MORNING 7 OF THE GREAT BATTLE OF THE LAUNDRY ROOM

This morning dawned with muted light. A layer of mist clouded my little portion of the planet. The sun came up on time. Glen Zimmerman just told me so. I didn't see it. I was up late last night, sitting quietly in my laundry room... indian style on top of the washing machine. Listening. Listening. Dozing. Dozing. Snoring. Snoring. I finally had to admit that my very presence might delay the attack of the renegade rodent. I cleared my throat loudly, jumped off of the washer, stretched, and said in a loud voice, "Well, that's about it for me. I'm off to bed. I won't be back down here until after the sun comes up." And I tromped down the hall, a final confirmation to my little furry friend that he, once again, owned the night. I slept deeply, secure in the belief that my traps were more than able to handle the attack without me. Even field Generals must sleep.

And then it was morning. I rolled over in bed, reaching once again for the remote control, cursing myself for having stayed up too late yet again. And I froze. The battle. The rodent. The trap. I felt the beloved surge of adrenaline as I rolled over the edge of the bed and began working my way from "all fours" up to a standing position. I staggered down the hall, gazing ahead toward the battle ground. I delayed for a glass of orange juice served up cold and tasty in my favorite cheap, Wrigley Field plastic cup. Mmmmmmm. I moved into the short hallway leading from the Kitchen into the laundry room. Half way between the two is a bathroom. Just as field Generals must sleep they must also occasionally take a whiz. Some things will not wait. I took care of business and step anxiously into the hallway once again. As I entered the laundry room I glanced to the left. The trap by the garbage can was undisturbed. This is one smart mouse. I peered behind my gym bag only to find the same loaded trap that I placed there last night. What kind of beast is this? I might be dealing with a Harvard graduate here. At the very least he has attended "Mouse-Queda" training camps in the fields beyond the city limits.

I walked toward the corner containing the shoe rack, leaning to gaze over assorted items blocking my view. The trap had been sprung! At first I saw nothing. And then... I saw it. I saw HIM. He was upside down and I almost missed him. His white underbelly blended well with the pale, laundry room tile. But there was no denying those 4 little feet pointed stiffly sky-ward. His three inch tail told me that this was no amatuer. His entire length exceeds 6 inches. I heard a noise behind me and turned to see Bear glancing down the hall. I think he already knew. There was no smile on his golden face. Warriors take no delight in the killing. Life is precious. The moment calls for an aura of gravity. This mouse had not killed. He had not attacked human flesh. Oh yes, he had damaged my equipment and eaten my cheese but he was no killer. Still... he had to be stopped. For the sake of all that is holy and right... he had to be stopped. He was a thief... a raider. He struck without warning in the night. One of my children could have wandered into the laundry room in the dead of night searching for pajama's and he could have bitten a toe. He could have (and indeed, may have) pooped in Bears bowl. I have not told him... but I have reason to believe... And so while there is no joy... there is relief. There is a sense that justice has been done. The floors are safe for bare feet again.

I am currently processing the crime scene. Photo's are being taken. The chalk outline is being drawn. Prints are being taken. Dental records are being checked. Soldiers fight and soldiers die. It is a tragic fact of life. But he had a family and they need to know. In moments I will don my thick rubber gloves, my black motorcycle helmet with the face shield down, and I will remove the corpse. There will be no buriel... no memorial service. I will draw close to the garbage can next to my garage and I will flip his cold, lifeless body through the air and toward the can. He will fly end over end and smack into the side of the Rubber Maid container before sliding down with the rest of the garbage where he belongs. Justice has prevailed. Justice always prevails.

Case closed.

NIGHT 6 OF THE GREAT BATTLE OF THE LAUNDRY ROOM.

Many people are sad tonight that the Cardinals lost game one against the San Francisco Giants. We tie our lives up in petty issues to easily. A ball wrapped in cow hide. A bat carved from hard wood. Strapping young men throwing the ball. Other strapping young men trying to hit the ball with the bat. We would like to believe that these are the great wars of our times. But we cannot afford to live lives lost in the luxuries of the niave. There is a great war. It is being played out as I type. It has raged on into this... the sixth night.

The war revolves around my clothes dryer. It would appear to be the bunker for at least one mouse. This mouse is not from Florida. He is from a field. He is not here to make children laugh. He is here to chew through our wires, eat our food scraps, and scare our women. I hear him under the dryer. He is plotting. He is planning. For five nights he has raided my laundry room traps. These are the best traps that money can buy. They have big, tightly wound springs anchored to sanded pine. They sit behind the waste can that holds our rejected lint, behind my gym bag holding its smelly socks, and under the shoe rack. Each evening when I go to bed the traps are fully loaded with only the best Kraft Swiss Cheese. By morning they are empty. And not one trap has been sprung. The score going into tonight is Mouse 6 - Ron 0.

Tonight that all changes. The cheese is molded around the traps trigger. There is no way to remove the cheese tonight withough setting off the trap. The mouse sees the cheese. The cheese calls to the mouse. "It was safe last night. It was safe the night before that. I should be safe tonight too." But it is not safe. It is a highly dangerous, innocent looking, mouse killing, instrument of war.

I plan on winning tonight. In the morning I will get up to find a little mouse head nearly seperated from a little mouse body. At least one. maybe more. There will be sadness in the mouse house tomorrow morning. But there will be joy in my laundry room. My dog will be able to eat his Milky Bones in peace again. My wife can do laundry without fearing her fuzzy faced friend. I will take crime scene photographs. I will draw a chalk outline where his little mouse-body lay. There will be no warriors buriel for my rodent nemesis. There is only a trash dumpster with his name on it.

Tonight is the night. Gosh, I love the smell of swiss cheese in the morning.

And awaaaaay we go! Thursday evening at this time my little bride and I will be holed up in a Holiday-Inn Express in Eden Prairie, Mn. It has been almost 25 years since she signed on as my side-kick on this wild ride we call "life." At least that's what I want to believe. As it turns out, reality shows that I am her side-kick. It's a pretty awesome thing when your wife is the most Godly person you know. It use to be that whenever I would lose something, she would know where it was. I have never seen anything like it. You see, I am one of those people whose brains have gotten full a little early on in life. I am now storing all new knowledge in my toes. It takes longer to retrieve it there. But Debbie knows everything. I use to do what I always do... come into the house... take off my glasses... set them down... and walk away. Within five minutes I was trying to figure out where they were. I would ask Debbie. She would always know. The amazing thing is that usually she had not even been in the room where I had left them. Still... she would most always be right. I finally wised up and bought a spare pair of glasses to I can usually trip over one by sheer accident. That means I don't have to ask her where they are nearly so often. But if I were a betting man my money would be on her.

I have been married one out of every nine days that the United States has existed as a nation. Say what? Yup. Do the math. I think this whole experiment in democracy began in 1776? That is convenient when you are dividing by 25's. Four quarters in the 1800's. Four quarters in the 1900's. One quarter in the 1700's. Two years to spare in the 2,000's. So I'm more or less correct. I find that positively shocking.


And what does the little woman get for putting up with me for this long? Well. She gets a rented Sebring convertible for a few days. She gets to ride up north where the leaves are already peaking in their race to their doom. She gets a tour of the biggest mall in America though she isn't much of a shopper. (By the way, I really didn't take that into consideration when marrying her. It has worked to my advantage though.) She gets to eat wherever she wants for five days and she doesn't have to wash one dish. She gets showered with love and affection. She gets my undivided attention. She gets to sit beside the clean part of the mighty, muddy, Mississippi River. And then she gets to race the water that she sees home so that she can see it pass by again. It doesn't really seem like much for giving me three children and twenty-five years. I ought to be able to come up with something better. It's just that, well, how do you thank somebody for sharing their life with you? How do you say thanks for being your partner, washing your dirty socks, and expecting so little in return?

Last year, 2001, was a pretty tough year at our house. It was mainly my fault. I was sick a lot last year. It wasn't fun but it was educational. I learned that when you treat life like it is long... by savoring the moments rather than packing all you can into them... life seems longer. I learned that as important as my work is my personal relationships are more important. That is especially true about my personal relationship with God. But that's a Sunday School thing to say so please over look it for now. Human relationships are more important than my work too. But then, human relationships are my work. Look, I don't want to talk about work right now so forget that I said that too. Life is about relationships. Lot's of people loved on me last year and a few of them paid big bucks for the privilege. I owe them a debt I cannot repay because they helped me to get well. But this wife of mine, this woman that sleeps next to me every night... wow. When I hurt... she held me. When I couldn't work... she did my job for me. When I couldn't see straight to drive... she drove me. When I needed to rest... she lay down next to me. When I couldn't pray... she prayed for me. When I couldn't find words... she spoke for me. My wife knows what it means to be a wife. She is an expert at it. She could teach a college level course in wifeship. Unfortunately, nobody is going to ask her to. That's a shame because wives to be, and young wives, need to know what she knows. Her knowledge could save a lot of marriages.

I can't repay Debbie for the wife she has been for twenty-five years. Certainly a trip to Minnesota to see the leaves change isn't gonig to even us up. I don't know what to do to possibly tell her what I'm thinking and how I'm feeling. I owe a debt I cannot pay. But the really strange thing is this... she doesn't seem tired of me yet. She does not mind when I forget where my glasses are. She lets me pile all of these wires by my side of the bed so that I can sit here and Blog while she sleeps next to me. I suspect that most wives would use the scissors on them. She doesn't usually laugh at my jokes but that's because they usually are not funny and she is, if anything, honest. I am not sure but I think she's signing on with me for another twenty-five years. That's the only thing I can think of that makes me wonder if she really isn't as smart as I have believed. What it all comes down to is this... the woman has one flaw that I can find... she has bad taste in men. And you know what? I"m really, really, glad.

