When I was in junior high, I was an easy target. I was small for my age and I was too scared to fight back. So, an easy target. Nothing serious mind you. Just minor things like hitting me over the head with tennis rackets during PE or clipping an alligator clip (or as the brave young man who accomplished this amazing feat would refer to it, a roach clip) to the middle of my back just where I could not reach it, while everyone laughed at my distress. Continue reading
Deception
I cannot even begin to tell you how many times I have been chosen by an international banker or an heiress to some large fortune to launder money. They just need to get the money to the United States and for my assistance they’ll let me keep five million dollars. Continue reading
Respect of Property
When I was living in the Netherlands a friend of mine asked me to help him pick up a Mercedes for a friend. My friend asked if I wanted to drive the Mercedes. Heck yeah! As a twenty-one year old I didn’t even calculate the risk of driving someone else’s very expensive car in unfamiliar territory. Continue reading
Community Works
Years ago, my brother-in-law was walking between two parked cars in a parking lot. A dog lurched at him from one of the cars and tore up his forearm. The dog’s owner, thankfully unsuccessfully, tried to accuse him of taunting the dog. Continue reading
Enforced Consequences
What are your thoughts concerning punishment? Our society doesn’t seem to like the word. There is this thought out there that if you punish a person, you will only succeed in making them sneakier. In other words, they will continue to perform the negative behavior, but they will do so in a way that avoids detection. Maybe. But if there is no punishment, they will continue the behavior openly. Awhile back, my wife was struck by a student while she was working in a school. This young man faced no punishment. Continue reading
Protecting the Powerless
All men are created equal! Really? If we mean by this that all men will have equal rights and opportunity, then the statement is patently false in every country. There are the wealthy and the poor; you have bosses and employees; there are the powerful and the marginalized. Continue reading
Altars of Dirt
In the movie “Indian Jones and the Last Crusade” Indiana is searching for the holy grail; the cup that Jesus took up at the Last Supper. Drinking from this cup is said to heal all wounds and provide, if not eternal, then prolonged, life. I know that the physical cup can do nothing. It is Jesus who heals all wounds and gives life. You know, just in case you were unsure of my understanding the difference between Bible and Indiana Jones. Continue reading
Loving People Well
The other day, I watched the movie “Mommie Dearest” on TV. This movie claims to be an accurate account of the actress Joan Crawford. If the movie is accurate, Joan did not love well. She was completely self absorbed; everything orbited around her and her career. For reasons unknown she adopted a little girl named Christina. Christina could do nothing right. In one of many intense scenes, after Crawford was dropped by a movie studio, she comes unglued because Christina hung her dresses on metal hangers. Continue reading
Loving God Well
Love has rules. It is something we can gage. We can look into the life of a person and say, “That person loves well,” or “That person flopped in love.” Love is not happenstance; a luck of the draw; a chance meeting in a crowded room. God loves you. He did not fall in love with you. He sees all of you and decides to love you. And he asks that you love him right back. And he is kind of persnickety (a word that in this context means particular); he wants you to love him well. He has even laid down rules for loving him. Continue reading
Awesome Awesomeness
I know that I have asked the question already in this series of articles, but sometimes repetition is necessary for our health, so here we go again; How do you view God? Is he like George Burns, a little old man smoking on a cigar and cracking jokes? Is he more like Morgan Freeman, a ultra calm and cool God who relinquishes his power over to a human to teach him what it means to be God? Is God awesome? Continue reading