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Today is our Chemo Date Day. While Joni and I spend our day at the Slow Drip Spa I am posting a gently read post from the past. Today’s flashback talks about a study on grumpiness. I don’t mean to scare you but apparently the grumpy contagion spreads quickly from person to person. But there is hope for a cure…

 

Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down…

Who knew that salty comedian George Carlin was on the cutting edge of scientific research when he made that observation about ways to stay young. A recent story by Knight Ridder writer Eric Adler in the Kansas City Star reports that a growing body of psychological research is bearing out the power one individual’s mood can have on others.

That’s right, my friends. Grumpy people are contagious!

“It is one of the most robust phenomena I have ever seen,” said University of New Hampshire researcher Richard Saavedra. “And it’s all unconscious.”

Adler reported that in May, Purdue University psychologists presented their findings at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association. Janice Kelly and Jennifer Spoor took 43 pairs of undergraduates and asked them to complete a task. One was designated the leader, the other the subordinate. The leaders were shown movie clips, this time of the “choice” scene in “Sophie’s Choice” or a scene from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Bad moods ruled again, with negative proving much more contagious than positive. In the March issue of The Journal of Applied Psychology, Saavedra and colleague Thomas Sy at California State University at Long Beach examined the effects of a leader’s mood on a group. The results were consistent. Research shows that being exposed to someone cheery makes you cheery, but not as much as being exposed to a spiritless grump makes you depressed.

So how do we avoid catching the grumpy virus?

“In general, the key is awareness,” said Sy of Cal State. “The most insidious aspect of a negative mood is that, often, it infects you unconsciously. If you realize, ‘This person is depressed. I’m catching his mood. That is why I’m depressed,’ you can manipulate it. You can control it.”

For Christians it is critical for the sake of the Gospel to build up immunity to the grumpy virus. Joe Aldrich, our pastor when we lived in Southern California many years ago, wrote these words.  “The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians–when they are somber and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths.”

What a surprise that the owner’s manual recognized the contagious nature of emotions. The word joy appears in the NIV translation of the Bible over 200 times and joyful another 16 times. Quite a surprise for a world that has come to believe (because of us) the words of writer H. L. Mencken when he defined Evangelical Christianity as the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. How did we as followers of Christ get that reputation? We didn’t learn it from our Father in Heaven. Just a sampling of verses on joy and being joyful would be good medicine when the first symptoms of grumpiness appear.

But may the righteous be glad
       and rejoice before God;
       may they be happy and joyful.   Psalm 68

yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.  Habakkuk 3:18

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.  Romans 12:12

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.   1 Thessalonians 5:16

Eric Adler finished his piece with this bit of encouragement. “Spirit-sapping Negative Nellies are powerful, yes. But research out of Stanford University and elsewhere also suggests that the moods of people who feel their emotions intensely — whatever they may be — are also highly contagious.”

We are all contagious – good or bad. Why not make a choice today to spread the virus of cheer. I saw a church sign that said it pretty well.

If you have the joy of the Lord in your heart be sure to tell your face.

Amen.

I am willing to confess that my life does not always demonstrate intellectual depth. Before a recent baseball telecast my fellow production crew mates and I engaged in a spirited debate over how many vegetables should be included in the vegetable medley for it to truly be a medley. The consensus was that at least four veggies could qualify but that was borderline. The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary was not all that helpful as they defined medley as a “diverse assortment or mixture”. Perhaps they had a heated debate as well around the old lunchroom before deciding on their elusive and safe definition of medley. So as I proceed into today’s musing medley I only promise a diverse mixture. I hope there are no blog versions of lima beans in this mix for you.

• Dallas becomes butt of national jokes by trying to cover butts

The Dallas Morning News has been covering what appears to be a serious debate over banning men from wearing their pants too low. That’s right ladies and gentlemen…things are so good in Big D that we can now focus on what is apparently one of our biggest problems. Saggin’. Seriously, can there be a bigger problem facing Dallas? For those not as hip as me the definition of sag in the Urban Dictionary is to wear one’s trousers lower than the intended waist line, hence the back of the trousers “sag”.  