Top Ten Reasons Not To Go To Work Today

1. Hey, even Jesus went to the mountains to pray.
2. Let's celebrate a victory for Cardinal Nation!
3. They "oil and chipped" my road and I don't want to disturb the new gravel pattern.
4. Solidarity to my Premcor Brothers!
5. Time to show the Administrative Assistants that we trust them.
6. Mice in the M&M's!
7. My hearts just not in it until we get this economy turned around.
8. Waiting for a phone call to interview for managing the Cubs next year.
9. Resting up for the big Civic Memorial home-coming parade on Friday.
10.The Rams don't work... why should I?

My brain is blocked. I’m not certain what has happened. I was coasting along just fine, running through life like a warm V-8 engine on a cold winters night. Sure the elements knock against it when you crank it but by the time you round the corner she’s purring like a kitten and pouring heat onto your frostbitten feet. Ok, that made very little sense. Truly a dumb sentence. See what I mean? My brain is blocked.

I guess I know what to attribute it to. Could be too much caffeine. I don’t think so. Might be a pending wedding building up steam in the back of my brain. I doubt it. It isn’t illness and it isn’t insomnia. It’s Ashley.

Ashley Brown. 13 years old. Pretty. Smart. Quiet. Long brown hair to match her long legs. Fast fingers on the keyboard. 8th grader. Cheerleader. Loves Centrifuge. Loves life. Has Leukemia.

How is that for a horrible ending to a fine paragraph? 28 years as a youth pastor and you think you’ve seen it all. Kids who love church. Kids who hate church. Kids who wreck their cars and live. Kids who wreck their cars and die. Kids who get scholarships. Kids who join the army. Kids who get married and make babies. Kids who don’t get married and make babies anyway. Kids who have sex change operations. Kids who have to act like adults. Kids who don’t seem to ever stop being kids. Kids who go into ministry. Kids who join cults. Kids who become detectives. Kids who go to work for Arthur Anderson and wish they hadn’t. Kids who throw up in multi-million dollar auditoriums. Kids who run through plate glass windows. Kids who fall into the fountain at “Six Flags” and come out blue. Kids who overdose on Tylenol and live. Kids who hang themselves and don’t. Kids who have too many toes. Kids who lose an arm. Kids that get a try out for a major league ball club. Kids in wheel chairs. That’s just a sampling of what I’ve seen in 28 years of trying to be Jesus to kids. But this is the first time I’ve ever had a kid with Leukemia.

It’s not that I don’t know what to do for the kid. I know how to help Ashley. That’s simple. You love her. You love her loud. You love her long. You love her when she’s feeling well. You love her when she’s feeling crappy. You love her when she’s in the hospital. You love her when she’s at home. You love her in email. You love her on the telephone. Most of all you love her in person. Because love makes you show up wherever she is. Love makes you take her an animated mooing stuffed cow. Love makes you send her flowers or balloons. Love makes you help her hook up a laptop to talk to friends from the hospital. Love makes you blow up a surgical rubber glove, tie it to a chair, and write “Hi Ashley” on it. Love makes you turn your back when she needs to get out of bed to go to the bathroom because she’s wearing “one of those gowns.” Love makes you turn and face her when you really want to stare out the window because you aren’t sure if she’ll notice your eyes are kind of wet. Love makes you get out the oil, pray over her and anoint her.

I understand that we live in a world where reality is seldom fair. God sends the rain on the just and the unjust. Even when they are only 13. My problem is not philosophical. My problem is not theological. My problem is not medical. My problem is not what to say to those who ask “why?” I can answer others questions. I can satisfy them. But I do have a problem. A practical problem.

My problem is what to do if ASHLEY asks me “why?” You see, if Jesus were here… in the flesh… right now… what would He do? He would smile at her the way you can only smile when you are in total control. It would be the smile of a parent on Christmas morning. A parent who is holding that special present behind their back…the one the child has asked for and is wanting so badly. Jesus would smile the smile that would be smiled for the 5 seconds before the present was handed to the child. The smile of great anticipation. Great anticipation comes when you know something really, really, good is about to happen. And His smile would turn to exuberance and utter joy as Ashley saw His present to her. Jesus would heal Ashley. Is there really any doubt in anybody’s mind that Jesus would heal Ashley?

And my stated purpose in life is to be Jesus to teenagers. So what do I do if Ashley asks me someday soon “why?” My brain is blocked. And I think I know why.

So I'm cruising down highway 140 this evening shortly before sunset. My lovely wife is in the passanger seat. The new Sara Groves CD is in the player and I had just announced that the current song reminds me of her (side note: always look for ways to score extra points when with the little woman... you'll need them someday) when I noticed the pick-up truck in front of me. It was a late model, silver, step side. Very nice. And very dangerous. We were going to a funeral home in North Alton to sit with a friend who had just lost her last uncle and was quite distraught about it. There was only an hour left before the visitation ended. And then this truck showed up. We came across it east of Powder Mill Road. She was in front of us and in our lane. Then she was on the shoulder of the road. Then she was in the left lane. Then she was on the left shoulder. Then she decided to straddle the white line down the middle of the busy 4 lane highway. I slowed down to stay behind her because passing seemed to be a really dumb idea. Suddenly she was only doing 25mph. The speed limit is 55. Several vehicles didn't know what was going on and shot around us only to put the death stomp on the brakes when they encountered this truck driver from hell. (no swear word... fact.) Then they would get bold and dart around her when she swerved to the right. I decided, after consulting my bride, to stay behind her and call 911. The operator connected me with the Alton Police Department. The dispatcher said that they were rather busy and wanted to know what was wrong. I told him. He was not terribly interested because the truck signaled to turn onto Fosterburg Road. It was about to be not his problem. He said she was entering the counties district and their officers were scattered all over the place. Except that she was just kidding about the turn signal. She went straight. She ran the stop lights at Homer Adams Parkway and in front of the Holiday-Inn. The she stopped in the middle of the road for no reason. Debbie suggested that she was making up for past sins. When she drove her right wheels onto the grass near the watchful eye of Robert Wadlow Debbie let out a mini-scream. We now had the dispatchers attention. (I silently hoped she'd run over a few dental students from the school across the street... that would have pleased me to no end.) He asked us if we minded staying behind her and on the line. Duh. What had I been doing for the last 5 miles? So, like good tax payers, we stayed behind her and watched her careen from shoulder to shoulder, narrowly missing many cars and more than one street sign. The dispatcher told me he had located an available unit and we kept up a running conversation of our location. And then she pulled into the long, tree lined, driveway of Alton Memorial Hospital. I told the dispatcher that maybe she was injured and trying to get to an emergency room. I heard him pass this information on to the officer cruising in our direction. She missed one of the two stop signs at the top of the hill by the hospital and then turned into the parking lot of the professional building. Huh? The professional building is closed at 7pm. The emergency room is another 100 yards down the road. The truck driver chose a spot in the nearly empty lot. I told the dispatcher that I was parking about 50 feet from her and watching to see what would happen. Nothing did. Her foot was on the brake because her brake lights were on. Then they went off. I looked to the right and an Alton Police car was pulling into the lot. For a second I was concerned for the officer. It was obvious that this driver was intoxicated or high on chemicals. We had no idea what we were about to witness but it occured to me that I wish my wife was at home watching TV or at Garden Ridge shopping. The world is a weird, dangerous place. I watched the officer warily approach the drivers door. His right hand was in its customary position, near the butt of his pistol. He knocked on the trucks window. The door opened. It became obvious that the driver was a little gray haired elderly woman. Their dialogue took about 5 minutes. And then another police car pulled into the lot. Back-up in case this "Bonnie-minus-her-Clyde" should turn evil. The first officer closed the little woman back into her truck and turned to the approaching second officer. And now curiousity had me. No way I was leaving without knowing what evil lurked in the heart of my first official "bust." Was she Al-Queda? Iraqi? A home grown terrorist perchance? I got out of my car and walked across the parking lot to the pair of Alton's finest. I introduced myself as the man who had followed the human pin-ball. As we talked I looked around. Surely John Walsh from "America's Most Wanted" was hiding behind a bush someplace. At the very least I expected to see a camara man from COPS. No such luck. And so I inquired as to exactly which substance was flowing through grannys bloodstream causing this traffic debacle. And the officer said... "She's asleep." Huh? "She was asleep when I knocked on her window. She said she's having trouble staying awake and this is where she goes to the doctor so she came here to sleep until she could drive herself home." Batman and Robin were laughing. They didn't know what to do with her. She had broken numerous laws but they had not observed any of them and at the moment her greatest crime was "Malicious Snoring." I asked if they thought they could handle it from here. They allowed as how they figured they could. I thanked them for keeping our streets sleep-free and returned to my car.

Debbie said her heart was pounding. Women. Personally I was terribly disappointed. I wanted a DUI. I hoped for a brick of "premium s###" on the seat next to one seriously doped up dealer. I would have settled for a deranged escapee from the Alton Mental Health Centers criminally insane unit. Instead I got a geriatic Rip-Van-Winkle. You know, this law enforcement stuff isn't all it's cracked up to be. I did a ride-along with Mike Hogan, a close buddy who is an Illinois State Trooper. We patrolled the interstates through East St. Louis on the midnight shift. I wore the vest but nobody shot at me. I held the flashlight while he did a "field sobriety test." (We ran that sucker in. That'll teach him.) I helped him search an abandoned truck on the side of the road. We scanned the tree lined center of an expressway clover leaf intersection looking for bad guys who were suppose to be hiding out in it. Nothing. The most dangerous thing we did all night was eat "lunch" at 4am in a horrible truck stop. That was the only time that I felt like our lives were on the line.

When I was just a lad I had visions of a life in law enforcement. I thought I'd start off cruising the interstates like Mike. Then I'd move up the the FBI and prove my metal by nailing the big fish. I'd finish up a well rounded career by taking down some bad agents that had gone dirty while working in the Hoover Building. The rest of my life would be spent on the speaking and writing circuit, making the big bucks by telling my crime-fighting stories.

