Recently we buried one of the best and brightest leaders from our On Eagles’ Wings team of Native American young people. After doctors removed his large and aggressive brain tumor, they thought he would have 16-24 months to live; he had four weeks. He died right after his 25th birthday. It was a real blow to all of us who loved him. My 10-year-old grandson may have had the most insightful perspective of all on Ricky’s death. He said, “You know, it’s like this father has all his children out working in the yard, doing their chores. And this daddy called Ricky’s name and said, ‘Ricky, your work is done. Come on in the house and watch TV. But the others kids have to stay in the yard, because their work isn’t done yet.’”
One moment that Air France jetliner was on the tracking screen; the next minute it had vanished from the screen and the sky, and over 200 people were lost in the crash. As investigators tried to piece together what happened, they suspected that the malfunction of one piece of equipment was probably a contributing factor—it’s the small speed gauge that warns pilots when their speed has slowed below what’s needed to keep the plane in the air. Without that slowdown warning, you can be on the verge of crashing and not even know it.
I first saw that statue when I used to walk to church from my college in downtown Chicago. It’s suspended above your head in a little indentation in the wall. It’s actually Jesus, hanging on the cross. I drove by there recently and Jesus is still there, along with the haunting Biblical question that I’ve never been able to forget over the years, “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?”
I love sunsets. I have had the privilege of seeing the sun go down over the Atlantic, the Pacific, the desert, the city, the Great Lakes, and then comes the night. But here’s an interesting scientific fact. However many sunsets there have been since this world began, there have been exactly that many sunrises. There’s never a sunset without a sunrise.
We passed this sign promoting a cave for tourists to visit and advertising “A cool 60 degrees.” Sounds like a great reason to stop on a 90-degree day. Right? I’ve driven by that same cave billboard during the winter months and it made me smile. They change one word and they invite you to enjoy “a warm 60 degrees.” Sounds like a great reason to stop on a 30-degree day!
Those space shuttle astronauts were recently up there doing some work to extend the mission of that incredible Hubble telescope. She’s up there exploring all these amazing space frontiers. I had heard that the Mt. Palomar observatory had discovered 100 billion galaxies. And we’re all excited because we got to our moon; we took a picture of our solar system. Turns out that hundred billion count was wrong. Hubble has now discovered 135 billion galaxies and she’s still counting!
What a funny picture to be on the front page of the newspaper. It’s a soldier fighting on the front lines in his underwear. It was during a Taliban attack in Afghanistan. One of our guys grabbed his helmet and his bulletproof gear, but he didn’t bother to put his pants on, and there he was in his skivvies. And just to complete the picture, his boxers said “I love New York” and there were hearts all over them.
My friend had a serious bout with cancer, but God used the chemo and radiation treatments to knock it out. But they also knocked him out, too. He was slowly getting his strength back by resting up in his little cabin in the woods. One day he went out by the stream, and before he knew it, he was lying there asleep on the bank. When he woke up, he was very unhappy with what he saw above his head—the vultures were circling him! My friend stood up and shouted to them, “Leave me alone! I’m not dead yet!”
There’s this weight loss commercial on TV where a woman’s talking about all the weight she’s lost and she says, “And now my husband calls me his trophy wife.” Which means what? He keeps her on a shelf in a glass case? There are some guys who think they’re Dream Boy for a woman. But we give ourselves way too much credit, guys. And some women are hoping we’ll do for them something that none of us can do.
OK, somebody’s having a bad day, we say, “He’s got an attitude.” Actually, we all have some kind of attitude. But what determines the kind of attitude we have? Well, attitude is actually a pilot’s word: your position in relation to the horizon, because the horizon is the only fixed point in an environment where everything else is fluid—the weather, your feelings, your perceptions. So, when you’re flying, you want to line up your position to the horizon. That way you’re not going to crash. I asked an Air Force veteran who works with satellites how this attitude thing works up there in space where there’s no horizon. He said, “We use the North Star.” Once again, you’re always OK as long as you’re lined up with the one point that’s never going to move.
So all of a sudden the power went out in the whole area where we were staying with our son and his family. At the time, my wife was babysitting our precious 3-year-old grandson and a 6-year-old granddaughter. They were playing happily until the lights suddenly went out and it was pitch dark. Nobody had to tell them what to do—they knew. They headed for grandma’s arms—the safe place!
OK, so you’ve suddenly got an emergency; you’ve got to be faster and stronger than you ever are. Suddenly, it happens! You’ve got strength; you’ve got speed you didn’t know you had. Then, when the crisis passes, you’re back to normal. What happened? Adrenaline—it’s the miracle chemical that your body releases into your system when you really need it, so you can handle things that you normally couldn’t handle.
Summer means a chance to see some of God’s best artwork—those sunsets. I was recently speaking at a conference that was on the shores of Lake Ontario, and I made sure I finished speaking before time for sunset. God just finger-painted the sky with these amazing patterns as the sun was setting, and then even after the sun was gone. It must have been the inspiring scenery that inspired a thought actually about my life and what happens before the sun sets, however near or far that sunset is.
One of our coworkers told me and another team member about a long ago college romance. She said, “Our first year, he treated me just fine. The next year he came back with a car, and things changed. He invited me to a drive-in movie, and that was the night I ended our relationship.” I said, “Did you have a problem with going to a drive-in?” She said, “No. He just said, ‘Oh, we’ll give them a real show!’” Well, that was the end right there. The guy I was with said, “Not me! Man, I always said if I was going to spend $8.00 on a movie, I’m not going to waste it making out!” I said, “So you wait until it won’t cost you anything? Hey, wait! Making out always costs you!”
I met the owner of a used car business lately, and I told him I’d been amused recently when I passed used cars dealerships, because cars aren’t “used” anymore. The sign says they’re “previously owned.” He smiled knowingly used/previously owned—same thing.
