We don't write papers, we build scrapbooks
We don't write papers, we build scrapbooks
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Sometimes, someone unexpected comes into your life out of nowhere, makes your heart race, and changes you forever. We call those people cops. There’s a story out there that says the following letter was sent to President Andrew Jackson from New York State Governor Martin Van Buren. January 31, 1829 Dear President Jackson: The canal system of this country is being threatened by the spread of a new form of transportation known as ‘railroads.’ The federal government must preserve the canals for t...
Finding that silver lining … Following are my journal entries from March 23-26. Day 1: For the next three days I’m on a reconnaissance mission to get my wife and mother in law out of Florida. They won’t fly because of the coronavirus so it’s gotta be a ground attack. We’re avoiding any human contact on this trip, since said mother in law is in the high risk category should she catch the virus. I preached a sermon today on why we need to pray and I gave the congregation an assignment and a pra...
“Work Work Work” I got the rototiller out the other day and tilled the garden. It sat in the machine shed all winter, but still started on the second pull. It’s one of those tines in back tiller. You can hold on to it with one hand and walk beside it while it tills so as not to leave footprints in the freshly churned soil. (Spoiler alert: it’s not always that simple but it looks good in the magazine advertisements). My wife was out there last week on that 70 degree day getting her seeds in the...
“Worry Free” The great theologian Charlie Brown had this to say about worry: “I’ve developed a new philosophy, I only dread one day at a time.” So we’re stuck in this coronavirus shutdown and I think the mindset has shifted from curiosity, (what’s this all about); to fear (what is this invisible pandemic? And I hope I don’t get it!); and now to worry (what does this all mean to me and my family? How are we going to pay our bills if we lose our jobs)? And farmers have to dump their milk beca...
“What Are You Hoping For?” As our nation and the rest of the world is engrossed in this coronavirus epidemic, I’d like to offer perspective, encouragement and hope. We don’t know what the final outcome of this will be - this is something most of us have never experienced. And even though 99 point something percent of people who’ve contracted the virus will recover from it, there is still mounting fear. The implications of this are frightening to people because it’s taken life out of their contro...
Today I’m going to continue on the theme of overcoming the Fear Factor. I think there is more fear and uncertainty out there now than there was even last week. People are genuinely scared. We faced a brand new dilemma this week when the authorities limited us to group meetings of ten people or less. So instead of regular church, we are temporarily moving to online services, where we will stream live at 8:00 and 10:30 a.m. on Sunday. I have recommended that our church family and friends gather in...
Fear and Panic The world is a mess. I don’t have to tell you. There’s pandemic panic, there’s financial turbulence with the stock market, people are still digging through the rubble in Tennessee - everyone it seems, is dealing with loss. If you have been reading the headlines the past few days, you may have wondered whether the world is coming to an end: “Stock Market Bloodbath”; “Anxiety grips companies across the world as virus spreads”; “Italy extends its quarantine to the entire country...
And it came to pass. There’s a guy in our church who says his favorite line in the Bible is: “And it came to pass.” He said it reminds him that whatever he is going through in life, it too shall pass. Nothing lasts forever. On the wall of my high school biology room, the teacher, Mr. Taylor, had a sign hanging just under the clock that read: “Time will pass. Will you?” Fortunately, the answer is yes, yes I did - at least most of the time! Well, this is the first week with the clocks moved ahe...
There is a young man in our congregation who is in the military and was deployed to Afghanistan. We decided we were going to send him a care package from home a couple times a month. A family in our church volunteered to be in charge and every week people brought in tasty treats and other items which were then sent overseas to our serviceman. He was gone for several months. Upon his return to the states, he arrived at his home early on a Sunday morning. He came to church a few hours later and...
There was a new preacher in town in need of a lawn mower. Someone in his congregation heard about it and brought him over one that was well used. When it came time to cut the grass, the preacher got the mower out and attempted to get it started. When he was unable to do so, he got on the phone and called the guy who gave it to him and explained his dilemma. “Oh,” the guy said, “I forgot to tell you that if you can’t get it going right away you have to cuss at it while you’re pulling the rope....
A couple of years ago while shirt shopping I stumbled across a pair of shoes that were on sale. I don’t really like shopping so when I absolutely have to go, I try to get it all done at once so I won’t have to do it again for a few years. I wasn’t really looking for new shoes, but the sale on these was too good to pass up so I bought a pair. I took them home and promptly put them in the closet and completely forgot about them. My old shoes were just fine. It took a long time to break them in to...
By now the Super Bowl is ancient history as is the hysteria around it. I hope it’s not too late to comment on it one last time - but - here goes. Going on my own instincts and observations, it seems this year’s Super Bowl generated more attention than those in the recent past. For the record, I was rooting for the Kansas City Chiefs. I like the Chiefs because: 1) They are a midwest team. I’m from the midwest. 2) Their head coach is not only a former Green Bay Packer coach, but from what I read...