And it all comes down to this. A sunny, cool, autumn evening. A chance meeting with a hardened criminal on the cruel city streets. We match wits. One on one...like it ought to be. And as the dust settles... as the cold metal door clangs shut... I am the one walking away... satisfied that, thanks to my quick reflex actions, the highways are once again safe. And granny is asleep in the front seat where she belongs.

Sleep well America.

(Note: If you are not in the mood for serious... move along. Read yesterday's blog. Watch The Weather Channel. Find a Sienfield rerun. But don't read this blog. Fair warning.)

His name was Zac and I didn't meet him until he was dead. That is way too late if you are a youth pastor. I know his sister. She went to Centrifuge with us last summer. i know his aunt, his uncle, and his cousins. They are all still alive and doing quite well, thank you. They are members of my church. But somehow it slipped past my attention that Zac even existed. He was not quiet. he did not keep to himself. We just failed to cross paths. Last year he got into trouble at school. He had a substance that he was not suppose to have. So when they found it they threw him out of school. His parents, in a rage of wisdom, enrolled him into a very small Christian high school. I am sure they were very angry at him for getting in trouble. Most likely they wanted to kill him themselves! And I really doubt that Zac wanted to go to this new school. All of his friends were back at Civic Memorial But he stepped up to the plate and served his sentence. And something extremely wonderful happened to Zac at this new school. Zac met Jesus. He was ambushed by the Son of God when he least expected it. Evidently Zac knew a deal when he saw it because he jumped at the chance to pray and ask Jesus into his heart. This year Zac continued on at that small, Christian high school. By all indications he was quite happy there. He retained his friends from Civic Memorial High School. Life was good for Zac.

And then came Tuesday. It was raining in the afternoon. Zac was at home but he told his mom that he had to go out for a minute but he would be right back. His mom did what most mom's would do... she said, "ok." Five minutes later Zac's mom got the word. Zac was dead. His car evidently hydro-planed. He hit a utility pole. The pole snapped. It landed on his car. It landed on Zac. A 16 year old life ended immediately.

Zac's death makes no sense. And to make matters worse, he is the third teenager to die in our community in the last three months. The police are in shock. The hospital emergency room workers and talking about it. The story has transcended our local Alton Telegraph newspaper and has been told by the more prestigious St. Louis Post Dispatch. It has been called "a horrible coincidence," a "shocking turn of evvents," and even "fathomless." But strong adjectives don't breath life back into a young mans dead body.

How odd that the very thing that seemed so bad... Zac being tossed out of public school... would wind up being the singular thing that was responsible for bringing him to Jesus. I told that to his parents today standing over his casket. I reminded them that, because they loved him enough to discipline him, he was doing much better in every area... except for his driving. I pointed out that what looked like evil turned out to be good. We talked of eternity and of Zac enjoying life far more now than he did a mere 3 days ago. They smiled through their grief and said that they had not thought of that. There is pain in the Crews family tonight. I did not know Zac and yet I share that pain. I felt it as I entered the viewing room with the family. I felt it as I clasped his father by the shoulders and felt this big blue collar worker tremble. I felt it as I hugged his little sister and brother and prayed with them. I felt it as grandma thanked me for coming and as she told me to pray for her family because not all of them know Jesus. And pray I did. I prayed the prayer of a lifeime.. And I quoted scripture about Jesus defeating death. I held them as they leaned over the casket and stroked Zac's hair and touched his cheek.

So there you go. That's what it is like to be a pastor. We live for the moment of crises. That is when we get to do our job and people actually listen. But man, a 16 year old boy that should be doing math homework tonight is laying in a casket in a funeral home instead. What do you do with that? And you know what? Zac is the boy that dated my sons girlfriend right before he started dating her. And you know what else? Five weeks ago my son was stopped for speeding on the same road ... at the same place... where Zac died two days ago. What do you do with that?

You pray. You sneak into his room late at night after he has finally fallen asleep on this stressful evening and you pray. You thank God for protecting him. And you ask Him to keep on protecting him because he has a lifetime of driving ahead of him... and you want it to be a long lifetime. And you stay up really late blogging because you can't get the picture of Zac, all dressed up and laid out in his coffin, out of your head. You feel his mothers tears drip onto your hand again as you remember leaning over the casket with her and whispering to her that her son is not here... that this is a tent that has been taken down... and that he now lives in a new home. One not made with human hands. And you pray for the many teenagers that are sitting up right now... wondering about death... and about God. They are unable to sleep because they have a funeral to go to tomorrow and teenagers are not suppose to go to funerals. They re suppose to laugh and eat and go to parties. And it occurs to you that, though life is not fair, and though it has no discernable rhyme nor reason, it is worth it. But only because of one name. Jesus.

I rolled over in my bed this morning and, as usual, reached for the elusive remote control. Eyes closed (see earlier blog) I punched the power button and keyed in 02. The weather was of utmost importance to me. My super-high-sensitive-atmospheric-condition-sensors indicated clouds above my roof. It also indicated clouds outside my window. I thought I could feel clouds even creeping in under my garage door. I would not have been at all surprised to find clouds in my bathroom and maybe even the refrigerator. Internal alarms were going of THAT loudly.

I was in luck. Glen Zimmerman was on right now, preparing the 2.5 million St. Louis people for the day. I remember thinking, "You go, Glen. Give me the latest, dude. I can handle the truth." Oddly enough, Glen was rather upbeat. He warned of thick fog this morning, particularly in the river valleys. But he assured me that it was no big deal because it was... and I quote... "sunny outside. We have blue skies. We just have to burn this fog off." Selah. (Pause and reflect.)

Huh? It is sunny outside? We have blue skies? We just have to BURN THIS FOG OFF? Might I ask a question? I didn't go to meteorological school. One of my former teenagers actually MARRIED a TV weather man. That is as close as I have ever come to meteor-anything. Oh wait, Debbie and I had lunch once at the "California Pizza Kitchen" at the Galleria. Paul Goodloe was there eating with his significant other. We didn't talk to him. Geez, he's a big guy. Shoulders like an aircraft carrier. Maybe that is a closer connection than knowing somebody who married a weather man. Nah, probably not. I think I even did the wedding and that means that I actually know a TV weatherman myself. He was in St. Louis but now he's in Peoria. Whatever. The really cool part is that Paul Goodloe now works for The Weather Channel! Now THAT, my friends, is the big time. I ate lunch in the presence of greatness. Grant it, it isn't quite like knowing somebody on "The Naked News" but I think you get my point.

What was my point... Oh yes. My point was... isn't fog a cloud? Sure it is. That was "Lesson A" in Science 101 back at Lincoln-Way High School in 1970. Fog is a cloud with an attitude. Fog is a cloud on steroids. Fog is a cloud that descends to earth, grabs you around the throat, and won't let go. Other clouds just kind of float around up there. Sometimes they make rain (word picture intended) on you, and sometimes they just float. But fog, my friends, is most certainly a cloud.

So. Who is Glen Zimmerman trying to fool? Does he really think he can get by with this kind of fraudulent forcasting? It is now 3:18 in the afternoon. I just looked outside my office window. Guess what. It's still foggy. Only now the fog is at about... oh.... 2,000 feet. In other words it's foggy way up high. Down here it's just dreary and depressing. Oh, but don't worry... it's still a sunny day! The sky is still blue! You only have to go about 3/4 of a mile to see it... straight up.

Glen. You disappoint me. St. Louis weather has never been the same since The Dual Whammy. For you new folks I'm referring to Bob Richards on channel 5 committing "suicide by airplane" a few years ago. And more recently the departure of Trish (moment of respectful silence please) Brown from channel 4. Bob did himself in because it was discovered (by his wife) that he was having an affair. Trish moved to Lincoln, Nebraska ... which come to think of it, is kind of like committing suicide... because she was making babies. Have you noticed that, in one way or the other, all good weather people leave the business because of sex? Kind of makes you wonder about all of those "warm fronts" they keep talking about.

Well, that's about all I have to say about that. I just noticed that I have an itching bump about 3 inches above my right wrist on the inside of my arm. It has all the marks of... a mosquito bite. Drat. It's even shaped like a pyramid. I think we all know what this means. I'm doomed. I should have been a weather man.

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I hate telephones. I love telemarketers. Those should be mutually exclusive statements but I find that they are not. Telephones interrupt me and seldom in a pleasant way. (If you are reading this and you call me frequently, please understand that I am not talking about you. I am talking about everyone else that calls me. You are special. You are my favorite. I thank God every day that you have my phone number. Really I do.)

I have a talking "Caller ID." It is the coolest thing that I own. I keep the volume turned all of the way up so that I can hear it all throughout the house. When my phone rings I automatically sigh. And then I listen. After the first ring a lovely female computer-voice announces the phone number that is calling. Or, if you are in the top 20 people that call me, it actually announces your name. By the third ring she has finished reciting your number. By the fifth ring I have figured out who you are. By the sixth ring I have decided not to answer. You'll call back. Or you'll catch me in person later. Or if I'm really lucky you will simply email me. Take how much I hate telephones and reverse it and that is how much I love email. I can read it when I want to. I can delete it if it annoys me. I can pretend I never received it. I can claim that I mistook it for junk mail and blew it away. Or, most likely, I will read it and respond in a timely fashion. You see, email does not waste time. That's because most people don't want to spend time typing. So they get to the point and then click "send." Email is effecient! But with telephone calls you have to go through that entire thing where you are thinking, "all I really want to do is fall into my mega-cushy-chair for a few minutes and watch The Weather Channel but this person wants to chat. I don't want to chat. I want to start a fire on the stove so I can have an excuse to hang up." It isn't the people that I don't like. It's the act of talking into a wire. It's the interruption. Why do I have to jump up and answer the phone just because a bleeping noise started emitting from it? Do I really have to be that closely at the worlds fingertips? I feel like Pavlov's dog only I never get the milky bone. The phone bleeps it's 21st century tone at me. I immediately stop doing what I want to be doing and go to respond to ... who knows what? Sometimes the call is for someone else and I can smile and return to my own little world. Sometimes, though rarely, it is a wrong number and I can laugh with a stranger about the absurdity of making an accidental acquaintance. But usually it is somebody that just wants to talk whether I want to or not. And then what do you do? Courtesy demands that you be polite and pretend to want to talk as much as they do. In the meantime you have missed "local on the 8's" five or ten consecutive times. It is just not right.

