Hey, there's good news if you're a religious person! Some recent research confirms that people that are actively religious tend to be physically healthier, emotionally healthier, and their children are less likely to get involved in destructive behaviors. Good news, huh? But it isn't all good news. See, the bad news for us religious people isn't from a survey. It's from the Bible.
My little son once told me, "Daddy, I don't think our family's normal." Ha-ha, I assured him we're not, and that's OK. Because normal is boring. Both our sons are neither normal or boring, but they sure are close. The bond that started when they were little is even stronger today. Our older son's vivid memory is from when his brother was new-born and sleeping in the same room. And he remembers going over to his little brother's crib in the middle of the night just to make sure he was OK. They're all grown up now, but you know, they're still looking after each other.
Some friends recommended that I stop at a unique museum near them. It features the life work of an amazing man, whose astonishing wood carvings became national treasurers. The guide said he explained how many of his masterpieces began this way, "I saw it in the wood." Well, everybody else just saw a piece of wood. He saw what that wood could become in his hands.
I was on one field working with our high school football team, and my 12-year-old son was on another field playing a pickup game of football. When he came looking for me, I could tell by the look on his face and the distorted shape of the arm he was holding what had happened. The doctor at ER confirmed he had two bad breaks in his arm, and the pain of setting that arm was excruciating. Of course, he could have avoided the pain of getting it fixed by just leaving it broken, right? And just living the rest of his life with an arm that didn't work.
"Squeaky" Fromme was 17 when she tried to kill the President of the United States back in the '70s. She was a follower of the mass murderer, Charles Manson. "Squeaky" Fromme was in the news again recently when she was released from prison. And I cannot forget an interview with her that I read after she was arrested. She recounted how she felt like a misfit. She'd run across the country to southern California, and she was sitting on a curb when a man put a hand on her head and offered to take care of her. That man was Charles Manson. She went with him because of a decision years before that "whoever loves me first, can have my life."
