I can't remember the names of all seven of Snow White's dwarfs, but I don't feel bad about that. I do remember one - Grumpy. Actually I've heard that the Grumpy shirt is one of Disney's big sellers these days. I might know why. Grumpy is kind of the mood of a whole lot of people these days.
Well, the President of the United States; let's see, he's got wars to manage, wild economy to handle. But you know what? Every Thanksgiving he steps up to one of the most decisive responsibilities of his office. He pardons a turkey; actually, two turkeys. And this is really serious business. Actually they even have a backup turkey (this is the truth) just in case Turkey #1 isn't able to serve as, well what one writer called the ungobbled gobbler.
When you're a kid, you're wet cement. Impressions, well, they get written on you so easily and so deeply. And then they harden into beliefs, I guess or un-beliefs, and that kid becomes an adult. Apparently, Steve Jobs was no exception.
Apple's communications genius and revolutionary, was been described as "intriguing, yet inscrutable." But as he battled cancer, he opened some windows into his mind and soul to the author who was writing his life story. According to the new biography that bears his name, Steve Jobs studied Zen Buddhism for years. A recent article in USA Today said, "He never went back to church after he saw a photo of starving children on the cover of Life and asked his Sunday school pastor if God knew what would happen to them. He was 13 at the time."
Wow! Talk about so near and yet so far - poor Desmond Bishop. He missed what could have been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to the White House and meet the President of the United States!
Desmond was a linebacker for the Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers that year, and his team met the President. Meanwhile, Desmond took a nap on the team bus. Why? All because he inadvertently left his I.D. on the plane, and the Secret Service wasn't about to make any exceptions on letting someone close to the President. No I.D., no White House, no President.
Years ago a friend of mine told me this, "If people who don't know Jesus want to know the difference Jesus makes, let them come to our funerals."
Well, I thought of that again this week as I joined one of our dear friends in mourning the loss of his precious wife and our precious friend. They've poured out their lives for other people in one of the world's most troubled places. And because of the violence around them, one of their little daughter's first words was "rocket." But a year ago the bomb that changed everything was a word that they heard in the doctor's office - "cancer." Last week, after a brave fight against that killer, Nancy breathed her last. And that little daughter, who is now a beautiful young woman who really mirrors her mother, and she sang at Nancy's memorial service. And she had this glow that defied the grief. The song said:
In the old Westerns, they said the hero was the guy in the white hat. In the life-or-death moments of September 11, 2001, it was the man with the red bandana.
A red bandana had been Welles Crowther's trademark, I guess, since he was a boy. He still carried one even when he was a 24-year-old equities trader in the South Tower of the World Trade Center. And he had it on that fateful September day when the tower was in flames.
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