But there is one phone call that I jump to answer. Several times each day my talking caller ID lady will say, "Caller Unknown." Allllll right! This is one I want! You see, telemarketers think that it is a stroke of brillance to block their number so that when you look at (or listen to) your caller ID you won't know who they are. And they know that you are sooooo curious to find out who is calling you that you will grab that receiver right up to your ear and give them a big old "howdy!" Then they'll talk at 90mph so that you can't interrupt. They assume that you are too polite to cut in and as long as they keep talking they you won't beg off and tell them "no thank you." At my house, at least, this is where they are wrong. You see, telemarketers make their living by assuming that they have you at their mercy. They know you are a nice person and you'll either listen to them or you'll hang-up. They don't mind hang-ups. Hang-ups don't take up any of their time. They move right along to the next lucky caller. But there is one thing telemarketers cannot stand! There is one thing that drives them crazy! They totally go beserk... they totally freeze up and don't know what to do... when you feign interest and ask questions so stupid that you really have to streeeeeeeeeeeeetch your intelligence to come up with.

For instance, I had one call me recenlty from AT&T. He explained that this initial stood for "American Telephone and Telegraph." He wanted to set me right up with a home security system. You see, the president of their company had been on my very block that week and had noticed that not many people had their companies burglar alarm installed on their home and if I would just allow them to put up a sign stating that I had their system... well... they'd install one for free!!!!

Now I've done my share of stupid things in life. But I'd like to think that my bucket of gullibility doesn't go that deep. Besides, as I pointed out to the kind salesman... "Isn't it difficult to take time to tap out a message to the police when someone is breaking into your house?" My comment met with silence. And then a "What?" I explained that having a telegraph as my burglar alarm might not be the way to go. If somebody is breaking into my home and making off with the family jewels it is much quicker to use the telephone to call 911 than it would be to learn Morse Code and tap out S.O.S. on the American Telephone and TELEGRAPH gadget they were wanting to install. The nice man with the foriegn accent spent the next minutes explaining how I had misunderstood the meaning of "telegraph." Of course I never heard him. As soon as I was sure he was suitably frustrated and tied into knots, I lay the phone down on the table (quietly, of course) and made my way back to channel 45 to watch Misch Michaels talk about the next cold front coming in from the upper plaines. It was a solid ten minutes before I heard the loud "beepbeepbeep" noise coming from my receiver in the next room signaling that my friend had discovered my absence and had hung up. Gosh, I hope he had a nice day.

I understand that the state of Illinois is about to put together a "Do Not Call List" for telemarketers. It will cost you $5.00 to get on the list. If you are on the list and they call you they can get in big, big, trouble. Like they will probably lose their phone books for a week or something. I haven't decided whether or not I'll pay the five bucks. I'll really miss the little guys if I turn them off. And besides, my phone will keep right on ringing. It always rings. That's because it hates me. And from now on when it rings I'll KNOW I don't want to answer it because it will be somebody that I'll know and have to see face to face soon. And if I answer it... I'll miss "Local on the 8's." Life is full of hard choices. So if you call my house, and the phone just rings and rings and rings... I'm out. Really I am. There is nobody home. And you can't leave a message because I don't have an answering machine. But... you can always email me.

(Special Note: After re-reading this blog I realize that it could appear insulting to my nearest and dearest friends. I urge you to realize that I LOVE YOU! This blog has nothing to do with you... it has everything to do with telephones. Come to my house... let's sit and drink vanilla cokes and shoot the breeze. Feel free to drop by! Let's climb in the car and go grab a pizza. I love spending time with my friends. You are the spice of life! It's just this wire that comes into my house... it keeps ringing... and talking on a wire isn't a nice as sharing a pizza. Know what I mean?)

Here it is just moments before 9-11-02 and I'm thinking we need to smile briefly before tomorrow hits. 'Cause it is gonna hit and it is gonna be long and the television is going to make us even more sober and reflective than we already are. I almost feel obligated to be depressed tomorrow. But I'm going to fight it because God is just too good. Not only that but I just finished reading Lisa Beamer's book, "Let's Roll" and her words were such an incredible testimony to God's love, mercy, and grace, that I have to KNOW that He is in charge and that 9-11 was and is working to his glory. Take that, Mr. Bin Laden, you evil foot note in history. What you meant for evil my God thumbed His nose at and used for good. "Why" is beyond my comprehension but He will still save you if you'll bow your knee and confess that Jesus is Lord. Barring that unlikely event... I hope you have enjoyed being used by Satan himself because very soon you will be meeting him... if you have not already done so.

There. I feel better already.

So, Ok. Here's the best I've got for you tonight. I've been saving it until we needed it. I think we need it now.

My personal list of the dumbest words I have ever heard strung together...1. Debbie Woods while asking my help in filling out insurance papers recently- "How old was I when I was 8?"
2. Brandy Buatte, a former teenager in my youth group while on mission trip in Wisconsin - "What day is it at home?"
3. A deacon that shall remain unnamed during a deacons meeting in the early 1990's- "I don't care what the Bible says I believe...." (does it matter how the sentence ends?)
4. Me as a pre-teen when asked by my Sunday School teacher what version of the bible I had just read out of - "The King Kong Version." (She immediately left the class, went to the pastor's office and resigned. Soon after she left the church.) I left her alone after that.
5. My brother as a teenager after coming home from work as a stock boy at K-Mart and handing me several 12 inch long rubber bands - "Here. Hold these for a second."

My Personal List Of The Smartest People I've Ever Known And Why
1. My dad. He went to heaven and left me to finish raising my mom just as her warranty expired.
2. My brother. He bought a condo with 5 steps leading to the front door and 5 more leading to the living room shortly before my dad went to heaven. This was no accident.
3. Jack Cobb. He was my grown up neighbor when I was a little kid. He moved to Chicago from Alabama, "walked the high steel" as an iron worker building Sears Tower, and rode a Harley. That didn't make him smart. He was smart because made sure his gun was unloaded before he tried to commit suicide. His wife made him pie everyday for a month. Jack dumped me upside down in a garbage can once for annoying him. I left him alone after that.
4. Howard Thacker. Howard was a carpenter that should have been a youth pastor. I annoyed him when he was building a new addition onto my childhood home one chilly fall day. He picked me up, pulled my hood over my head, and nailed the tip of it to the wall so that my feet dangled about 3 inches off of the floor. I left him alone after that.
5. Hoss Pollard. Hoss (his real name) flew L-1011's for TWA. He lived in my Chicago suburb but flew out of JFK airport in New York, so he had to fly TO work in order to fly AT work. Hoss flew intercontinental. He loved to wear long leather coats, carry swagger sticks, wear monicles, and fly to Germany. He was one of my youth volunteer staff. He was smart because he knew not to take life too seriously. Once he flew from New York to Kansas City. Upon landing in KC he climbed out the cock-pit window into the jetway where he proceeded to beat on the airplane entrance until the flight attendant opened it. At that time, gasping for breath and dropping to one knee, he breathed, "Where have you been? I've been chasing you since Pittsburgh..." Ya gotta love a guy like that.
6. Reda Iskarous. He knows a lot about a little and a little about a lot.
7. Ron Travis. Now here was a smart guy. Ron was on my volunteer youth staff at my first church. That was back when I was in charge but I was really just a volunteer myself. He loved to go on youth group camp out with us. Ron would start the shaving cream fights and then back off and watch the fire works. Smart. In the real world Ron was an FBI agent. Unlike Todd Ballard, he would not let me play with his gun. This is one reason he was so smart. Ron liked to do cool things that the rest of us just dream about. Like he would go away for weeks on end and not tell anybody where he was going. That sounds like fun to me. Unfortunately he took it a little too far and sometimes came home with long, stringy, hair and tattoo's. That part almost cost him is marriage and his kids. But he got promoted and slid into a cushy job outside of the Chicago field office and into a resident office in a nifty white collar suburb where he probably lived out his career chasing down crooked caddie's at the local country club.
8. Cheryl (Edmonds) Dingledein. Another one of my ex-kids. She became famous to me personally when she took me up on my offer to try to pick a dime up off of the floor of the fellowship hall with her lips. The catch... no part of her body except for her feet could touch the floor. No leaning. No head stands. Just pure and simple flexibility. It wasn't even a challenge for her. I don't remember what she won but she earned my respect. When she became a college student we played racquetball regularly. I beat her once and I never played her again, thus keeping my streak intact. Cheryl is one of the smartest people I know because she married a guy that loves to stay home, raise the kid, and keep house. You see, doing that would drive Cheryl crazy. And you don't want somebody who is flexible enough to pick a dime up off of the floor with her lips to be crazy now do you? I thought not.
9. Jay Webb. The first time I ever went to Centrifuge was July, 1982. I only took 8 kids and Jay was one of them. We were going to Ridgecrest Baptist Conference Center in North Carolina. It was night #1 and we were spending the night near Louisville in a Days Inn Motel. Carol McMahon (my sole female sponsor) and I had all of the kids at the pool. Jay decided to go to his room for something. He climbed out of the pool and ran through what appeared to be an opening into the hotel lobby. The opening turned out to be a very clean picture window. Jay was relatively unhurt. The window had a jr. high sized hole in it. Rather than being angry at Jay the motel was scared to death that he would sue and so they treated him like a king. In addition every female in the youth group babied him and showered him with attention for the next eight days. I hope Jay knows Jesus and gets to heaven. But if he does not... at least he can say he has been there once.
10. My Dog Bear. While Bear doesn't really qualify as a "people" I am granting him special status as a "homo-sapien emeritus." (This is my blog and I can do that.) I have looked and looked and looked and I just cannot find anybody smarter than Bear. He knows when to bark and he knows when to hide under his table. He knows where I am at all times (at least when I am at home and I think maybe when I am out someplace else too.) He knows when it is raining that he should not drink water because there is no way he is going out there in the backyard to "do his business." He opens the door to his "dog run" with his nose or his right paw. Her runs a lap around the backyard before going to the bathroom because he knows I'll be mad if I have to stand at the door waiting for his jog after relieving himself. Bear knows the difference between "Old Roy Doggie Biscuits" and every other kind. "Old Roy" is the best. He'll settle for peanut flavored but her prefers regular. He knows his chances of getting a milky bone improve dramatically if he brings me dirty laundry off of the kids floor when I am in the laundry room. At his best I have counted 3 bath towels, a pair of socks, and one shoe in his mouth at once. That alone makes him the smartest person I know. Most of the rest of us can only fit our own foot in our mouth. And then we wind up paying for it forever.

