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Okay, for all too many of us the words diet and failure are synonyms. I guess that's why Weight Watchers was born and others like it. There were a lot of people who have never lost weight, or at least been able to keep it off, and suddenly the word diet became synonymous with success.
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I love those old westerns! Things were so simple then. You know, the good guys were good, and the bad guys were bad. The hero only kissed his horse. And the most he did with a girl was probably sing some trail song to her. And there was always a predictable showdown with the head good guy and the head bad guy. One of the classic lines usually came as the Marshal stared down Bad Bart. And he said something like this, "I want you out of town by sundown." Great line. By the way, it's a great way to keep peace in town - or anywhere for that matter. I don't mean asking people to leave, but setting a deadline like that.
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My friend was telling me about the investment he'd bailed out of just before it really took off. He said, "I have a habit of doing that." I said, "Why?" He said, "Well, it kind of runs in the family." And then he told me an unforgettable story. He said, "My dad was approached by the founders of ServiceMaster, which is, of course, this huge multi-million dollar corporation in America. And they were neighbors, and they came to him when they were just starting and they said, 'Hey, would you like to get in on the ground floor and help us get started?' He said, 'Well, guys, why don't you just go clean your carpets. No thanks.'"
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If you watch sports very much, you've no doubt seen some great plays that ended up not counting, because they made that great play out of bounds. Oh, I've seen many arguments over whether or not they actually were out of bounds at the time; many of them have been resolved by video replay. But you don't see arguments over where the boundaries are. No, everybody knows that when they go out on the field, right, or the court, and they know exactly what the penalties are going to be for breaking the rules.
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It's the mission with the famous birds. During our ministry trip to California, I had a chance to visit one of the most charming of the old Spanish missions, San Juan Capistrano. If you've heard of it, it's because of the birds - the swallows. The swallows like to hang out at that mission until about October 23rd every year. And then like a lot of northerners they fly south for the winter. Oh, but they will return. In fact, lots of local folk and tourists will be at the mission on the day the birds are expected to return. The time might vary a little, but one thing you could be sure of when you see them leave, they'll be back.
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It's an old Asian parable with a lot of "right now" wisdom. A little boy had been trying for many days to capture one of the little birds that snacked in the family fields. And he'd tried over and over again to hide in the bushes and surprise one of those birds enough to get his hands on it. Finally, after many failed attempts, he captured his prize. And he couldn't wait to show his mommy. He wrapped his hands around that little bird and he ran all the way to his house. As soon as the little guy saw his mother, he proudly extended his cupped hands and said, "Mommy, I got a bird! He's really cute!" But his joy didn't last long. As he slowly opened his hands for his mother to see, he noticed the bird wasn't moving - or breathing. It was one heartbroken boy who cried, "Mommy, I was afraid I'd lose him. But I held him so tight, I crushed him."
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Now, you probably wouldn't expect the subject of intimacy to come up in a discussion of wallpaper. Yeah, well it did. I have a friend who is a painter and a wallpaperer for a living, and he was helping in our office. He actually volunteered to help us out by scraping the old wallpaper off a wall that really needed some work. And before we were in our building, someone had put wallpaper on the sheetrock years ago. Well, when I walked in, he was very frustrated because what happened was, well apparently, when they had applied that wallpaper to the sheetrock they hadn't put any preparation layer on it. So, you can probably guess what happened. The wallpaper and the top layer of the sheetrock had sort of become one. And when he scraped off the wallpaper, you got it. The top layer of the sheetrock came with it. He was pretty frustrated, and he held them up to me and he said, "I can't separate them!" Then he said, "You know what we call this, Ron?" We being "wallpaperers" I guess. He said, "We call this an intimate bond." Well, those intimate bonds are hard to separate.
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It was really cold outside. It wasn't supposed to be cold inside. But when I awoke that morning, my nose felt like a puppy nose. It was cold - 45 degrees in the house! Turned out the problem wasn't the thermometer. No, that just reflected the temperature. It was the thermostat that sets the temperature.
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I'll bet you looked in the mirror this morning. I'll bet everyone can tell if you didn't. I know it can be depressing. I mean, you look in the mirror and think to yourself, "How can six hours do that much damage?" But at least you know what you're about to subject others to. So you put a sign on the bathroom door, "Slow - Construction Zone." You wash something, you comb something, you cover something, you brush something, you mousse something, you remove something - I mean you do something to something! And the world gets a better you and you prevent a lot of embarrassment thanks to Mr. Mirror.
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It's common to most every religious tradition; there's some ceremony or service where you dedicate or you commit a new child to God. In some Christian traditions, it takes the form of baptism. Others have a brief baby dedication. The last baby we dedicated was our youngest child, and that was more than a few years ago. I held the little guy in my hands. Well, times have changed. I don't pick him up anymore, I'd hurt myself seriously. He picks me up - literally sometimes. He's greeted me at the airport, picked me up off the ground and spun me around. That's my baby! A lot of things have changed. One thing never has.
