conference for Native Alaskan young people.

I went to get a second weather alert radio for our home this week, they were out. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. Not with what tornadoes just did to lives and property across eleven states. We weren't far from one of them ourselves.

Broken homes. Broken hearts. Towns nearly erased. It's just plain heart-wrenching to watch.

With all the shock and loss, everyone's saying, "It could have been so much worse." Looking at the leveled landscape left by the twisters, it really is remarkable that there weren't many more fatalities. That's why USA Today's "killer tornadoes aftermath" article declares, "Amid tragedy, 'thank God.'"

He came out of nowhere. And overnight became the buzz of the NBA.

A few weeks ago, hardly anyone had heard of Jeremy Lin. Now he's everywhere. When the struggling New York Knicks finally played him, he lit up the scoreboard with amazing performances, game after game.

He's not your typical professional basketball star, that's for sure. He's a Harvard grad. He's Asian-American. He's refreshingly humble. Oh, and he unashamedly loves Jesus.

He doesn't "Tebow." But he wears a bracelet that reveals where his heart is. It says, "For Jesus' name I play." Sure, he plays on the New York Knicks. But he plays for Jesus.

Which suggests a good self-exam question to be asking, even for a sports klutz like me - "Who do I play for?"

Jonesboro. Paducah. Columbine. And now Chardon, Ohio. Another school shooting.

Having spent so much of my life on high school campuses, my heart sinks every time I see those all-too-familiar scenes. Students running - and crying, parents desperately seeking information, SWAT teams moving in, law enforcement briefings, shooter profiles, ambulances converging. And those heartbreaking candlelight vigils.

And once again - for a brief window in time - there's an eternity moment. One national reporter said, "These students are talking way beyond their years today." Suddenly, checking Facebook, sweating the test, talking about everyone's social "drama" seems so unimportant. Because a brush with eternity changes everything. At least for a little while.

Since Whitney Houston's sudden death Saturday night, the world's been fixated on replaying iconic - and now poignant - performances of her signature songs. What's stuck in my mind is video they've shown of one of her first performances and one of her last.

The early video shows her as a young girl, singing in her Newark, New Jersey church, belting out "just a little talk with Jesus makes it right." The other video was called "Whitney's last public performance." It appeared to be an impromptu duet. The song - "Yes, Jesus Loves Me." I thought, "Bookends of her life."

Clearly, Jesus was part of the life of this legendary performer whose singular way with a song brought people to call her simply "The Voice." But the effusive tributes and the flashbacks of Whitney's unforgettable musical mountaintops are punctuated with the disturbing images of her personal life spinning tragically out of control. Her "turbulent marriage," her battles with admitted drug addiction, the troubling pictures of a beautiful woman in disarray and decline.

I know you shouldn't yell. Especially on a Sunday. But I did. This past Sunday. During the Super Bowl.

But, hey, my New York Giants were playing for the championship. And they needed my help, my encouragement, my suggestions. How could they hear if I didn't yell? I know it's just earth stuff, but it sure was fun to watch them win. Especially since I have a special attachment to the Giants that goes back to our years in the New York area, when I used to speak for some of their pre-game chapels.

What most people don't know is that some of the Giants' dramatic late-season turnaround is traceable, in part, to a chapel they had last November. The speaker was challenging the attendees to be "all in" as husbands and fathers, as spiritual leaders and followers of Jesus. Then he gave them something I don't ever expect to get from my pastor - a poker chip.