Well... I hope you feel better. I do. 9-11 does have to happen but it doesn't have to be horrible this time around. We commerate the good while grieving the bad. Oh... and one piece of advice... God doesn't call the qualified. He qualifies the called. That's you, my friend. So do something today to make it worth your while to breath. Who knows... maybe you can make my list of smartest people next time. Nah.

Yesterday she was little and she was getting plastic tubes put in her ears. For some reason her little Eustachian tubes retained fluid and it messed with her ability to hear properly. It gave her earaches. Little girls with earaches are very unhappy little girls. They are also very tearful little girls. The doctors were going to have to put her to sleep and that made it “surgery.” I don’t think she was even five. Five year olds should not have to have surgery. I remember holding her in the rocking chair and telling her all about what the doctor was going to do and what it would be like. She was a little bit afraid but not too much. She seemed to be at peace because she knew that I knew what was going to happen. And if it was ok with me then it was ok with her. We sat there that night and read, “Curious George Goes To The Hospital.” Old George sure got us through a lot of tight spots back in those days. I’m indebted to that little monkey.

I wonder if they have a book named, “Curious George Gets Left At Home While His Fiancée Goes To Martha’s Vineyard To Study For Three Months.” I am thinking that they probably do not. But if they did I would put her on my lap tonight and stoke her hair while I read it to her. I doubt that it would carry the same magical powers that it did so many years ago. But I would try. Oh how I would try.

In August of 1983 I got on a big bus and left with teenagers for Washington D.C. She was sad to see me go. And she was worried about me. I packed my bags and got on the bus and left her tearfully watching from her mother’s arms. That evening I opened my suitcase to find something to sleep in. Instead I found a small stuffed animal. It was her favorite one. She knew that I would be gone for a long, long, time as kid clocks go. It was important to her that I have something to love me while I was away. It worked. That little bear wasn’t more than a few feet away from me all week.

Now she is 21 years old. I am not at all sure how that happened seeing as how it’s only been a couple of years since that trip. But I lay the calendar next to her birth certificate and sure enough it’s been 18 years. Life is funny. Funny strange, not funny ha-ha.

Another man holds the keys to her heart tonight. I do not feel badly about that. He’s quite a guy. I’m in the middle of writing a marriage ceremony that I will speak over them in just 4 months and 5 days. When I give the word they will become a real life married couple. He will make her smile on that day. But today he is making her sad. And that makes me sad. The sun has always been a little brighter when she smiles. When she cries I too have seen the clouds and felt the storm. He is packing his bags and he is going away for a little while. A long, long, time as lovers clocks go. I would not be at all surprised if he finds a bear in his luggage when he arrives on the island. He might not understand but I’ll be happy to explain it to him.

What is a father to do when the kids move out of the reach of Curious George? What do you do when a surgeon cannot fix her ache? I think that in a case like that a father takes the next afternoon and evening off. I think that he forgets about work and responsibilities. It would be a little ridiculous to pick her up and rock her and read her stories. Instead he takes her to dinner and he talks to her like the adult she has become. He tells her that he is proud of her and of all that she is becoming. He tells her that it is a wonderful thing to slide into second place behind this new young man. But that is the only lie he tells her. He is speaking the truth when he tells her that his heart is filled with joy to see how happy she is. He is being honest when he talks about her future with this new gentleman and how bright it is. And he has zero regrets. You see, this is the day he has raised her for. He is seeing his dream come true. He does not want to turn time back. He does not want her to remain single and in his home. Life is too good and God’s gift of a mate is to enjoyable for her to miss!

And yet still… there is a strange sadness. A hole has developed in the father's heart and it is as empty as her room is about to become. Those walls are covered with posters and pictures, the emblem of a teenager turned adult. The walls of the hole are plastered with silent memories of gleeful moments gone by. A smart father will take the hole and make it bigger. He will stretch it and pull on it and tug it wide open. A smart father will make that hole wide enough for two people to fit into. It will hurt a bit at first. Stretching and pulling most always hurt. But when it is all done... when the stretching and pulling and tugging are enough... his little girl and her husband will both fit quite comfortable inside it. And then the pain will become the fullness of joy.

Hey, it’s called life and it happens. You do life or it does you. Good things often taste bitter-sweet. I have a small poster I purchased and stuck on my refrigerator door. It is a quote from John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester. John lived from 1647 until 1680. My math tells me he died at 33 years old. Three children will do that to a man. Anyway, the poster says, "Before I was married I had three theories about raising children. Now I have three children and no theories." Truth is often poetic.

Speaking of poetry, how is this one. For 3 months she will say goodnight to her Romeo over the phone. She will learn the secret of how precious love is and how important it is to savor every moment of your lover’s presence. He will learn the same things. And he will also learn that there isn’t another woman on the face of the planet that can hold a candle to the one God has given him. The tubes? They fell out. Curious George? He got stuffed into a box in the back of the closet. They were just construction materials I used in the creation of a work of art that would leave Rembrandt awestruck. She is the painting. This new young man… he is the frame. And together they will decorate the hall of my soul.

Debbie. Tammy. Reda. Butch. Judy. We did good.

I got mad today. Not just the kind of mad that makes you slam your fist on a table and then it passes. This was mad like... like I want to get in the face of the person that I was mad at and say things that ought not be said. I came very close to doing that. I went so far as to check the parking garage to see if his car was in its spot or if he had left. I am happy to report that he had. Otherwise I'd be confessing more tonight than anger un-acted upon. My "internal monologue" has already been reported missing and I'm 100% certain I would have unloaded on him. This particular "somebody" is a doctor. He is a young doctor. He is arrogant. He is cocky. For some reason I think we both know that we feel antagonistic toward each other. Neither of us have ever mentioned it verbally. But when he looks at me it is a condescending look. When he looks at my wife he looks at her like a patient. When he looks at me he looks like he wants to make sure that I know that he is better than I am. And you know what... I don't respond very well to that. He likes to tell me that he has an inordinate amount of pastors coming to him for treatment. I play psychologist with that bit of information and wonder if he believes that HE has to fix God's people because... well, because God can't or won't. Or maybe because God isn't there to fix anything. Grant it, I'm projecting those thoughts upon him but it sure looks accurate from this vantage point. However, this bit of writing is not about the doctor. I cannot fix his problems though I believe them to be quite deeply rooted. You see, he is a specialist in the human body. I am a specialist in the human soul. I know when I am physically sick and... until recently... I went to him for help. But what happens when your soul is sick and you don't know it? Like an untreated body it becomes sicker and sicker until eventually it is beyond help. It begins dying a slow death. You cannot live long with an increasingly sick body. You can linger for decades with an increasingly sick soul. The odd thing is, many people are dying a slow death of the soul without even knowing that they HAVE a soul. Go figure.

But here is the deal. I know I have a soul. I know I AM a soul. I go to great lengths to take care of it and to nurture it. I feed my soul on the Word of God. I cultivate my soul by interacting with God through the practice of prayer. I try to keep my soul healthy by not allowing it to stagnate. This is done by making sure I am pouring good things out of my soul as well as taking good things in to my soul. That is called "service" or "ministry." I don't know how many words I speak to God during the typical day but I am quite sure that I speak more to Him than I do to any single, living, breathing, human person. Me and God. We talk. And yet... my soul gets sick. I let a smirking doctor get under my skin and I lose my cool. I think thoughts I should not think. I leave the doctors office on my "Hardley" and I say things into the helmet that I would be embarrased for anybody else to hear. (By the way, did you know that inside of my helmet with the face mask down, I am quite the singer? No joke. I have heard myself do everything from Louie Armstrong to The Beatles to George Beverly Shea. I don't know why other people don't notice. Maybe you should consider sitting in front of me next Sunday during our worship time and just listening.) Here I am, a doctor of the soul, and I am ill myself. This, to me, proves something. The world is a sick, sick, place. Evil is real, strong, and present. I am infected with it. I do not like it but it is true. So what am I to do? The bible says that when my heart condemns me that I should remember that God is greater than my heart. (I John 3: 20.) So I suppose I am sick. Very sick indeed. But God's antidote... grace... is stronger than my sickness.

Recently I went to see this doctor because I had a sore throat and other weird symptoms. I had left him last year when I was REALLY sick because he was only making me worse. I went hunting and found an awesome medical man in West St. Louis county. He's helped me survive some really tough times. But I have occasionally gone to "Dr. Disdain" for simple things because he is close. He didn't do any test or check beyond using a tongue depressor and a stethescope. He decided that was enough to diagnose strep thoat and pneumonia. I took his anti-biotics like a good little trooper. After two rounds of pills I was cured. I "used" him. I knew he would give me "The Look" but I decided that was better than driving 100 miles round-trip. I'm going to be driving from now on.