Dallas school trustee Ron Price recommended the ban at Wednesday’s council meeting, following through on a plan he announced Tuesday. Mr. Price wants the city to create an ordinance to allow police to cite people who wear their pants too low. “Too low,” he said, allows too much underwear to show. “We have a problem in our city,” Mr. Price said. He ran a slogan by the council that he’s given to the initiative: “Pull it up, or pay up.”

Shouldn’t that be pull “them” up? The other pronoun seems dangerously ambiguous.

Council member Bill Blaydes said some people simply allow too much sag. “It’s … very fast approaching lewdness, and there are laws against it,” Mr. Blaydes said. “To ignore it any further, I think, is going to be a problem throughout this city.” But not all council members agreed. “I agree with Ron Price that it’s disconcerting,” Ed Oakley said after the meeting. “But how do you legislate that? How do you have a dress code on a public street? I don’t know if you can without crossing the line on freedom of expression.”

My take on this? If we can expand the jurisdiction of the clothing police I might be on board. For example, why should young men be ticketed for “saggin” when old guys are free to go “pittin” (pulling their pants up to the armpits)? How about some of the egregious Spandex violations by both sexes? In an earlier post I mentioned that men in tank tops should be outlawed…especially if you look like Fozzie Bear.

How about old people trying to look young and young people trying to look old? I think we should outlaw both when the fashion police hit the streets. Fashion enforcement would seem like a good idea until I get arrested for wearing my holy (actual holes, not religious) Cleveland Browns t-shirt in public.

To solve this drooping drawers problem I have dipped into my nearly 3 decades of parental experience. I am convinced we can stop saggin’ without any legislation or police involvement. If we, the middle-aged and saggy, agree to start wearing our pants to reveal our ancient boxers and briefs then the young men will hitch up their pants immediately. Nothing makes cool disappear quicker than the uncool joining in. So let’s do our part to stop this trend. The movie “Oh Brother, Where art Thou?” featured the Soggy Bottom Boys. Now we can reverse a disturbing trend by forming a defiant group of aging saggers…the Saggy Bottom Boys. You go first.

• A tragedy on so many levels

The Dallas Morning News also reported the sentencing phase of the trial of Pastor Terry Hornbuckle. This is a devastatingly sad story.

Pastor Terry Hornbuckle’s gospel of prosperity finally took away both his ministry and his freedom, state District Judge Scott Wisch said Monday.  After the pastor was sentenced by a Tarrant County jury to 15 years in prison for sexually assaulting three women, Judge Wisch said the pastor’s fall from grace shows the danger of abandoning Christian self-sacrifice for self-gratification.

“You manipulated … [religion] for the worst possible purpose,” he said.

Mr. Hornbuckle’s Agape Christian Fellowship church was known for its emphasis on financial success, and he bragged about his celebrity friends and influential contacts. Eventually, that turned into drug use, womanizing and rape.

My heart aches for the victims of this man’s sin, for his family, for his church, and for those who were wounded by him. And my heart aches for him. He had a chance to do Kingdom work but instead he did damage. What a tragedy. I visited the church website and looked at Mr.Hornbuckle’s three beautiful children and I thought about the impact on them. The wages of sin are so ugly. There are no winners in this story. The victims face a difficult journey to healing. The sad consequences of sin should make all of us shudder.

Oddly the statement from a district judge sums it up quite well. We all tempt a fall from grace when we forget that this journey is about self-sacrifice for Jesus and not self-gratification. Pray for all involved in this sad story.

• Me thinks thou dost protest poorly

One of my biggest blogging frustrations is the person who does not read the context of a statement and especially those who lack the humor gene. I think both may have entered into a little exchange in the Religion section of the Dallas Morning News recently. The notes column ran a piece about Jessica Simpson doing a version of “Amazing Grace” at a club in Los Angeles. Here is an excerpt from the article.

You wouldn’t know it to watch her bump and grind on MTV, but Richardson’s own Jessica Simpson is the daughter of a former Baptist minister.