(Forgive me if I’ve told this one before) … But … one dark night outside a small town in the midwest, a fire started inside the local chemical plant, and in a blink of an eye it exploded into massive flames. The alarm went out to all the fire departments for miles around. When the volunteer firefighters appeared on the scene, the chemical company president rushed to the fire chief and said, “All of our secret formulas are in the vault in the center of the plant. They must be saved. I will gi...
Well here we are in the last few days of January already. Perhaps the winter blues have set in. The mornings are still dark and night comes way too early. It’s too soon to predict what kind of winter we’ll have because it’s not even February yet. It’s a long way to spring. One doesn’t want to wish his days away, it’s just that sometimes this time of year, we begin to count the days until spring arrives. It might be a little early to be saying this, but they say after you see the first robin in t...
Computers, smart phones, smart TV’s, smart thermostats, smart doorbells, smart alecs, and now smart houses - how do us dumb people keep up with all the smart techonology these days? Now they even have smart mirrors that talk back to you. “Mirror, mirror on the wall…” is not just a fantasy anymore. I remember when our parents didn’t know how to set the time on their VCR’s. I’d go to their house and it would continuously be blinking: “12:00” “12:00” “12:00”. Every time we had a power surge, we...
We should all swap problems; everyone knows how to solve the other guy's. You know, every now and then in a person’s lifetime, someone comes along who really leaves an impression on you. I met an interesting man this week. He is 76 years and builds tract houses in Mariana, Florida. This is his third career enterprize. He grew up on a farm in Florida, then when he was 24 years old he moved to Richland Center, Wisconsin where he was a dairy farmer. Eleven years later he moved back to Florida a...
Happy 2020! A new year, a new decade, and great eyesight. Remember when Y2K was the big scare? Our computers were going to shut down. We weren’t going to be able to bank or buy gas or groceries. Our electricity was going to stop flowing. Certain people I knew stocked up on all kinds of supplies - even golf cart batteries because that was going to be their electrical supply until the rest of the world came back on the grid. Well that was 20 years ago - 7,305 days - each lived one day at a time. I...
An elderly widow decided it was too much trouble to get all of her kids and grandkids’ Christmas presents, so she decided to send them a check with a card. A few days after she mailed all the cards, she discovered she forgot to include the checks in the cards. Imagine all those kids opening a card from grandma with a note inside that says, “Buy your own presents.” Recently, I was reading an article that said all the traditional Christmas movies have the real meaning of Christmas veiled in the s...
Ready or not, Christmas is upon us. It came fast this year. I have a friend who vacations in Jamaica at Christmas time. One year he told the Jamaicans it was 20 below back in Wisconsin. Their reply: “Below what?” Speaking of cold - Last Sunday we had five people get baptized at our church. I had filled the baptism tank the night before and turned the heater on “high”. The next morning when I arrived at church, the water was a little on the warm side so I turned the heater off expecting it to c...
This is a shout out to the Lena-Winslow football team. It’s amazing how you just keep on winning and winning. Another Thanksgiving, another championship. We have people in our church from the Le-Win district and we have people in our church from the Black Hawk school district in Wisconsin. Black Hawk also won the state football championship last week. We are about three tenths of a mile north of the Illinois border in Wisconsin. If it wasn’t for the huge “Welcome to Illinois” sign on the bor...
Don’t worry. Eat happy. What makes Thanksgiving great? Well, besides the history of the holiday, and the food - just about everything. As a kid growing up and working on a farm, our number one goal was to have the crops in by Thanksgiving. That is still the goal for most farmers today. But more important than that, Thanksgiving was the culmination of a year of teamwork as a family working diligently together to accomplish great things. Things such as setting goals to get a certain amount of w...
So here we are - kind of in the middle of nowhere. We had snow before Halloween this year, which meant my family was making Christmas plans very early. There’s something about snow that puts the romanticism into Christmas (for some people). Since we were already planning for Christmas, I suggested to my wife that I bring the pumpkins in from where she had strategically placed them on either side of the driveway and along the sidewalk, back when the grass was green and the leaves were still on t...
It’s always darkest just before the dawn. Have you noticed how dark it is in the morning just before the sun comes up? It’s always like that this time of the year. This has nothing to do with the time change, but everything to do with the rotation of the earth in respect to the sun and moon. When the earth rotates around to the dark side of the moon, it’s impossible to see anything. That piddly little flashlight on my smartphone doesn’t come close to being adequate when trying to find my way aro...
Snow is magical. (Or so I’ve been told). We’ve come a long way, baby. That was the theme for a billboard advertisement a few years ago. I think it had to do with women’s suffrage. But it really is true of just about everything, except maybe politics. In my family I’m known for my good memory. (Don’t tell them, but they should know that some things outlive their usefulness). I can remember the first and last name of a person I had a passing conversation with 40 years ago, but try as I might, I...
It’s all about the candy. I’ve read in the news where some schools in California, Illinois, New Jersey, and Vermont are cancelling Halloween celebrations and parades. Their argument is that some families don’t want to celebrate or participate. That’s fine. They don’t have to, but why ruin the day for everyone else? There are way too many kill joys in the world. Halloween hasn’t changed much over the years. It’s always been a sweet, festive, holiday even though it’s not a real holiday. As a k...