What is the lesson here? The lesson is that we both lose. I lose because "Dr. Disgust" is probably a good doctor who just gets rubbed the wrong way by me for some reason. Conflicting personalities. But I can always find a new doctor. And I have. "Dr. Disturbed" loses because I really, really, love people. And I would have been delighted to do for him what he did for me. I would have loved to introduce him to the medicine for His soul. My loss will cost me about a half a day when I have to see a doctor. His loss.... well, it scares me to thnk of what his loss could cost him. The business of the soul is a very, very, serious business. I pray that one of his other pastor-patients will have the spiritual stamina to do what I could not/did not do. Jesus came not to heal the well. They do not have need of healing. He came to heal the sick. How can you seek healing if you don't know you are sick? This one is bigger than I am. God is going to have to be God today. I struck out at the plate.

My eyes had not fully opened this morning when I reached for the remote control. It rests quietly in the headboard of my bed each night while I snooze away my fatigue. There are three remotes to be found there. My fingers tell me that the small one is for the VCR. The long, thin one is for the stereo. The medium sized one with the fluted edges is the television. I seized it and pushed the big button on the top left. That is the power button. As usual channel 4 appeared first. That is because David Letterman is the last thing I watch before shutting down at night. I could hear... and dimly see... some lady giving the mornings traffic report. I don't care about traffic. There are 4 stop signs between my driveway and my office parking lot. They don't usually back-up with vehicles even in the fiercest of rush hours. I occasionally have to wait for a young mother getting her exercise and pushing a stroller to clear the intersection before I proceed. Once in a long while there will be a garbage truck making its rounds or a street sweeper cleaning up the gutters to slow my progress. But even on the worst of days it's a 53 second drive. Yes, I have timed it. I can do it in less on my motorcycle but only because I cut through my neighbors front yard. Tough to do that in my car.

But back to the point. My fingers silently make a tour of the channels in the morning. Without looking I punch in 02. If Glen Zimmerman is giving the weather I might open my eyes. I do not do mornings well. If I strain I can understand as he is telling me what the sky and temperature will be like today. But it is best if I do not try to audibly comprehend anything. Instead I squint at the screen and wait until he puts up that little graphic. Sometimes it has lightening shooting out of a cloud. On those days I move a little more slowly getting out of bed. Sometimes it shows flat, gray clouds. On those days I barely move at all. And if the numbers next to the picture exceed 100 I have been known to fall back into a coma. But if the graphic shows a big, blazing sun... oh baby! I'm going to open BOTH eyes. You see, I'm a visual person. I understand pictures before I understand words. The big blazing sun means that there is hope for the day! I would rather have a sunny day at 105 than a cloudy day at 72. I would rather have a sunny day at -20 than a cloudy day at 32. No joke. I really would. I am solar powered.

I have strayed from my point again. Glen Zimmerman was not on at the moment. There was a house fire somewhere and somebody was tragically dead. I sniffed the air. No hint of smoke. Ok, I'm not the dead guy. My fingers move on and punch in 05. If Katie Couric is speaking I automatically move the pillow out of the way and focus on the screen. Today it was that Matt Lauer fellow. I moved on to the next set of digits.

This is where the trouble began. I punched in 31. The Weather channel. MY weather channel. It was not there. I'm not sure but I think it was an infomercial or something. It just kept going and going and going. The moment when "weather on the 8's" should have been came and went twice with no sunny graphics.

I punched in 38. It was not a talking head. It was not FOX news. 29 was not CNN.

Uh oh. They did it again. It quickly became obvious that the e-stinken cable company had messed with all of the channels one more time. Everything was moved. I hate it when they do that. As I slid my weather-ignorant body out of bed I made a mental note to fire off an angry email to somebody somewhere. Who makes the decisons on these things anyway? It's not bad enough that I am going to have to re-learn all of their numbers and locations. Oh no, that is not the half of it. I am going to have to teach my MOM all of the new numbers and locations. This does not bode well for a holiday weekend.

Proof came later in the morning. The headlines screamed, "Charter Realigns Cable Networks." Man, how can they toy with my life like that? And what is worse... they don't even do it well! I mean, The Weather Channel is now on 45. What does 45 have to do with weather? I'll tell you what it has to do with weather... NOTHING. Anybody with a brain knows The Weather Channel should be on 32. That is the temperature at which you begin to worry about the roads. That is the temperature at which you wonder about school closings. The Weather Channel was designed with 32 in mind. But Charter can't figure that out. And now they have added Weatherscan Local on channel 99? Is this a mutiny? Do my hero's down at the Weather Channel know about this? I know there is a web site that is called "The Naked News." Naked people stand there and read you the news, weather, and sports. I really don't think anybody is listening. Looking... yes. Listening... no. I also don't think Dan Rather will be transferring over there. As distasteful as I find The Naked News, at least I understand it. I would tell you what channel it should be on but this is a "G" rated blog. Figure it out for yourself. Kid's, ask your mother. But I do not understand the need for two weather channels. Are we now having weather in stereo?

And how about The Food Network? Somebody tell me where it is now? I'll tell you where it should be. Common sense dictates that The Food Network should be on channel 8. Think about it, people! "Are you hungry?" you ask. "No. I am not hungry. I already 8." Isn't this a given?

And then there is ESPN. It's out there somewhere. It was on channel 33, I think. I don't know where in the world it landed on this day, August 29, 2002. But it should be on number 666. Or if there is not a 666, at least put it on 66. This time of the year ESPN is about baseball. Major League Baseball to be specific. And tomorrow Major League Baseball is going to go on strike. They are evil. They get channel 666, hands down.

How about Court TV? My mother is addicted to Court TV. Even she knows it should be on channel 11. Think about it. Drive over to the Madison County Jail. Look at the windows. What do you see? You see llllllllllllll. Those are bars. Big thick steel bars. Put two of them side by side and you have ll. There you have it. Channel 11.

There are other examples. Why in the world isn't The Golf Channel on channel 4? The Hallmark Channel should have the number posted in reverse as though it were on the back of the screen. Duh. Why is ABC-30 on channel 12? Don't they believe the network? I think I might consider putting the Trinity Network on channel 3. That might be where somebody would go looking for it. Here is a tough one... where does Nickelodeon belong? In my humble opinion the Women's Entertainment channel should be on 28 but I'll let you figure out why.

I could go on but I think you get my point. I do not think very well in the morning. I consume a small, 20oz. Vanilla Coke every day before 10am. At that moment my brain comes on. I'm not sure if it is the caffiene or the vanilla bean. It doesn't matter. It works. But before that I need my input to be simple. I need it to be clear. I need it to make sense. If you want to discuss the deeper issues of theology with me grab me between 10pm and 1am. I'm thinking my clearest at those hours. I am a youth pastor. This is the way God designed me. And Charter Cable is not helping. This must displease The Almighty greatly. I would certainly not want to be in their shoes after I have my quiet time and bring this to God's attention later tonight.

Ten Books That Changed My Life (The Bible Doesn't Count... It's A Given)
1-When Being Good Isn't Good Enough - Steve Brown
2-Adrenaline And Stress - Dr. Archibald Hart
3-Abba's Child - Brennan Manning
4-One Minute After You Die - Erwin Lutzer
5-The Serpant Of Paradise - Erwin Lutzer
6-Evidence That Demands A Verdict - Josh McDowell
7-Approaching God - Steve Brown
8-The Wounded Healer - Henri Nouwen
9-Christianity 101 - Dr. Gilbert Belezikian
10-Ruthless Trust - Brennan Manning
11-(a special added bonus) Rediscovering Church - Bill and lynn Hybles

Ten Things I Hate ...
1-Humidity/haze/clouds without rain
2-Mold
3-Flies in the room especially in the early morning
4-Paying for cable and still having to watch commercials
5-Peas (it makes me angry just seeing them on the table)
6-Sales tax
7-Throwing up
8-Lines
9-Stop lights
10-Underwear that shows on purpose

Ten Simple Things I Love To Do...
1-Mowing lawns on the riding mower I inherited from my dad. I feel him there.
2-Propping up on my bed with Tess (my laptop... short for "testosterone") and surfing/writing/reading
3-Watching Jeff Hicks eat Mexican
4-Seeing Bear show up in the laundry room with dirty clothes in his mouth because he knows I'm there and he wants to make a trade for a Milky Bone
5-Walking down the street alone in a strange city and realizing that no human being knows where I am at that moment
6-Play the same song over and over and over until I'm SURE I understand every little part of it
7-Talk to strangers and have them talk back... pleasantly
8-Go to Chicago and drive south on Lake Shore Drive from the Wrigley Field neighborhood to Soldier Field while playing "Running South On Lake Shore Drive" by "Aleuota, Haines, and Jeremiah"
9-Be at home.
10-Sit in silence and listen to Steve Browns "fog horn voice" tell me that everything is ok and that God still loves me no matter what

Ten Things I Really Want To Do Before I Die But I'm Afraid They Would Kill Me...

1-Ski the complete "Olympic Men's Downhill Run" at Snowbasin Utah (I've only done the bottom half) while keeping up with Mike Babcock
2-Sky dive into a stadium full of paramedics and er doctors
3-Drive a tractor trailer from coast to coast
4-Climb to the top of Sears Tower using the stairs
5-Build a tree house
6-Sleep in a "haunted house"
7-Have my own radio show
8-Learn to Tango
9-Shoot an M-16 and throw a hand grenade at an invisable enemy from behind a really big tree
10-Receive a letter from Adrain Rogers saying, "Great sermon Sunday. Mind if I use it?"

