All posts by admin

The Mt. Everest Challenge

The first famous person I ever shook hands with had climbed Mt. Everest. In fact, by the time I met him, he had stood on the highest peak in the world and at the geographic South Pole. Sir Edmund Hillary was coming to town and my mother needed my help. 

My mother was a part of the program committee that invited the famed explorer to be their luncheon speaker. The event was sponsored by World Book Encyclopedia, and my mother had joined the team as a sales representative. My role was to play the part of a newspaper boy and hand out copies of the Miami Herald. You know, “Read all about it, Edmund Hillary Conquers Mt. Everest.” My grandfather was the advertising manager for the paper, so my mother persuaded her father to have some mock front pages printed up with the headline on it. These were placed over the real front pages of that day’s paper. I remember Sir Edmund’s surprised laughter when I burst into the room to say my lines and pass out the papers, one to a table. I got to skip junior high school that day and to ask him one question at the end of his speech.

In his talk that day, the adventurer spoke of the need to face one’s challenges, to risk all if need be, and the importance of the Sherpas (the support team) to help one make it to the top. Hillary said he would not have made the summit without Tenzing Norgay. During the question and answer period I asked my burning question: Did you see a Yeti? No, he replied. He had come to the conclusion that a Yeti, or the Abominable Snowman, was a fiction of the local imaginations. I was disappointed. I wanted it to be real.

Some years later Edmund Hillary flew to the top of the world with Neil Armstrong, the first to step onto the moon, where together they stood at the North Pole. He was the first person to stand on Mt. Everest and both global poles. He gave much of his time and energy after that adventure to improving the quality of life for the Sherpas and the people of Nepal. Sounds like a personal challenge even greater than Mt. Everest.

 Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Face your challenge. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Share this webpage: Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedin

One Love, One Mission

I was nearly run over by a careening car as I was crossing a street in Ft. Worth, Texas many years ago. The main thing I remember about the car was its bumper sticker theology proudly proclaiming: I’m Bound for the Promised Land. I thought that was fine for him, and that he would likely make it very soon. Bumper sticker theology is what I call those signs and sayings people place on their cars and Facebook walls. We seem to have a need to tell everyone our viewpoint through a clever sound bite. I see the good in that sometimes.

Walking near the church one day I came upon a very honest bit of bumper sticker theology. The sign on the car’s rear window read:

I saw it

I wanted it

I threw a fit

And I got it.

That is materially, psychologically, relationally, and spiritually very revealing. My mind started to conjure all types of stories concerning this person as a spouse, as a child, as a parent, as an employee or even as a church member. I wonder if this person has ever met the “What part of ‘No’ don’t you understand” person—they’re probably married to each other, of course.

If you were to ask our oldest grandson, Carter, to name his favorite restaurant, he would say, Raising Cane’s. He loves their chicken and their sauce. Raising Cane’s advertises they have one motto and one mission. Their motto is One Love. The one love is fried chicken. They only serve fried chicken pieces and one set of sides. Their one mission is to serve the public well. Jesus has a similar plan for us: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind…And love your neighbor as yourself.  (Matthew 22:36-40). One Love. One Mission. 

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Live your theology. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Share this webpage: Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedin

Dandled

I must admit that I always have mixed emotions when reading the bible prophecies about the end times. It is not that I do not understand what the prophets are saying, it is that I do. My hope in the completion of God’s glorious Day is tempered by the sadness and downright awfulness of Judgment. The last chapter of Isaiah is one such passage—judgment and hope mixed together. But I always got one word wrong in reading this chapter.

I gave up preaching from the King James Version (KJV) many years ago because of the outdated language. I still use the majestic language of the KJV at funerals and on some special occasions. I found myself spending too much time within Sunday sermons translating Elizabethan English into the American vernacular. I have an affinity for the New American Standard Version (NASV) but found that the New International Version (NIV) hit the right tone for my preaching. Clarity in our words helps us avoid confusing others with insider jargon or religious speech.

