Have you ever driven your car when the “low fuel” light came on? I have. Certain feelings start showing up. I become stressed. My palms become sweaty. Tension rises like a thermometer on a hot, sultry, August afternoon. I worry. If my bride Nancy is riding in the passenger seat, all those emotions are multiplied […]
Do you remember your first love? You probably weren’t sure about what was happening, just that you felt attracted to him/her. I bet sometimes your attempts to express those feelings were probably pretty awkward. Such was the case with my first “crush.” Her name was Jenny. She sat in all of my 7th-grade classes that […]
As I was writing this blog, I tried to remember if I had ever been in an actual, literal desert. Then, I recalled the time I visited The Holy Land many years ago. Our air-conditioned tour bus drove us to and through several desert areas: The Negev, The Judean Desert, and The Desert of Zin. […]
I vividly remember the sinking feeling I got in my stomach when my high school teacher cleared her throat at the beginning of the class and said, “Please take out a blank sheet of paper for a pop quiz.” That stressful feeling came from the fact that I wasn’t forewarned, therefore I wasn’t prepared. […]
In just eighteen days from now, July 12th, my bride Nancy and I will be celebrating our Golden Wedding Anniversary. Wow! Almost fifty years have passed since we both said, “I do.” I was only 18, she was 22. We were wed at the First United Methodist Church, 201 Mulberry Street, Bristol, PA at […]
I am a successful failure. Does that sound like an oxymoron? In my nearly 69 years of life I have experienced many successes, and close to as many failures. I became pretty savvy mechanically in working on cars as a young man, but not until after enduring several failures. For example, there was the time […]
It begins on the playground when we stand among the leftovers when teams are chosen. I remember as a young boy in the late fifties when the jocks in the neighborhood were choosing teams for a game of sandlot baseball. I have vivid memories of what it felt like to be the last man chosen. […]
Nancy and I entered into fulltime pastoral ministry when I was 29 years of age. We were appointed to our first church on August 10, 1980. It was a struggling congregation of 18 primarily elderly people in an old building that needed a lot of TLC. We were blessed to enjoy 10 fruitful years there […]
You have searched me, LORD, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. –Psalm 139:1-3 We live in a very voyeuristic culture. Almost everyone carries a phone with […]
I used to enjoy listening to Paul Harvey on the radio. His distinct voice, wit and wisdom made him a media star. On top of all that, he was simply a good man. He had a tag line that he repeated often during his broadcasts. It went, “And now, the rest of the story…” I […]