Most of life’s sentences are blissfully mundane. I can’t find my keys. Take out the garbage. Please feed the dog. I can’t find my keys. ADD readers will relate to that string of comments. But sometimes a single sentence will change your life. My bride of nearly thirty years dropped one of those sentences on me earlier this week. “My spot was cancerous.” After an optimistic initial briefing from the surgeon days earlier we were not prepared for the harsh reality of the pathology report. The  breast cancer is still small but aggressive. The prognosis still optimistic but the journey will be hard. Yesterday I quoted that noted scholar and philosopher Mike Tyson who said, “Everyone has a game plan until they get hit in the mouth.”  That was how I felt after talking and crying with my wife. We are looking at a year of treatment and trials. But God is good and His grace is truly sufficient. How can you explain how forty eight hours later we can have
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One of my many failed careers was as a disk jockey at 1350 Radio…WCHI in Chillicothe, Ohio (Motto: How did we get these call letters instead of a Chicago station?). I remember having to the run the weekly test of the Emergency Broadcast System. Remember that annoying little jewel? Obnoxious sound effect.Obnoxious sound effect. “This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. The broadcasters of your area in voluntary cooperation with the Federal, State and local authorities have developed this system to keep you informed in the event of an emergency. If this had been an actual emergency, the Attention Signal you just heard would have been followed by official information, news or instructions. This concludes this test of the Emergency Broadcast System.” I was always tempted to say that “had this been an actual emergency I will be in my car headed south” but I restrained myself. I had already gotten a little slap from the FCC when I took
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I have been around Christians who could open a travel agency for guilt trips. That is not my desire with today’s post. But if you opt to take a guilt trip because of these thoughts I should pack my spiritual bags and join you on the journey. Yesterday dawned with your humble correspondant feeling a bit low in spirits. Work has taken me away from church for a couple of weeks. My schedule has been mentally and physically taxing. I woke up feeling like hammered dog doo (sorry, couldn’t think of the medical term). The woe is me voice was gathering volume as I picked up the Sunday paper. There in the Dallas Morning News was a story that caused me to take a sharp detour off of Pity Parkway. This headline put my little problems into sharp perspective. Afghan man could be executed for converting to Christianity Here is the story from the Dallas paper. An Afghan man who allegedly converted from
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Today is a bit of deja vu for me. I am in the middle of my real job which is television sports directing at a basketball tournament site. I look at the credentials of my fellow bloggers on Crosswalk and I have to chuckle. Perhaps they won’t notice that my bio is filled with items like, “Dave is a member of Sam’s Club.” The deja vu moment came from the realization that it was during this very March madness women’s basketball tournament that I got the inspiration for what would become my extremely modestly selling book, “Bring’em Back Alive“. Here is an excerpt from the introduction. My spiritual insights generally aren’t revealed during television broadcasts of women’s basketball. I suspect that hardly makes me unique. But inspiration came clearly and forcefully during a telecast of an NCAA Women’s basketball tournament game from Boulder, Colorado. Let me set the stage for you. I am a television sports director. I call the camera shots that dictate what
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Today a brief email from youngest son generated a lot of memories and a few tears. Brett has taken his spring break from Baylor University to join his fraternity friends on a mission trip to do some volunteer work at a Christian camp. I found an email from him this morning with a little post script that brought unexpected precipitation in the orb area.  A little background is in order. Brett had a big sister that he never knew. Katie was born with a terminal birth defect and died when Brett was just a baby. Yet he is aware of  the amazing impact of Katie’s short life. She would have been twenty-one this month. Her story is detailed in When Bad Christians Happen to Good People and you can read the first part of story online. Here is Brett’s note. P.S.  Katie’s life affected a lot of people tonight when I shared her story after a guy was struggling with seeing God’s purpose for everything.  It also made me realize how
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Yesterday I happened to look at the blog odometer and noticed I had already passed the century mark for posting these humble ramblings. I thought it would be interesting, instructive, and perhaps frightening to sort through the stats and see which articles resonated most with you. So here are the people’s choice for the top five posts. Number 5     Forgive? I don’t wanna. I was amazed at the response to this one. There is a fundamental lack of understanding among many about what forgiveness looks like from a biblical point of view. For example… “I cannot agree with the concept that Christian leaders are exempt from accountability or are in some way authorized to break laws, to damage lives and then say the victim must forgive, as a Christian, you must forgive. The idea of Christians being victimized and told to forgive makes me sick.” I never said that Christian leaders are exempt from accountability. In fact the top two posts will revolve around that very issue. Here
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I think I am going to start posting a warning label so the Spiritual Hall Monitors will be alerted to the fact that my blog may contain humor or, according to some, attempted humor. With this warning they can avoid encountering humor, satire, and sarcasm that might trigger an allergic reaction for the sullen saints. Warning: The following post may contain humor. This blog was produced in a program where irony and satire are processed. May contain sarcasm fragments. I think that singer Chris Rice may understand my plan to post the humor/satire warning. Rice is a wonderful song writer. My IPod features many of his songs and his lyrics resonate with me. I could have written the song Clumsy (if I had any musical talent) You think I’d have it down by nowBeen practicin’ for thirty yearsI should have walked a thousand milesSo what am I still doin’ hereReachin’out for that same old piece of forbidden fruitI slip and fall
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