June 8, 2018
I remember a book I read called the Poisonwood Bible in which a family of fiercely evangelical missionaries go to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They took with them everything they believed they would need from home, but find nothing but sorrow and loss in the cruelty of the African wild. Nothing works, people die, crops fail, and wars erupt. At the end of the book, the two surviving children land back on U.S. soil. They exit the terminal and are stopped, awestruck, at the wonder of the yellow striping at the edge of the street. After decades in the wildness and unpredictability of the mission field, this simple painted line slaps them in the face with a culture so organized and so tamed that IT PAINTS YELLOW LINES ON THE SIDES OF ITS ROADS. I felt that way recently. I lost my phone...
May 21, 2018
When England's Prince William married Katherine Middleton, something like 24.5 million people watched, breaking barriers set by the Charles and Diana affair, which was viewed by a mere(?) 17 million folks. On Saturday when Prince Harry married American actress Meghan Markel, some other types of barriers were broken--or this wedding was infused with color and youth in a way the buttoned-down, emotionally controlled Brits had never seen. Whether it was the fact that Markel is bi-racial, or because the Prince is deeply involved with African ministries he started in his mother's name, there was an emphasis on inclusion that made the whole affair more loving, more meaningful and definitely more fun...
May 7, 2018
There was a man who was discovered on a tiny island in the Pacific. A castaway, he was found by some sailors blown off track in a storm. The man was thin, but had survived and built three small huts. One of the sailors asked him, "Why are there three huts?" The man explained, "One is my house, one is my church and the other is the church I used to go to." It's a great example of the mindset of those who change their lives in the face of the least discomfort---and in this man's case an imagined discomfort. Of course it isn't even a story about changing churches. It is a story about offense...
April 21, 2018
My parents are gone. My dad died in' 92 and my mom in 2012. They were older when I was born, so I didn't have the benefit of them in my life as long as some people do, but I thank them for everything they did for me just about every day.How blessed are we who grew up in a secure loving home?
April 7, 2018
There's a robotic telescope in Chile that has found planets that could support human life. They search for a planet that is in the "Goldilocks zone" or "just right" for human existence.
If you remember your fairy tails, you'll remember the story of the little girl named Goldilocks who stumbled upon a home where three bears lived. Everything she came upon was too big, or too little, or to hot or too cold. Eventually she'd always find a spot that was just right. We live in that place...
March 21, 2018
Last Saturday morning I was really late. I had promised my granddaughter that I would come to North Central High School to watch her show choir compete in state competitions. You know the song, "There is power in the name of Jesus?" Well let me tell you, it's true. I got to the school with something like 12 minutes to go. There were not hundreds of cars, there were thousands of cars...
March 7, 2018
Throw out anything that generates self distain or dislike. Anything that promotes fear or hate. (Which feed on each other.) Get rid of jealousy. According to an 18th century scientist and theologian, Emanuel Swedenborg, we create our own problems because we do not choose our thoughts. Mainly, he says, those negative thoughts about yourself are seeds of unhappiness. And who's to say what's perfect? We are all very different people, but we all play the same game...
February 22, 2018
God chooses the unlikely, for sure. Graham was just a tall scrawny farm kid of 16 when a traveling preacher came through his little town in 1934. He loved baseball and went to church…but Billy's heart was stolen when he was saved. As we look at his life from the vantage point of 2018, it might be hard to remember how huge this man was. How in 1957, in a post-war world that was entering a cold-war world, Graham filled Madison Square Garden for 16 weeks...
February 4, 2018
Jim and I heard someone say "We have become so open-minded, our brains have fallen out". We had a good laugh. But what are we so open minded about? There is still debate about equality of the races, equality between men and women in the workplace, even on the subject of who may join our churches, and who is worthy to receive our charitable acts. While Paul set out some pretty defined do's and don't's about the way Christians should act, Jesus covered all Paul's strict decrees with a softness that made room for the amazing array of human conditions in God's creation...
January 22, 2018
I have been communicating with an inmate at the Putnamville Correctional facility. He wrote me after seeing the Unite Indy insert on "Race Relationships" in the Indianapolis Business Journal, asking if we would connect him with a pastor for spiritual guidance. So, I wrote him back, and he wrote again and it has become a meaningful conversation. I don't know what he did to receive a 20-year sentence, but I know...
