Category Archives: Food for Thought

Editorials, Food for Thought, theology

The Angel

angel 02Matthew didn’t identify him – just “an angel.”

Matthew said that this angel rolled back the mill-stone door of the tomb of Jesus and was sitting on it when the two Mary’s arrived.  Luke said that Joanna was there too.  They came expecting to have the awful task of putting aromatic spices on a body already beginning to decay – a measure of the love that they had for this dead one.

The Roman guards that were supposed to be guarding the door of the tomb were dumbstruck by the angel’s presence.  Who wouldn’t be?  A giant mill stone moved about like a marble.  An angel sitting on the door like he was taking a coffee break.  The people who were supposed to insure against anything fishy were lying in a stupporous heap against the tomb. Continue reading The Angel →

Editorials, Food for Thought, People

What do you want?

Our daughter thought that going to private school was going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread.

She painted a good picture of how hard life was at her junior high school. She begged and pleaded to make the switch, as soon as possible.

When the new school year came, she had not changed her mind, so we kept our promise to transfer her to the private school of her dreams. At mid-year in the private school, amid tears, she begged to go back to her old school. Life was not as ethereal as she had dreamed, and she hated the private school.

Continue reading What do you want? →

Editorials, Food for Thought, Leadership

Five Reasons for Integrity

new-york-times-best-seller-list-imageThe internet lit up recently with story after story about a Seattle pastor who used over $200,000 of his megachurch’s money to buy his way on to the New York Times best seller list. It’s bad enough for any author to attempt such a deceit, but it’s more painful when it’s a person making claims about representing Jesus. The criticisms of such behaviors get “enhanced” much like the prison sentence of a person using a gun for a crime or belonging to a criminal street gang. Continue reading Five Reasons for Integrity →

Editorials, Food for Thought, Life in general, theology

Pay your bills, or else!

Forgiveness 01The story is too awful to consider.

A rich man decided to call in the debts of a slave who was so buried by them he couldn’t pay them back in even 10 lifetimes.  Yet in a twisted sense of justice the master says, “Pay your bills or else.”

“Or else I will sell you, your wife, your little children and all of your possessions in order to recover some of what you owe me.”  Presumably this would be the end of their life as a family, and the slave could only imagine what terrible things were in store for his pathetic little family. Continue reading Pay your bills, or else! →

Editorials, Food for Thought, Life in general, sermons

The F-word

The f-wordGrowing up in a straight-laced family had its benefits:  conscientious parents, good enduring friends, hospitality, stability, and protective morality.  Hard work and integrity were DNA-like in their influence.  The thought of disappointing others was as compelling as the fear of going to Hell.

But the same things that functioned as a moral compass could also morph into something ugly.  Call it legalism or self-righteousness, it is the tendency to become superficial in regard to the big, nuclear virtues like love, compassion, and faithfulness.  Jesus called it “straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.” Continue reading The F-word →

Editorials, Food for Thought, Life in general, theology

It is what it is.

AttorneyOur free society provides for equal access to trial by jury for every citizen of our country.  It’s one of the ways we preserve individual freedoms and insure that a dictatorial, arbitrary form of government does not take over.

Courts are anal about assembling juries that are as fair as possible.  Potential jurors are asked various iterations of “Do you think you can render an objective verdict?”  The ones that say “no” or that the court perceives to have too many external, prejudicial influences are excused. Continue reading It is what it is. →

Editorials, Food for Thought, Leadership, Life in general, People, service

We want to sit at the head table.

1 Comment

Power 03“You let people walk all over you.”  A friend recounted how an advice-giver told him to “get a spine.”  Seemed like good advice.  Being everyone’s doormat is not a good thing.

Although…  Power is funny because it doesn’t always give what it promises to its possessor.   Continue reading We want to sit at the head table. →