August 7, 2018
Andy Wharhol famously wrote, "They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."
So, what does Racism have to do with the Central Indiana Community Foundation (CICF)-- an $800 million charitable foundation that holds assets and helps direct gifts to charitable organizations? Ah! There's a question I'm sure some of its board members asked when they were approached with the idea of changing its mission statement from one which reflected its logical operation of promoting charitable giving to one that addressed the issues of racism. I'm sure there were some blank stares...
July 21, 2018
It was a warm Alabama night in mid July when Walter Carr, a local college student, was picked up by police at 4 a.m., walking along U.S. 459/255, a major 4-lane highway. The young man had secured a job at Bellhops Moving and was supposed to start the next day at a client's house in Pelham which was almost 20 miles from Carr's location in Homewood. But, as luck would have it, his car broke down...
July 7, 2018
My son Chris went to Wabash College. It is one of the last all men's colleges in the country and there is a kind of collegial mystique among its graduates that has continued since its founding in 1832. Chris loved his years at Wabash and looks back at his time there as critical to his professional success today. What I really liked about Wabash was the one rule all students had to live by…there were no other rules...
June 21, 2018
My father stormed into the house one day exclaiming to his wife and four daughters, "LET'S GET SOME PRECISION IN OUR DAILY LIVING!" He was exasperated, even raised his voice a little, which was not his style. Who knows what we did to deserve it, but we all started pressing our lips together in an effort not to laugh. You know how puffs of air start coming out of your nose when you can't let a serious rupture of laughter come out? Well a lot of that was happening in the room...
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...
