About Sadness…

I’m sorry I missed you here on the porch last week. I had some very sad business to tend to. Our church lost a friend. She was just 51 years young.



(One of the sweetest things in my life...my daughter, Emmali)
Her life ended… too soon. It was sad.
In my very short existence here on Earth, I have learned something about sadness. First and foremost, I have learned that sadness is not from God. He doesn’t give sadness. However, sadness, heartbreak, the "hankies of life" (as I call ‘em) is a gift. I know that sounds strange. But as strange as it may sound, it is true.
Let me see if I can explain with a story.
I love hot drinks… hot apple cider…. Coffee… and old fashion hot chocolate. I was at my grandmother’s house one day when I decided to try my hand at hot chocolate. Now, you have to understand that at Grandma’s house you cannot find "instant" hot chocolate mix. At Grandma’s house everything is made from scratch.
So, I pulled the Hershey’s® cocoa of the shelf and read the recipe on the side. 4 cups of milk, 4 tablespoons of cocoa, 1 /2 cup sugar, 1 /2 teaspoon vanilla (optional) and 1 /2 teaspoon of salt. Salt! Who wants salt in your hot chocolate? I want sweet and creamy. I love sweet and creamy, and in that order. So, I skipped the salt and added a pinch more sugar. Scald milk and stir in ingredients. I did that. I watched that white whole milk turn to a reddish brown and I dumped in all that white sugar...minus the salt. I stirred with slow heat until I saw steam rising off the top. This was going to be good. My mouth was watering in anticipation of this sweet and creamy concoction. I placed a large soupspoon in the pan and dipped out some brown goodness. I blew on the spoon. I didn’t want to burn my tongue on the first sip. If so, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the rest of it. I raised the spoon to my lips and slurped what I had been waiting for. Oooooo! It was awful…strong and bitter. So, if it was bitter then the remedy must be to add more sugar. So, I added another quarter cup. I sipped. It was still bitter. I did it again and again.
I did this until I had added 2 cups of sugar to the mixture. My hot chocolate was still nasty and the recipe only called for 1 /2 cup of sugar. Perplexed with cooking, I did what any sensible grandson would do. I asked grandma for help.
Her one and only question was revealing. "Did you put in the salt?" She instructed me to go back and put in the salt that was required and then taste. I did and the hot chocolate was to sweet for even me to drink. The salt made it sweet.
So I have learned that it takes the bitter to make things sweet. I also learned that I have a lot of sweet things in my life given to me by God Himself. Now when the bitter things of life come along, it makes the sweet things even sweeter!
Enjoy what you have.

My Computer….

I have discovered that I have a relationship with my computer. My wife is aware of this so it’s o.k. It is a love-hate relationship. When my computer works, I love it. When it doesn’t…I hate it!
I believe my computer to be an aesthetic adolescent…really. Let me explain. It sits on my desk looking stately and intelligent. Then, when I go to use it, it doesn’t want to work. We all know teenagers just like that. When I make it work, it gets an attitude. It will slow down, or not display all the information. And just when I think I have it under control, it starts correcting me. You can’t do this. You can’t do that. Line error. Then my computer will mock me by speaking in code. "Error 17". It knows that I don’t know what error 17 is. If I listen really hard, I can hear my computer snickering when I turn my back.
I also don’t like the company it keeps. My computer hangs around this other adolescent called "internet" and gets my computer into trouble. Internet behaves in front of me because it knows that I’ll pull the plug on ‘em. However, when I’m not watching, Internet will coerce my computer to go anywhere. I can usually tell when they take one of those trips together because my computer will get sick and come down with a virus. Of course, I’ll have to be the one to pay the bill for it to get better.
I can’t discipline my computer for its behavior. It has no feelings. So, it won’t do any good to spank it, or speak harshly to it. The only sense of satisfaction comes when I exercise the only real power I have over my computer. I turn it off. And that my friends, is a power that no one has over a teenager!

Things I Never Thought About

As I sit on the porch this morning, I am at peace with God and myself. That’s a good place to be. My coffee is hot and in hand. The sun is coming up and the light hues of pink in the crisp autumn clouds tell me that the rest of this sleepy little town will be waking up soon. These times are too short. The gentle sway of my rocking chair is comforting. If you don’t have one, you should get one. Then, you will see what I mean. Rocking chairs are one of the finer things in life. My grandmother had one, and all of the grandkids use to fight over who would sit in it… when grandma wasn’t.
As a kid, I was a dreamer. I use to try and imagine my future, plot my courses. In my youth, I have seen myself in many different situations doing many different things being many different things. However, as I have endeavored to follow God with my whole heart, retrospectively, I have seen, I have done, and I have been things that I never thought about as a kid.
I never thought about being 40 years old. I mean, back then, that was old! I never thought about having 5 children. I never thought about having twins. I never thought about earning a living or paying bills. I never thought about becoming a teacher or starting a school. I never thought about financial hardship and having to do without. I never thought about all the powerful people I would meet. I never thought about making enemies without trying. I never thought about having daughters or the names “Emmali” or “Kayrin”. I never thought about living in Wisconsin. I never thought about being so far away from my dad. I never thought about being removed from the lives of my brother and sister. I never thought about my children not being close to their grandparents. I never thought about my mate’s parents growing old. I never thought about my own parents growing old. I never thought about nieces or nephews. I never thought about retirement. I never thought about investments. I never thought about my children’s occupations or mates. I never thought about their salvation either. I never thought about the power in spiritual purity. I never thought about honesty and integrity. I never thought about the power of a kind word. I never thought about the power of influence. I never thought one girl could love me this long. I never thought about marriage being this sweet. And even though there are disappointments, heartaches, longings unfulfilled and an uncertainty about the future, I never thought about the satisfaction that comes from the longevity of following Christ. I never thought about my life being this good.