The preternaturally platinum singer may have been returning to her roots last week when, at a Los Angeles dance club, she gave an impromptu performance of three songs from her soon-to-be-released CD, capped by an a cappella rendition of “Amazing Grace.” Her appearance was captured by at least one amateur videographer. Normally, we’re happy to tell our readers how to find such things on the Web, but in this case, our love of that old hymn simply won’t allow it.

Not everything can be forgiven.

I read that and chuckled at the obviously tongue in cheek comment about forgiveness set up by the previous sentence. I found the video at YouTube.com and I understand why the writers love of that wonderful hymn kept him from linking the performance. The writers comment about not everything can be forgiven was clearly a joke. Cue up the angry letter writers. I will not use their names because the point is not to embarrass them personally but to make a larger point.

The level of spiritual immaturity and mean-spiritedness exhibited by whoever wrote the item demeaning Jessica Simpson is lamentable. I would hasten to assure Ms. Simpson that not everyone who bears the name and sign of Jesus is quite so priggish and self-righteous. Jessica Simpson is welcome to come and worship with us on any Sunday. We would be glad to join right in with her in singing “Amazing Grace”!   From a pastor in East Texas

Never begin a letter to dispute someone’s viewpoint by questioning their spiritual maturity. I often get letters from people that start out with “I don’t know how someone who calls themselves a Christian can say that (whatever). It is very difficult to answer that person with a gentle spirit. But I try. Feel free to gracefully disagree. I am not interested in your evaluation of my spiritual condition. And I read the same article and didn’t get a whiff of mean-spiritedness. Would you welcome Roseanne Barr to sing the National Anthem in your church? The comparison is pretty close in the presentation. And as for welcoming Jessica to sing at the church…you may want to require a choir robe. I must commend the outstanding use of “priggish“ in a sentence. Nicely done!

Next letter please…

The exercise of your editorial rights in the last sentence – “Not everything can be forgiven” – must have been done without research or thought. The Bible states in many places that God will forgive. Without forgiveness, there is no hope. And without hope, there is no future. Please remember that we are living in trying times, and people are searching for forgiveness. 
From Tom writing from my own town

A lovely statement but that is not the point of the article. The writer was simply saying that she carved up Amazing Grace. I am sure the religion writer knew that theologically everything can be forgiven (except blasphemy of the Holy Spirit for the spiritual hall monitors). It was a tongue in cheek comment on how badly she butchered this wonderful hymn. I seriously doubt that anyone lost hope over this smart aleck comment.

Others wrote in to argue that Jessica could be forgiven. Great point if that was what the article had actually said. Here are my pointers for effective communication when you disagree with a blogger/writer.

1. Do not start out by insulting or questioning the writer’s salvation. It is possible to disagree on an issue and both of us are genuinely trying to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.
   
2. Do not use ALL-CAPS to emphasize certain words. This is rude and you are insuating that the recipient is too STUPID to pick up key words unless you HIGHLIGHT them. If you believe the person you are writing to is that stupid…why bother? He or she will be too stupid to understand your excellent point.
   
3. Thoroughly read the entire article and context. I often make a statement early that I later demonstrate to be not true or not what I believe. But the spiritual hall monitors read something, smoke begins to emanate from their nostrils, and the next thing I know I have an email assigning my eternal destiny.
   
4. Be courteous. I may very well be wrong. I often am. A gentle rebuke may help me in my ministry and walk with Jesus. Calling me a false prophet who will burn in hell will generally not lead to careful consideration of your arguement.
   
5. Read other material from the author. You may disagree with me on one issue but realize we agree on many others. Then you can simply pray for my misguided views on the one I disagree with you.

I chuckled when I got this guestbook post from Keith a few days ago.

 I agree with some of your statements, and am not sure about others. I will keep with your site until I decide it no longer instructs me or makes me think.

I am not sure about some of my own statements Keith so we are kindred spirits there. I hope you find enough here to stick around for awhile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life is what happens to you when you are making other plans. That quote came to us from John Lennon. Tragically he learned that death also happens to you when you are making other plans. One mad gun man ended the life of the gifted musician. Today I learned of the death of a colleaque and friend in the television business. The truth of James is rocking my world today. “You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.” (NASB) May I challenge you today to consider those words?