There’s a cloud over Major League Baseball again this season; the suspension of the biggest star yet for using banned performance-enhancing drug. It’s costing Manny Ramirez a chunk of the season, millions of dollars, and a lot of credibility. And it’s really hurt his team, the Los Angeles Dodgers. He joins a list that includes baseball’s career home run king and one of the greatest pitchers of our time; stars who are now paying a price for what they did to get there.
It was just a few months before that we’d been in the little town of Clarence Center outside Buffalo, New York. And now there it was on the news; the scene of a tragic crash of a commuter flight. All the passengers died and some people on the ground. And now we know why: the cockpit voice recorder revealed that in the moments before the crash, the pilots were violating flight rules by casually chit-chatting instead of monitoring their approach. They let the plane drop below the minimum speed and suddenly it was just plummeting to the ground. It was a tragedy that just didn’t have to be.
The Broadway show, 1776, movingly portrays those dramatic struggles that led to the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the birth of a nation. On the 2nd of July, it looked as if all was lost. There seemed no way all the thirteen colonies would vote for independence. John Adams has fought for the cause with everything he has, and now he’s frustrated and heartbroken. And he walks outside the hall and shouts into the night sky, “Is anyone there? Does anyone care? Does anyone see what I see?”
It was the Fourth of July, and as newcomers to the area, we ventured into Manhattan to check it out. As we drove along the Hudson River on our way home, the traffic just came to a stop…for an hour. People were getting out of their cars, they’re walking around, they’re sitting on the hood, on the roof. Well, it turns out it was time for the big fireworks display on the other side of the river. So too bad if you needed to get somewhere—it’s time for the fireworks!
A friend of ours just got sick and tired of the armadillo that was tearing up his yard. So he borrowed a trap that lured that critter into a cage and it worked. So, our friend took his unwanted armadillo for a long ride and dropped him off in the woods. Then he left the trap in the yard overnight. Well, it turns out that armadillo must have been a mama, because the next morning, there were three baby armadillos there. I think they’re called “armadettes”, and they were there right in the cage.
Some guys will be very happy if you give them a gift certificate to one of those huge home improvement stores—especially in a tight economy. Men go looking for the tools and the materials they need to build or repair or remodel their home. Women are into home improvement projects, too. It’s called “my husband.”
My wife was just a little girl when she learned what security really means. On winter nights, her parents would go out to the barn to milk the cows, and they left her by the back door, looking after her little baby sister. Her eyes were focused on one thing—that was the lantern that her folks carried out to the barn with them and they hung it on a nail while they milked. She knew there were some nasty critters like panthers that lived in the area. So she watched that one patch of light in the darkness, and she knew that as long as it was steady, she was safe.
Just before his 25th birthday, my friend Rob learned why he’d been having so many headaches and chronic hiccups. He had a large and dangerous brain tumor. He’s one of the strong young Native American leaders who are in the forefront of our On Eagles’ Wings reservation teams, and he’s been working at our headquarters on the massive preparations for our outreach to a dozen reservations and our national youth conference for Native young people. Well, suddenly he was facing major surgery and extensive post-operative treatment. Just before his surgery, my friend Rob told his mom he just had to get back to work because there was so much work to do. She told him what we had told him…not to worry about that. His answer went like an arrow to my soul: “Mom, every day there are people dying and going to hell. And I can’t just be lying here!”
Recently we drove through a stretch of Oklahoma that had just experienced some nasty wildfires. They were out of control for several days. The fires are over now, but we saw endless acres of scorched, blackened ground. The fires have passed, but the ugly scars still remain.
It was Good Friday and our son decided to read the Good Friday story to his three-year-old daughter from her child’s Bible story book. As he read about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins, he saw her beginning to blink like she does before she cries. And at that point he thought, “I’ve got to keep reading. She needs to hear the rest of the story right now!” So he read ahead to Easter, that victorious day when Jesus walked out of His grave under His own power. At that point, our little angel burst into song, singing, “Alive forevermore!”
Don’t you just love to get telemarketing calls? Not! Millions of people have put themselves on a “do not call” list because we just don’t like having our lives encumbered with people who have only one interest–you’re a customer and they’ve got something to sell.
When you drive as many miles as we do, those little surprises out the window spice up the trip a bit; like the two municipal water tanks we saw as we sailed by a town on the Interstate recently. Usually those water tanks have the name of the town on them. Well, not these. One word on each tank: one said “Hot,” the other said “Cold.” There was no third tank.
Little Scotty really wanted to play with his dad, and his dad really wanted to read his massive Sunday paper. Well, Scotty kept tapping on the newspaper, and finally Scotty’s dad had an idea: he tore out a page of the paper that had a map of the world. He tore it into puzzle pieces and he said, “As soon as you put this picture together, I’ll play with you.” Two minutes later his son shows up with the picture together. He said, “Scotty, how did you put this picture of the whole world together so fast?” He said, “Daddy, it was easy. There was a picture of a man on the other side. If you put the man together right, the world goes together just fine.”
In the course of our ministry on Indian reservations, we met a precious grandmother who told us a memorable story. Her grandmother had been forced out of the village she lived in because she gave her heart to Christ. That meant her grandfather had to build a house down in the valley below the village, and here’s how he did it. Each day as he returned from work, he’d pick up a big rock and bring it home to help build that house.
It was that time of the year when the grass grew so fast, it seemed like our lawn needed to be mowed like every other day. My then five-year-old son was following me, clipping around the rocks, and I smiled at him and kept mowing. He came up to me and he said, “Daddy, could you do that again please?” I said, “Do what?” He said, “Could you please smile at me again. It’s your smile that keeps me going.”
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