The trashcans grated across the concrete as I drug them down my driveway last Monday night. They had wheels on one side but it was dark and I obviously was pulling on the wrong handles. No matter. In just a few more feet I would have them resting on the grass and all ready for tomorrow mornings trash pick-up. The cans were full to overflowing. A variety of pizza carryout boxes tipped my neighbors off to my new “sausage and pepperoni diet.” The Rubber Maid cans had no lids. Early on in their careers the 6:00am remover of fine refuse decided that the lids had no business on his route. He evidently threw them into the back of his truck. They are beginning their 2,000-year process of decomposing and returning to mother earth in a landfill somewhere tonight. I have often wondered what possessed that guy to throw my lids out. A few years ago I tried to throw an entire garbage can away. It was nearly impossible. I left it empty next to the full cans hoping they would get the hint. They did not. The next week I spray painted “garbage” in big red letters on the can and left it at the curb again. Evidently it was not clear enough and the can remained on the lawn when I returned home at the end of the day. I waited another week. I spray painted the words “take this” before the word “garbage” and “can” after it. That ought to do it. Uh uh. The can stood its ground. I thought about sitting outside on the curb in a lawn chair the next week when the guru of garbage showed up but I wasn’t yet ready to sacrifice a couple of hours of sleep just to accomplish my purposes. I tried stomping on the can and leaving it for dead next to the good cans. Nothing doing. After about a month I gave up. I ushered the can to the church dumpster when I unceremoniously sent it to trash can heaven. For some reason perfectly good lids are garbage truck worthy but old trash cans must live forever. Must be a local ordinance.

My dog Bear, (better known as “The King of Canines, The Prince of Puppies, The Duke of Dogs”) walked with me on my bi-weekly excursion to the curb. Bear is my best friend. He behaves better than anybody I know. If obedience would get you into heaven, Bear would be the first one in the door. We started our walk back up the driveway together when I noticed that the front passenger window was open on our little green Neon. I opened the door. The dome light did not come on. As the owner of three (count ‘em… 3) Neon’s, I have learned a few things. Neon’s do whatever they want to do. They need neither rhyme nor reason. On this particular occasion the car just decided it was not worth the effort to light itself up for me. No matter. I reached down and began turning the crank. The window inched its way up. Bear sulked in disappointment. When I reached for the car door he immediately concluded we were going for a ride. Bear lives for car rides. He loves to stick his head out the window. He keeps his mouth closed but the wind rushes up his nose, fills his cheeks, and eventually his lips pop open to allow the air to escape. This happens once about every 10 seconds and every time it does, drool runs down the window. Bear doesn’t take many car rides anymore. As I looked through the darkness into the car I noticed that the drivers window was down too. Darn kids. So Bear and I walked around the car. I opened the driver’s door. Again, the car decided I would work in the dark and the dome light stayed dark. But this time, as I reached for the window crank, something hissed at me. Something dark… shadow-like… swiped at my hand, narrowly missing me. I pulled back quickly. Bear took my place. He shot into the open car door like the defender of the family that he is. I pay him perfectly good Milky Bones everyday of his life for moments like this one. I heard another hiss and then a thud as the shadowy object slammed against the far window. Bear lunged again and threw his head to the right. As he did another thud echoed from the rear window. Something inside was taking a serious licking at the jaws of my 79-pound puppy. As Bear began the climb over the seat toward the back window I suddenly got this image of the mess I was going to have to clean up if I let him finish the job. My heart was still pounding, wondering what demonic entity he was fighting. If it had blood coursing through its veins I would be scrubbing upholstery for weeks. I yelled at the top of my voice, “BEAR!” He froze. (I pay him Milky Bones to freeze too.) He looked at me and slowly backed out the door. I could tell he was not happy. As he got all four paws back on the pavement he gave me that, “Oh please, can I kill it” look. I decided quickly that my decision would depend upon that blasted dome light. I reached back and opened the back door of the car. Finally the car cooperated and it’s interior lit up, revealing a relatively small gray kitty cat. A very, haggard looking, small gray kitty cat. I left the doors open and Bear and I walked toward the house. I let him in and handed him two bonus Milky Bones, scratched him behind the ears, and pledged my undying love. By the time I got back outside the cat was gone and probably halfway to Litchfield.

I am certain there is a moral to this story. Probably several. “Don’t cheap out on Milky Bones” comes to mind. So does “keep your car windows closed when you are not in it.” And then there is the ever important, “The only good dome light is a working dome light.” All of those work. But here is the one I decided on. “If you want to live a happy, safe life… find a good dog. The bigger the better.” You know you have a good one when he looks at you like you single handedly are responsible for all of the joy in his world. Bear got sick recently and had to go to the doctor. My kids took him. On the way home they took him into PetCo and let him pick out his own rawhide chew. It is 3 feet long. No lie. The first time he walked through a doorway in our house with it in his mouth he hit the wall on both sides. So get yourself a dog that absolutely worships you. And make sure he goes with you when you take the trash out.

Ok, I could give you a deeper meaning, a theological lesson, for this little event. Call me up if you feel like you need one. But sometimes the simple is better than the profound. For Bear, life is about Milky Bones and me. For me, life is about relationships. And they don't come any better than ours.

She was blonde and she was beautiful and we sat together at Burger King 25 years ago today. She reached into her purse. The new diamond on her left hand ring finger caught the light and dazzled me once again. From her purse she pulled a small "card type" calender. The year was 1977. I was 22 years old and a full time theology student at Trinity Christian College. I also worked full time at Panduit Corporation near my home. I was a hated "inspector" on the evening shift. If I felt the product, nylon straps used to hold wires together on many objects including the space shuttle, was not up to par I had the authority to trash them. That invariably made the man running the machine angry because his pay was determined by his production. As you can imagine I didn't have many friends at Panduit. The beautiful blonde worked at a day care and was an education student at Prairie State Community College. She was way to pretty to hang out with me but she chose to anyway. As a matter-of-fact this beautiful blonde only had one flaw.... bad taste in men. You see, the reason she pulled that calender from her purse was so that we could choose a date for our wedding. We ate Whoppers and fries. We consumed Cokes. We made a decision that would alter the course of our lives forever. Three more months... November 19. We set the date.

She is still a beautiful blonde. She still has bad taste in men. She still loves Whoppers with extra ketchup. I hit a home run that day. She didn't do so great. But all in all... I would not change a thing.

I've got this buddy. He lives in suburban Denver. One of the nicest guys I've ever known. Smart. Good looking. He has a family that, by all appearances, could have fallen out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Two beautiful daughters and a wife that I call "Betty Crocker" for her cooking prowess, live in his house. Top it off with a yellow labrador retriever and it's a real "Hello, Ward. When will the Beaver be home?" atmosphere. He and I don't get to hang-out often enough. There is 900 miles of Kansas and it's cousins between his front porch and mine. But still we keep in touch. We email once or twice each week and occasionally I'll ring his phone up and see what's happening. It use to be, when we lived closer together, that our conversations would revolve around important things like.... golf. Jobs. Going out to dinner with our wives. But now that we have aged a bit and we have tasted of the frailty of life our discussions, whether e-d, phoned, or in person, have taken on a new hue. We have become more concerned with pleasing God and honoring Him with our actions and words. It is not like we were heathens and did not love God and desire to honor Him before, but it is different now. It is like we have given up on chasing the things that we previously thought might be worth chasing. Somehow we have realized that nothing temporary counts. At all. The lesson has been painful for both of us but I have confidence it will serve us well in the long run.

My friend revealed to me in an email this morning that his oldest daughter left for her sophomore year at college yesterday. Betty Crocker drove her down. He is left at home with their youngest, attending to her needs and keeping a major American corporation happy. There was a sadness in his brief email. It is a sadness that I understand. We are both watching cars drive away more and more often these days. Late summer and early fall are the worst. Oh man. I use to love this time of year. The kids get new notebooks and pencils and we get our lives back. It's all different now though. Instead of buying them rulers and erasers we buy them computers and meal tickets. When school starts we use to send them to bed earlier. Now we send them to places like Waco, Greenville, or West St. Louis County. I feel my friends pain. Everything has changed and we have to find our joy in the new seasons of life. I think that is why guys like us sometimes discover a renewed passion for knowing God. We've begun to realize how short life is and that when this "sneeze in eternity" is over... what else is there? I'm putting ALL of my eggs in God's basket, and I know that my friend is as well. I'm going by faith on the claims that it's a pretty cool basket to be in. I preach it and teach it but i can't see it. And then 12+ hour days make me into someone i don't want to be and if you string many of those together just call we "Saskwatch" and point me to the forests. But I'm rambling. It is Monday and I'm just going to sit and stare at the Weather Channel for a couple of hours. it's all the excitement i can take. but i'm praying for my friend from my side of the great prairie. I am praying for ours kids that are increasingly venturing out from the "home bases" that we have built around them. I'm praying for Betty Crocker and her long, lonely drive home. We need her safe. The future of Italian Beef is at stake. And I'm praying for that cold front moving in from the upper mid-west.

A great American Icon died yesterday. In the words of Reuters News Agency;

"SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - "Steady" Ed Headrick, the California inventor who figured out a way to make the Frisbee fly fast and straight, has died at the age of 78. His family said his ashes will be made into Frisbees. Headrick died in his sleep early Monday at his home in La Selva Beach, California, his son Ken told the Santa Cruz Sentinel on Tuesday. While no services are now planned, Headrick's ashes will be molded into a limited number of "memorial flying discs" that will be distributed to family and friends, and sold to help fund a future Frisbee/disc golf history and memorabilia museum, his son, Ken Headrick, said."

How cool is that? I absolutely LOVE this idea! Good old "Steady Ed" gave his life figuring out how to make Frisbee's fly fast and straight. And, by golly, he got the job done. And because of his exuberant efforts children, youth, and adults the world over have enjoyed countless hours of flipping the disc back and forth across green summer lawns. What better way to be remembered than by actually becoming that which you spent your life inventing and perfecting!