Jay Stinnett was a very talented camera operator. We have shared many laughs and covered a lot of bad baseball together over the years. He lived in Milwaukee and he often worked games with me at Comiskey Park in Chicago and County Stadium in Milwaukee. Both of those stadiums are gone and now my friend Jay is gone too after a tragic accident late last week. Unlike the song, not all rainy days and Mondays get me down. But this one does.

How do you reconcile the death of a 48 year man who loved his family and his friends? I have been knee deep in the mortality of my fellow human beings recently. My dear friend Trisha died in early January. Another television associate died unexpectedly in February. And now Jay Stinnett will no longer be lighting up dreary baseball games with his smile. That is what I remember most about Jay. That wonderful smile. And he was a pretty darn good camera operator as well. But we rarely talked about camera coverage and production. We talked about family and kids and life. And now he is gone. I had no idea that when I saw him a few weeks ago at Ameriquest Field in Arlington that I would not see him again on this earth.

Yesterday 50 souls boarded a plane for a routine flight to Atlanta. Forty-nine will never have a chance to see loved ones again. Even in the midst of Joni’s cancer journey I still take so much for granted. What does the tenuous nature of life mean to me? When we face the reality of our mortality how then should we live? I am trying by faith to live like Paul and Peter and John and the rest of the early followers of Christ. With an air of expectancy that tomorrow (or the rest of today) is not guaranteed. To live with a sense of priority and passion about what really matters. Do you have someone that you want to tell that you love them? Tell them now. Is there a relationship that needs repairing? Repair it now. Someone that you know you have to forgive? Please forgive them now by faith and the enabling power of the Holy Spirit. Still angry with a parent or sibling? Deal with it now. Have you slipped away from God for some reason? Come back now. And if you don’t know Jesus please ask Him to be real in your life.

What if I told you that you have exactly one week to live? Write down what you would do and what you would say in those precious seven days. And then start doing those things now. I know that not every recipient of such communications are receptive or even civil. But at the end of the day we are accountable before a Holy God only for our actions. They are accountable for theirs. Do the right thing and trust the rest to Jesus. In the time frame of eternity all of us will be going home very soon.

Part of the great comfort I felt when my Father died two years ago was knowing that everything that I wanted to say to him had been said. I believe that if something happened to me before I get to write another word that my sons would have that same peace. They know they are loved by me and I know I am loved by them. They know how proud I am of them as men and as followers of Jesus.

I wish you health and blessings. But my fervent prayer is that you will examine your readiness to peacefully leave this planet. I pray you will have the courage to say what you want to say and need to say. Make peace with those you feel a lack of peace with in your soul. What a wonderful way to prepare to meet your Savior face to face. Paul’s words to the church at Colosse offer a few thoughts on getting ready.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.   Colossians 3  NIV

Satchel Paige was a great pitcher and a wise man. He said that we should all  “work like you don’t need the money, love like you’ve never been hurt, and dance like no one is watching.” How different would our Christian lives be if we could trust God enough to love others like we’ve never been hurt? I wrote a blog earlier this year about what matters in life called The Good Stuff.  Here is an excerpt from that piece.

Every day is a treasure. Every day that you can look into the eyes of those you love is a gift. Jesus knew what the good stuff was all about. He wasn’t a cosmic killjoy trying to keep us from pleasure. Jesus taught us what mattered.

• What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?   Luke 9  NIV

Loving your family. Having friends who will be there when things are rough. Knowing that you and those you love have a relationship with the living God. In the case of my friend Jay…knowing that you were respected, loved, admired, and that you will leave a hole that can never be completely filled. That’s the good stuff. Don’t let the world tell you otherwise.

