Recently I wrote a story about a saintly woman named Billye Casey. I called her my hero because I learned so much by simply watching her walk with Jesus. Yesterday she finished her journey and went home to heaven. It struck me as no surprise that she died at 8:30 in the morning on a Sunday. She always (I mean always) made it to church to worship. Instead of struggling to make it to church to worship with all of us Billye got to worship in glory. That is an upgrade of unfathomable proportions. If you missed the article on Billye I hope you will read it now. She will be missed. But don’t make the mistake of saying we “lost” Billye Casey yesterday. We know exactly where she is. Later, sweet lady, later. As I have grown older I learned that heroes will usually let you down. I admired political leaders only to be sorely disappointed by their actions. I  placed some spiritual leaders in high esteem only to
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I am blessed by the incredible response by churches and Christian ministries across America to the suffering souls in Haiti. But sadly a big part of the media coverage is focusing on some remarks by television commentator Pat Robertson. Mr. Robertson speculated on why Haiti has suffered so much over the years. He believes that the country sold their soul to gain freedom from the French and that their nation is cursed because of that pact with the devil. I will not resort to the kind of comments I am reading elsewhere about Pat Robertson. I do think his timing was terrible. Our entire focus as followers of Christ should be aid and prayer for our brothers and sisters in that country. To be fair, Robertson said that he prayed that out of this disaster a spiritual renewal would take place in Haiti. Still, I wonder how anyone can say definitively why suffering takes place. The Old Testament offers an interesting story about a place that
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The bold proclamations of faith by college football stars like Florida’s Tim Tebow, Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford and Texas’s Colt McCoy have generated a lot of buzz along predictable party lines. People of faith cheer on their testimonies while others resent that faith is being “forced” down their throats. Passionate editorials have been written about the eye-black messages that Tim Tebow and others wear during games. If you are unaware, Tebow would pick a Bible verse and write it onto the eye-black he wore for the game. One of Tim Tebow’s Eye-Black Bible Verses Indignant journalists railed about the inappropriate use of the pristine amateur platform of collegiate sports while the university pockets millions by plastering corporate logos all over that same player’s body. Hmmmm. Seemed like much ado about not much to me. I usually get a few responses on this topic that go something like this. How would you like it if an atheist put a message on his eye-black. Huh? How would
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Domino’s Pizza has been creating quite a buzz by running television commercials that trash their product. The spots confess that many consumers thought their crust tasted like “cardboard” and the sauce like “ketchup”. The company had encouraged feedback from the public and they were stung by their honesty and/or meanness. Their reaction was to get defensive and hidden and childish. No wait…that was Congress. By stark contrast the Domino’s leadership decided to make changes in the recipe and be completely honest about the process. Experts have weighed in about how dangerous it is to trash your own product. That this kind of honesty is doomed to fail. They trot out the disaster of New Coke as a comparison. But I love the new campaign. Covering up what is obvious to many seems like a much worse strategy. I will try the new recipe soon and my sampling will be entirely because of this campaigns refreshing candidness. I remembered a similarly bold admission that took place in the
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Growing up in Southern Ohio I had my share of heroes. Most of them were sports heroes like Ohio State basketball player Jerry Lucas and Cleveland Brown’s running back Jim Brown. My baseball hero was not named Mantle or Mays or Musial. My baseball hero was a rather average Cincinnati Reds player named Gordy Coleman. I am not sure why I picked him. Maybe because he played first base and that is where I played. But I lived and died with Gordy’s daily efforts. Since he was not a star player on most days I died a little. As I grew older I learned that heroes will usually let you down. I admired political leaders only to be sorely disappointed by their actions. I  placed some spiritual leaders in high esteem only to be wounded by their actions. The recent revelations about Tiger Woods has revived the debate about whether celebrities should be viewed as heroes or role models at all. The reality is that
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This series was well received last year. Some would call this a repeat but I prefer to think of it as environmentally friendly blog recycling with no carbon offsets required. Merry Christmas!  Dave As a public service I am providing a shopping guide for things you can give to Jesus on His upcoming birthday. For the internet hall monitors who love to send anonymous and snarky comments I understand that the celebrated date of Christ’s birth is likely off a bit. But since this is when we celebrate we will go with the date assigned. Let’s be honest…giving the King of Kings and Lord of Lords a unique gift is really tough. The last post examined the gifts brought to the young Christ child over 2,000 years by the wise men, I had hoped that examining what the Magi brought might jump start our gift giving ideas.  By the way, there is a plaque that is available in catalogs this year with the title “What
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This series was well received last year. You may view this as a repeat. I prefer to think of it as re-gifting. Blessings and Merry Christmas!    Dave We are fast approaching the hardest day of the year for most men. Many of us men give gifts to our significant others with fear and trembling. Humor writer Dave Barry relates the confusion most men deal with when giving a gift to their wife. He could tell by her reaction to the gift that she had not been dreaming of getting an auto emergency kit, even though it was the deluxe model with booster cables and an air compressor. Clearly, this violated an important rule, but the man had idea what the rule was, and his wife was too upset to tell him. Barry continues his thoughtful treatise… So why is the Christmas season so difficult for men? There are many complex reasons, by which I mean: women. The problem goes back to the very first Christmas. We
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