Thoughts On Child Violence in Our Country

"As the snow flies….
On a cold and gray Chicago morn
Another little baby child is born
In the ghetto
And his mamma cries…"
The words to this song are haunting to me this morning. I woke up with the snow flying all around (no accumulation) and my world cold. It seems that the children and I mean children, in this country are committing or contemplating heinous acts upon others. There is no way that we can make everyone’s life a fairytale. But I can’t believe that this many kids have it that bad.
I am keenly aware that we adults do not know the intensity of the pressures that our kids face at school. This is a different day and age. Computers, Internet, television, music, video games, radio, billboards, magazine ads on and on…. Our kids are overwhelmed with immorality. It is "…in their face…" every day. If we could only take them back to a simpler day...
Remember when sexuality wasn’t spoken of on TV? Remember when there was no cursing allowed? Homosexuality was unheard of? My dad had to explain it to me. Isn’t that how it is suppose to be? Remember when jokes were funny and witty and not connected to sexual innuendoes? Remember when songs spoke of love as an emotion and not an act? Did you ever think that modern music would promote incorrigible, immoral, drunken, suicidal and irresponsible behavior? Did you ever think that we could have technology in our homes that could be used by our children to learn how to make bombs, view pornography, show how to make illicit drugs or how to steal other peoples writings and use it as their own? Did you ever think that we would live in a society that openly produces almost-naked pictures of women and men just to sell a product?
How did we get to where we are? We’re the adults. Let’s quit pointing a finger at everybody else and be keenly aware that these things exist because of us. Yes, us! These things exist because we allow them to exist. I speak of "us" as the society of adults.
The adult society doesn’t want to be regulated. Freedom of speech. Freedom of expression. Freedom to know. All the "freedoms" that the adults want for themselves is killing our kids.
You see adults should know how to regulate themselves. Kids don’t know any better. They don’t know the end results for getting involved in immoral things. Stick a kid in a candy store. When will he quit eating? Most likely after he gets sick from stuffing himself with candy. He’s a kid. What else would you expect? But, an adult knows better!
Can we get this society under control? I don’t think so. Immorally, we are out of control. The only thing that will bring our society back for our children is God, and an immoral society doesn’t look for God.
So, our nations bored, overweight, spiritually depraved and empty-soul children search for meaning in their parents "stuff". They will find nothing of value. They will then turn to what they have seen, heard, and learned. They will try drugs and alcohol, pornography, sex and homosexuality. And when they get angry enough they will take a gun to school to settle their issues for them. Why will they do all this? Because they can…
"People don’t you understand, the child needs you helping hand
He’s gonna’ grow to be a young man someday
Take a look at you and me, are we to blind to see
Or do we simply turn our heads and look the other way…"
"Then one night in desperation the young man breaks away
He buys a gun, steals a car, tries to run but he doesn’t get far
And his mamma cries
A crowd gathers ‘round an angry young man
Face down in the street with a gun in his hand
In the ghetto
As her young man dies…
On a cold and gray Chicago morn
Another little baby child is born
In the ghetto…"
("In The Ghetto" written by Nick Cave)

Felicam Tibi Natalia Diem

I’m not real big on birthdays. When I was a kid, a birthday celebration was a song and a cake at dinner. That’s a nice birthday. My wife, on the other hand, thinks differently. Since we have been together, my wife has tried to celebrate every birthday. She thinks they’re "special"…. I don’t.
Last year my birthday fell on a Wednesday. Wednesday is youth nite at my church. I am the youth pastor. Wednesday is busy! In the middle of youth worship, I noticed some of our adults from the church slipping in for the youth contemporary worship service. I was so pleased. I had been trying to get adults to come for weeks so that they could see what was going on during Wednesdays. You could only imagine my surprise to find out that they had come to celebrate my birthday at the request of my wife.
So I ate cake and ice cream had punch and said "thank you" for the gesture. Then came the cards. Of course, I had to sit and open them all in front of everyone. That’s when I discovered a harsh reality.
Not one, not two, not three, nor four…. Yea five cards wished me a happy 40th birthday. I am humbled. For you see, I was turning 39. After the 3rd card I finally commented that I was only turning 39 to which one of my parishioners responded, "ah, come on pastor. We all know you’re older than 40!"
I guess the best roasts are the ones that don’t realize their roasting you. I suppose since I had my 40th when I was 39 that now when I am about to turn 40 no one will remember. And to make matters worse, the very next week (the one after my non-fortieth birthday surprise party) I got my first pair of bifocals. The next week… my first letter from A.A.R.P.