Hmmm. Wait a second. Now THAT is a thought. Let us run with that idea for a moment. I have a friend who is a pipe fitter. I wonder if, upon his passing, he would like to be fashioned into an 8 foot length of 3/4 inch plastic pvc-person laced piping? We could screw him onto Lock and Dam #26 when they need a replacement part. He tells me his wife calls him "That dam Mark." Why not make it official? And then I have this other buddy, Bill, who works in an auto parts store. I have always thought that he looks a little bit like a tail pipe. Now he can BE one! I have a friend who co-owns a paint factory. They paint bridges and other industrial sites. Let's mix old Kenny into a few 5 gallon cans and let him really paint the town!

And then there is me. I think I know what I want to be. I'm a youth pastor. I'm a children's pastor. I'm an associate pastor. I would never be so presumptious as to be shaped into a bible. I suppose I could have myself cast into a pulpit maybe. That way I could continue to "take a stand." I think it would be cool to be an offering plate or a Lord's Supper cup. I considered becoming an "exit" sign. People always seem in a hurry to get the service over with and leave so I figure I'd be popular in my new job. Actually any of those things would work. But I think I have it beat. I want to be cremated when I die and I want to become a pew. That way I don't have to get up when anyone comes in. I can hold up the service for as long as I want. And if I can be a front row pew I won't have to put up with... well... pew. You know. People will only come to me when they want to know Jesus or get closer to Him. The other pews get all of the riff-raff and fakers. I can finally leave the "wannabee's" behind me. (catch the word picture.) So there ya, go. A pew it is. Front and center. The one the clock is stuck to. The one the pastor spits on. Ahhh.... pastor spit. Some things just never get out of your blood.

"M-T." When I was in college those letters meant that a particular class met on Monday's and Thursday's. On a map, if you remove the dash, it stands for "Montana." If you are driving across America it means "mountain time." But today those letters represent what I feel like at the end of a Wednesday. Good old "hump day." It has 24 hours, just like every other day. One sunrise. One high noon. One sunset. It is just that there is so much more packed between them. Sometimes I wonder why God doesn't provide some kind of exemption for fatigue when you pooped out trying to do right. In the mid to late 1970's I worked in a couple of factories. It put bread on my newly wed table and paid the rent and tuition. Anybody who does that kind of work knows what you have to put up with to do it. They can be hot beds of rude and crude conversation. Some days I would go home feeling more dirty from what I had heard and seen than from what I had done. But I knew I had earned the fatigue. My last semester of college I took 18 hours of classes. I wanted to get done. That's a tough load. I also worked full time as a youth minister. On top of that I drove a school bus morning and evening. Oh, did I mention that Debbie was also pregnant with Scott that fall? At the end of each day I was tired and I knew why. But somehow, as I have gotten older, as my job descriptions have changed, I don't really understand how I get so tired. I never loved college. I pretty much hated factory work. But I knew that I had to do those things if I would ever be able to do what I do today... minister to people in the name of Jesus in an "all day/full time" kind of way. And I knew that God had told me that was what He wanted me to do. So I did it. And now I do what I love. I spend the day either sharing God's love with people, planning how I am going to share God's love with people, or brainstorming about how my church can do a better job of sharing God's love with people. All in all it is pretty fulfilling. So why in the world am I so tired at the end of a Wednesday? Why do I feel so M-T after Sunday comes to a conclusion? Hey, I'm not whining. This is how I WANT to spend my life. I just don't understand. Last year was pretty tough. It's less tough this year but still, sometimes, I get that old taste of 2001 in my mouth. And I don't like it one bit. God and I both know I am a long way from perfect. We both see plenty of room for improvement. Anybody who watches me (or worse yet, LISTENS to me,) for just a few minutes knows I have a long way to go to really "be Jesus" to other people. But I am trying. Really I am. I just somehow have this thought in my head that at the end of a day like this one I should feel good. I should feel satisfaction. But more and more often I think about all that still needs to be done and I feel M-T. How is it that you can feel the presence of God without feeling the filling of God? How can you feel His smile and still feel drained? I can't answer that one. If I ever figure it out I promise not to write a book about it. I think I would feel guilty charging for information that important. I'll just email it too everybody on my list. Those who ruthlessly delete it.... serves 'em right.

I plopped down in my new mega-chair, allowing my bones to sink gently into its depths. I kicked my shoes and socks off and allowed my new "fuzzy buddy" to caress my weary feet. Ahhhhh… nothing like it after a long day at work. The air conditioners have been humming but nothing has yet cooled the air in my helmet as I "roar" the 4 blocks back and forth to work on my huge Honda. My hand flops over the side of the chair and, oddly enough, comes to rest on the remote control. Hmm. Must be a sign from God. As I press the "Power" button ESPN comes into view. Talking heads are telling me about last night's baseball games. What they are not telling me is why I should care. I gave up on baseball after Bud Selig declared the All-Star game a tie. Not enough pitchers. "You paid $175 for a ticket? Too bad. You got 11 innings and you should be happy." This is the same mentality that says "Go to Tony's and order up a full-scale Pepper-Loin. Cut it with your fork. Place it tenderly in your mouth. Chew it slowly and savor its flavor… its juices… the cutting edge of the pepper… and then spit it into your napkin. Hey, you got your taste. You now know what the steak is all about. Swallowing… well, that just isn't necessary." Sorry, Bud. I declare the season a tie. Everybody finishes in last place. I do not care anymore. Maybe next year. We'll see.

But back to our story. My fingers go on "remote" themselves and press in those peaceful digits… "31." Ahhh… channel 31. Here is a place my brain can rest. Here is information at my fingertips. With a simple "31" keyed into my remote control I can have instant peace. Here I will find a neatly dressed young adult telling me that it is now 106 in Phoenix. It is raining in Seattle. The water temperature in Lake Superior off the beaches of Duluth is… well, it's way too chilly to go swimming. You see, channel 31, better known as "The Weather Channel", tells me that all is right with the world. It is summer in St. Louis and everyone is whining about the heat. These are the same people that whined about the cold last January. There is no pleasing them. Come on, people. Choose. As for me, I take winter. Give me a good sweat shirt over a tank top any day. I don't want to wear sandals. Why expose my toes to the world when I can wear my Timberland STOMPING boots? Summer means sweat. Winter means cuddling. 'Nuff said.

Did you know that the hail in Montana yesterday was the size of marbles? Though that is decent sized hail it would not impress the woman that I met during a thunderstorm in the Missouri bootheel a couple of years ago. I had been driving behind her as the rain began. The clouds ... ugly green clouds... swirled eerily in the sky above us. The rain came in sheets and then the "ping" of hail began beating against my van windows. After a mile or so the car in front of me swerved crazily and darted down an entrance ramp into a conveniently placed rest area. No other cars were around and I had noticed as she passed me earlier that the driver was a lone female. I made the split second decision to follow her onto the ramp. She didn't bother pulling into a designated parking area. Instead she pulled to the side of the ramp. I pulled around her and stopped in front of her car. I didn't want to frighten her by appearing to sneak up from behind. The storm was blowing furiously as she got out and ran to her trunk. She opened it and disappeared from my view. I got out to see if she was ok and saw quickly what the problem was. There was a hole in her windshield bigger than a baseball. I asked her if she was ok. For a second I thought she was crying but I decided it was probably just the rain, which still pounded down upon us. She said yes as she grabbed a cloth and ran to her front seat. I watched her try to plug the hole in a vain effort to keep the rain out. That was when I saw it. The hailstone sat in the middle of her front seat. Wow. After she did the temporary repair job as best she could I waited with her inside the rest area until the storm passed. A cleaning attendant said that a tornado had been reported in the area and we felt fortunate to be off of the road. After the rain eased I left, knowing that a repair truck was on its way. So I guess that there is a lesson here. When it comes to hail, size matters. Little hail... like marbles... is no big deal. Big hail... like baseballs... big deal.

I remembered that event today as I read the story of Jesus talking to His disciples about faith. He was trying to get across to them that they really didn't need much faith. A little would do. As a matter-of-fact, if they only had faith the size of a mustard seed they could move mountains. I don't see many mustard seeds laying around in my neighborhood. I'm not even sure how one goes about growing a mustard plant. Or is it a mustard vine? Or maybe a mustard tree? But I did come across a mustard seed once and it's not much to see. My girlfriend turned wife wore one as a part of a necklace when we were dating. Pretty plain necklace. Pretty unimpressive. I think that was the point. When it comes to most things in life... size matters. But when it comes to faith... size just doesn't come in to play. Faith simply has to exist to be potent. Faith is like the little pill that I take every morning to make my blood pressure behave. It's smaller than an asprin and yet it saves my life on a regular basis.

And now I feel kind of bad about myself. If it only takes a pinch of faith to move a mountain... why do I continue to travel around them? Why don't I whip out my mustard seed and put it to work? Why should I have to move? Shouldn't it be the mountain that moves? Oh, don't get me wrong... I've sent some foothills packing. And once or twice I've slipped and actually gathered up enough faith to actually make a decent sized mountain step aside. But MOVE completely out of the way? Never. Not once.

So anyway, I think I am cursed. I come home tired, turn on the weather channel, and wind-up dealing with the issue of faith. How unfair is that? That's the thing about God. No matter what you do... He's there. And He usually wants a word with you. Oh wait... I think that means I'm blessed. And how pathetic am I when I often can't tell whether I'm blessed or cursed? Pretty pathetic, I would imagine. Fortunately God doesn't think so. He's just waiting... patiently waiting... seeding the clouds of my faith. Man... I sure would love to give him a hunk of faith the size of a baseball.

Tonight I wrote the most beautiful blog. It even brought my dog, Bear, to tears. I was near to posting and publishing it... just some finishing touches to be done. I noticed my wife drifting off to sleep and so I put my laptop (the lovely Tess) down in order to pray with her. It seemed like the right thing to do. While I was praying... somebody picked up the phone. I was immediately booted off-line. 45 minutes of work vanished in some fiber-optic cable somewhere under an unknown street near the east coast. I wonder if this ever happened to Rembrandt.