A Peanuts comic strip features Charlie Brown’s sister Sally struggling to spread frozen butter on her toast. Finally she exclaims, “Nobody told me life was going to be this hard!” I can understand Sally’s frustration. Life is hard. Sometimes even more difficult than frozen butter. Things happen that were not in the brochure. Or at least that is what I once believed. In fact that very information is in the brochure. The Bible is very clear that life will be a journey of struggling to spread frozen butter and worse (that is a paraphrase). Much worse. The “frozen butter times” are part of the journey. God has given us a wonderful gift that we too often leave unwrapped. Even if we have unwrapped this gift we too often leave it unused in the toolbox. The gift is laughter. The following excerpt is from my sporadically selling book “Bring’em Back Alive – A Healing Plan for those Wounded by the Church.”  I believe a sense of humor is one of God’s gifts
Continue reading...

There was an interesting article in USA Today by Diane Cameron. The piece was entitled We are Easter People and here is a brief excerpt. One of the lowest points in my life occurred years ago when I was living in Washington, D.C., at Easter time. My older sister had recently died and both of my brothers were seriously ill; my best friend was leaving town, and on top of that I was questioning my work. In my journal that April I wrote, “Am I depressed?” When I read those pages now I laugh and shake my head. “Depressed?” That I even had to ask. In that long year I thought I’d never laugh again, just as I thought I’d never again feel love, the joy of easy friendship, or the satisfaction of good work. I went to church that Easter out of both habit and desperation. I had grown up in a church-going family. It was what we did. And so to honor the family
Continue reading...

I fly way too much. I have amassed nearly five million airline miles over the past twenty-five years of traveling. That is a lot of bad omelettes, delays, and bruised knees from incredibly unaware passengers who recline their seat backwards at warp speed. But there is one part of flying that still fills me with awe. Take-offs on cloudy, nasty days always reveal the nervous flyers. As the plane thunders down the runway and rises into a soupy overcast mix the nervous flyers grip the armrest tightly and glance anxiously out the window. Nerves are not soothed by seeing nothing but gray through the tiny portals. These takeoffs are usually accompanied by bumps, shudders, and stomach churning drops. The pilots always cheerfully glosses over the turbulence ahead. “We will have a little light chop as we head out”, the captain tells us before takeoff. Not long after lift off you begin wondering what “heavy chop” might feel like. Today was one of those
Continue reading...

Today is opening day in major league baseball. I will be heading to my real job directing the Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Angels television opener. And that will likely be my real job until you people start buying more books! In my mind there is no more special day in sports than opening day in baseball. The smell of freshly cut emerald green grass delights the senses. The base lines are painstakingly and perfectly defined by a grounds crew that is committed to perfection on this day.  Red, white, and blue bunting give the ball park a festive world series look. The players today act like little boys. This is the one day that these privileged athletes seem to forget they are millionaires and actually appear grateful that they are paid to play a little boy’s and girl’s game. Kids skip school and parents do not care because memories are being made for both of them. The hot dogs taste like gourmet food.  Tacky souvenirs are treasures to be kept. The atmosphere is magic. It is
Continue reading...

Today I decided to revisit the whole “Confessions of a Bad Christian” blog title. I periodically receive an email that asks something like this. “Why do you call your blog ‘Confessions of a Bad Christian’? Do you really think you are a bad Christian?” And my answer is always something like this. Yeah.  Sometimes I am. Sometimes “badder” than on other days. The blog heading of “Confessions of a Bad Christian” started out as a bit of a joke. It was based on the title of my first book, When Bad Christians Happen to Good People. But I will tell you that I have grown attached to the title of this blog. I have come to grips with the truth that I can, in fact, be a bad Christian. And that is the point of the title. It is a daily reminder to me that I am capable of thoughts and actions that do not reflect Jesus. I have found that the realization that I can be
Continue reading...

Today I am reposting the most highly rated post that I have ever written about rodents. This is also the only article I have written about rodents… but the truth of sentence one is unchanged. Gritty rats and mice living in sewers and farms seem to have healthier immune systems than their squeaky clean cousins that frolic in cushy antiseptic labs according to recent studies. The lesson for humans: Clean living may make us sick. That was the AP story that caught my attention. And I pondered the odd theory that these disgusting rodents may offer a clue to ineffectual Christian living as well. Let us explore. Associated Press Science writer Seth Borenstein writes about the recent research. The studies give more weight to a 17-year-old theory that the sanitized Western world may be partly to blame for soaring rates of human allergy and asthma cases and some autoimmune diseases, such as Type I diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. The theory, called the hygiene hypothesis, figures that
Continue reading...

This has been a tough month for those living with cancer and those who live with them. The recurrence of cancer for White House spokesman Tony Snow and political wife Elizabeth Edwards has been sobering to say the least. Those voices that I wrote about a few days ago start trying to get your attention. It is easy to despair. But God is sovereign. He sent me a postcard of encouragement this week. His name is Ed. Ed is one of those friends that you don’t see for years and when you get together you pick up right where you left off. He is in town this week and we are hanging out, laughing, debating, laughing, and enjoying every minute. Regular readers of these ramblings might remember a reference to some Ed guy in previous posts. Move to the head of the class. I asked you to pray for him and wife Judy in October of last year. There was fear that Ed’s
Continue reading...