Yesterday I posted a rather fanciful look at how “man’s best friend” could teach Christians a lot about evangelism. I was heartened and bit surprised at the level of response to that article (Canine School of Evangelism). Apparently there are a lot of dog lovers embedded into the Evangelical community and that gives me hope for the church! The star of the most recent post featured our rescued lab/mix Hannah. This is not a posed photo. At any given time Hannah will come waltzing up with the three tennis balls in her big mouth and download them one by one onto your lap to play catch. But the star canine of my two books was the late, great Charlie. Our beloved Golden Retriever died a couple of years ago at the ripe old canine age of 14. This excerpt from “Bring’em Back Alive” documents an experience I had with our senior dog citizen Charlie. It was one more example of the spiritual lessons we can learn from our faithful canine friends
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There are few things more pathetic than a middle-aged Dad trying to be hip. I usually do it to fulfill my contractual obligation to embarrass my sons. But I could not resist the title for this piece. For those not as hip as me (both of you), “dog” is used to address a good friend of the human variety. However, this article features the old school usage for dog…as in canine. A flurry of studies have crossed my path recently about the benefits of owning a dog. Writer Elizabeth Scott from about.com compiled some recent studies about the benefits of having a dog around. Here are some highlights. Pets Control Blood Pressure Better Than Drugs: Yes, it’s true. While ACE inhibiting drugs can generally reduce blood pressure, they aren’t as effective on controlling spikes in blood pressure due to stress and tension. However, in a study, groups of hypertensive New York stockbrokers who got dogs were found to have lower blood pressure and heart rates than
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April 15th is not my favorite day of the year. Traditional tax day is never fun for a guy who is organizationally challenged. My idea of being prepared is having everything in one box. But I was heartened to find that April 15th is a great day for baseball fans.  Jackie Robinson made his major league debut at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers on that date in 1947. It was a historic and significant day for baseball but maybe more so for our country. You can argue that the American civil rights movement was ignited when Robinson came to bat in Dodger Blue. The journey for Robinson was difficult at best and nearly impossible at worst.  Many Dodgers players, mostly Southerners led by Dixie Walker, threatened to walk if forced to play with a black player. That ended when Dodger management let them know in no uncertain terms that they could keep walking to the unemployment line. I often
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Immediate disclaimer to Internet hall monitors: This article is not meant to throw Al Gore under the bus. That would be an inappropriate use of carbon resources to fire up a nasty fume spitting bus just to make a point. The point of this piece is to examine one aspect of the story from a spiritual viewpoint. First, some background is in order. Al Gore has made an amazing personal comeback with his global warming documentary. I will not debate the claims of his film here. I did write about being green and evangelical in an earlier post. Instead I want to focus on a very inconvenient truth that all of us battle. We are natural born hypocrites. All of us. Gore outlined a list of sacrifices that we could all make to help the environment. Use a clothesline instead of the dryer. Drive a hybrid. Cut back on the thermostat and home energy consumption. But Al Gore’s personal lifestyle severely damaged his message. (Hint to Christian
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I am not a crier. So it was a bit out of character when the tears started flowing yesterday as I drove through the canyon in downtown Dallas. I blame Lindsay for this event. Lindsay is my bride’s cousin who moved to Texas recently. She already loved country music so that saved us some time to indoctrinate her. We love having her in Big D but she is going to have to stop introducing me to songs that make driving dangerous. Lindsay told us about a song that we just had to hear. So I downloaded it to the trusty iPod and fired it up as I drove to work yesterday. The song is called Tough and it is performed by Craig Morgan. If you know much about our past year you will quickly see why this song had the Old Yeller/Field of Dreams effect on the eyeballs. The lyrics start innocently enough… She’s in the kitchen at the crack of dawn Bacon’s
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I will not complete the sentence. My first reaction is to fill in the blank because I was disgusted by the comments that the talk show host made about the Rutgers basketball team. In one 30 second strafing he demeaned a school, a race, a sport, and a gender. I have written a great deal about civility in the public discourse. I have to confess that I am losing heart. Internet forums make cowards courageous. You can write things to me from the cave of anonymity that you would never say to my face. The rules at my site have been consistent. This is not an open forum. We have one basic rule at “Bad Christian” World Headquarters. Verily, verily, all words that proceedeth out of thy posts and thy comments shall be civil…thus saith the one who payeth the server bills. Thy vile words shall be cast forever into the sea of delete and I will blocketh thee forever. King James
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America lost a cultural icon this weekend. Dictionary.com lists one of the definitions of icon as “one who is the object of great attention and devotion; an idol”. I am pretty sure that Johnny Hart would hate that description. Hart was the creative force behind the comic strip B.C. and he shared the byline for The Wizard of ID. I think that Johnny Hart would hate my description because it would elevate him to status that Hart reserved only for Jesus Christ. The Associated Press reported this weekend that Hart died at the age of 76. There are at least two things that I want to emulate from the life of Johnny Hart. The first way I would love to imitate Hart is in his passing. Bobby, his wife of over fifty years, noted that he suffered a stroke and died at his storyboard. I can’t control how I go but I can control how I live the days I have left. Country group
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