Once again while reading Isaiah 66, I came across the one odd word in the bible that I probably misread repeatedly. When I read it properly for the first time (in 2013!) I thought maybe it was a misprint in the text. That happened in “The Wicked Bible,” the 1631 King James Bible where the printers failed to include the word “not” in the seventh commandment, the one about adultery. Little words can make a big difference. 

This odd word is only found in Isaiah chapter 66:12. In an extended metaphor about a nursing mother and her child, the prophet tells of a future joyous time when “you will nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees.” I am certain that I always read it as dangled. Turns out the word is translated from the Hebrew as dandled in all the standard bible translations. Check your favorite Bible. Dandled is past tense for “move up and down.” Some very recent paraphrases are beginning to use the more meaningful language, “bounced on her knees.”  Now I understand.

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Words matter. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Share this webpage: Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedin

Fainting in Church

The only time I have ever fainted was in church on an Easter Sunday morning. I was about 13-years-old. While not all of the details are clear I do remember the highlights of my embarrassment. My whole family sat together in church as was our custom.  During one of the Easter hymns, I fell over sideways into the pew. I was next to one of my parents who quietly took over the situation. Apparently since I was colorless, they roused me and gave me a Smith Bros cough drop. It worked. I made it through the rest of the service that morning, but I was the topic of teasing by my younger sisters for quite some time.

  Easter Sunday always held a special place in our family life. My parents were married on April 25th on Easter Sunday afternoon in 1943. My father wore his Navy uniform and my mother wore a simple dress with a corsage. The church was already filled with Easter lilies and lots of other flowers. So each time our family went to church for Easter our parents always reflected on their joyous wedding day. Poetically, my mother died in her sleep on their 60th wedding anniversary weekend and Dad died a few months later. Easter was interwoven into their hearts and their love.

  Easter has always been about joy overcoming sorrow, love overcoming sin, and life overcoming even death itself. The Cross demonstrated to us the full extent of God’s love with words such as, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Jesus died and was buried, but on the third day, our Easter, He arose! 

  I have been blessed all of my life to be able to go to church every week with my family and the people of faith who are like family to me. Every now and then something embarrassing happens, but that is part of life and living with each other. Today the preciousness of Easter fills my heart to overflowing. 

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Celebrate Easter. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Share this webpage: Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedin

The Walking Stick

I have accumulated several canes and walking sticks over the years. I keep them in a large bucket along with a few fishing poles. I pull a walking stick out each time I venture out into the neighborhood. I have a metal cane that was handed out one year by the pipefitter’s union at the fair. It’s an actual pipe that was fitted with a plastic cap on both ends. I inherited a cane from my grandmother. She bought it in Haiti on her biggest adventure—a  cruise with her bridge club friends.  Her cane has a carved handle shaped like a horse’s neck and head. The body of the cane was made from various pieces of wood, stained and hand-painted with black designs of fish, birds and the aforementioned horsehead. My oldest cane was given to me by the family of a church member born in the 1890’s. It is a typical cane that men carried everywhere they went in the 1930’s and 40’s. 

I began packing a foldable cane in my luggage when I traveled overseas at the suggestion of a missionary. He felt it was wise to carry a cane when walking alone in foreign cities, just to have something that might cause would be thieves or hungry dogs to choose someone else.  It is also good advice for walking in the neighborhood. One time, after trimming our ornamental crabapple tree, I decided to make my own cane from a nice straight branch. I was overzealous with my knife, and it came up too short. I donated it to the church costume closet for the children’s Christmas programs. Every shepherd needs a staff.

I came across my ideal walking stick while on a personal retreat at Camp Tulakogee. I spotted just the right-sized limb from a recently felled tree by my cabin. It even had a decent fork at the top. I worked on this walking stick for months. I skinned the bark and trimmed down the remains of the small branches. I whittled the tricky knots and sanded it all smooth. I was not allowed to do any of this in the house. Finally, I put a few coats of clear acrylic finish over the entire stick. It is my favorite walking stick. 

We had a dear senior lady in our church who was self-conscious the first time she brought a cane to church. She told me with a wink that day, “I’m just practicing for my old age.” By the way, the church has all kinds of canes and walkers available free to anyone who wants one.

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Keep walking. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Share this webpage: Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedin