Tag Archives: LifeSpring

Editorials, Food for Thought, Life in general, sermons

The Responsibility of Influence

InfluenceThe young adult was walking through a local store wearing a t-shirt with a simple message – “Not a Role Model.” No other images, just the words standing out in bold type on his chest.

It wasn’t too long ago that NBA great, Charles Barkley made that phrase popular.  Barkley was known for his inappropriate behavior including on and off-court fights, breaking a man’s nose during a fight after a game with the Milwaukee Bucks, throwing a man through a plate-glass window after being struck with a glass of ice, and mistakenly spitting on a young girl in March 1991. Continue reading The Responsibility of Influence →

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

We want to sit at the head table.

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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. →

Editorials, Food for Thought, Life in general, service

The Apprentice

Old School HouseBefore a teacher left his village on a long trip he entrusted his two best apprentices with the responsibility of insuring that progress in education continued in the small community.  The village had rudimentary needs, and there was much work to be done in the teacher’s absence.

The first apprentice was meticulous in his lesson preparations and in doing things exactly as the teacher did them.  Rules were strictly enforced.  Lesson books were carefully followed.  Lunch was always served at exactly the same hour.  The apprentice left for the day precisely 10 minutes after the students left.  He was keenly aware of the exact obligations of the job. Continue reading The Apprentice →

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

Tapping the Brakes

Traffic JamThe highway traffic began to slow down.  Sixty-five was the speed limit, but when it hit fifty-five and then forty-five it was obvious that something had happened up ahead.  The curves and elevation changes of the road prevented seeing the cause, but everyone thought that it must be a bad wreck.

Forty.  Thirty.  Twenty.  Stop.  Nothing but tail lights and short tempers three lanes deep. Continue reading Tapping the Brakes →

Editorials, Food for Thought, Life in general

Treated Like Used Gum

Gum Stuck to ShoeChewing gum stuck to the shoe or under a chair once occupied a person’s mouth.  And, the more that other pieces of gum congregate with it the more noxious it becomes.  Like at the Pike Place Gum Wall in Seattle.

A used Kleenex blowing down the street on a windy day should only be touched with the edges of one’s fingernails, certainly not with the skin of the fingers.  Who knows what was blown into the absorbent sheet. Continue reading Treated Like Used Gum →

Editorials, Food for Thought

Compassion and the Leper

Pune Beggar

In an ancient middle eastern village a leper took up his usual place. He sat on his tattered carpet with a tin cup waiting for whatever would clink from the passersby of his little world. He stayed there from dawn to dusk, no matter what the weather. His meal that night would depend on what he received for the day.

A self-righteous person had a noticeably unpleasant expression on his face as he looked at the leper. He walked this way often, and this wasn’t the first time he had seen the leper, sometimes saying under his breath, “Lazy bum; why don’t you get a job like the rest of us. If I was in your shoes, I’d find some kind of job, even becoming a slave.” Continue reading Compassion and the Leper →

Editorials, Food for Thought, People

I hate liver.

Yukky Expression 02I hate liver.  I can still smell the pungent odor that was created when my mother cooked liver and onions.  I can still remember trying to stifle the gag reflex it caused when my parents told me to “eat your dinner.”  I can still feel its awful texture in my mouth and taste the nasty, livery flavor.

In short, you could never tempt me to eat liver.  I’d have to be starving before I’d let it pass by my lips.

Continue reading I hate liver. →

Editorials, Food for Thought

Singing the Dark Psalms

The-Health-and-Wealth-GospelThe cover of the January 8, 2014 edition of Christian Century proclaimed, “Why We Need the Dark Psalms.”  In the cover article, writer Martin Tel reminds his readers of how the Western church has conveniently eliminated the dark psalms from its song repertoire in favor of happier psalms and hymns.

I have to admit that the Psalms are more representative of life than the hymnbook of the name-it-and-claim-it crowd on Sunday morning television.  As much as we’d like it to be otherwise, life is unfair, cruel, unpredictable, and ruthless. Continue reading Singing the Dark Psalms →

Editorials, Food for Thought, Life in general, sermons

No Pockets in a Shroud

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Shroud 02Job was a wealthy man, but in a course of quick and awful events he lost it all.  Everything — children, livestock, servants, and property.

Job’s response to the loss was to say, “I was born naked, and I will leave this world naked,” Job 1:21.  More modern versions of this saying are, “There are no pockets in a shroud,” or “There’s no U-Haul trailer behind a hearse.” Continue reading No Pockets in a Shroud →