If you wish to help a memorial fund has been established in Jay’s name and may be made out to:

The Jay Stinnett Memorial Fund
North Shore Bank
2465 Lineville Road, Suite 2
Green Bay WI 543l3

 

I have heard the phrase dog days of summer all of my life. But I never to stopped to research the exact calendar slotting of those days. According to factmonster.com, dog days is the name for the most sultry period of summer, from about July 3 to Aug. 11. Named in early times by observers in countries bordering the Mediterranean, the period was reckoned as extending from 20 days before to 20 days after the conjunction of Sirius (the dog star) and the sun.

So dog days are officially over. However, since it is still over 100 degrees here in Texas, I am declaring at this site that dog days have been extended until further notice. I thought about dog days as I watched Miss Hannah stretch out lazily on the tile floor.

                                             

This is our lab/something else mix Hannah and this is not a posed photo. At any given time around our household Hannah will come waltzing up with the three tennis balls in her big mouth, download them one by one onto your lap, and wait patiently for playtime.

Regular readers of these ramblings know that I love dogs. One of my most popular articles took a rather fanciful look at how “man’s best friend” could teach Christians a lot about evangelism. I was heartened and bit surprised at the level of response to that article (Canine School of Evangelism). Apparently there are a lot of dog lovers embedded into the Evangelical community and that gives me hope for the church!

I have learned a lot from living and loving our family dogs. But the star canine of my two books was the late, great Charlie. Our beloved Golden Retriever died last year at the ripe old canine age of 14. Here Hannah snuggles up next to Charlie.

                                                    

A couple of days ago I wrote a post about feeling really , really old.  In that blog I wrote about the depressing news that Barbara Eden (I Dream of Jeannie) was 72! I remembered how Jeannie always called Major Nelson “master” in that show. And it brought to mind an earlier post of one of the most important lessons I learned from old Charlie. This excerpt from“Bring’em Back Alive” documents an experience I had with our senior dog citizen. Charlie’s reaction to me in this story gave me a little hint of how our relationship with the Good Shepherd Jesus should work. 

The lesson I learned from my Golden Retriever came when Charlie suffered a health crisis. He developed a large benign tumor under his front leg that made walking difficult. We took him in for what would be a rather serious surgery at the ripe old canine age of twelve. The vet did a masterful job in removing the growth and taking care of Charlie. We were called to the animal hospital to pick up the old guy. We waited as they brought him out. He shuffled slowly out and I was taken aback by his appearance. Charlie was trembling, frightened and appeared to be in some pain. His head was down and his perpetual motion tail was strangely still. He seemed confused and disoriented. Then I walked over to Charlie and simply touched him. Almost immediately he quit trembling and he made a valiant attempt to wag his tail. We carefully got him into the car and took Charlie home to heal.

As I reflected on that scene it struck me that Charlie’s reaction to my touch and mere presence was a wonderful illustration of how Jesus comforts (or desires to comfort) His sheep. When I (his master) touched Charlie he was comforted. His pain was not gone. He was still frightened. He was still a bit disoriented and unsure. Charlie’s circumstances hadn’t really changed at all. But he knew that his master was there and that made it better. What a picture that is of how the touch of Jesus enables us to respond when we are frightened, in pain, disoriented and confused. We need to remind ourselves that Jesus never promised that all trouble would vanish when we believe in Him. Jesus did promise that He would be there and that would be enough. But the tough question arises…do we truly believe that?

My prayer for myself and for you today is that we will seek, realize, and be comforted by the touch of the Master. As I learned with Charlie, it doesn’t really matter what the circumstance might be, it is the knowledge that the Master is there that makes all the difference.

I got to use that lesson just over 30 days later when Joni was diagnosed with breast cancer. Suddenly Paul’s honest pleadings written to the church at Corinth took on new meaning when God said to him;

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

When the trial comes, be still, and feel the touch of the Master. It is there. And it is real.

Today is our Chemo Date Day. While Joni and I spend our day at the Slow Drip Spa I am posting a gently read post from the past. Christmas apparently is almost here based on the number of holiday catalogs arriving daily. It is an interesting phenomenon to burn your fingers on a mailbox superheated by 100 plus degree Texas days and pull out a catalog with models frolicking in the snow. With the Christmas shopping season looming it seemed appropriate to revisit the topic of regifting.

I suppose that most writers perceive themselves as wordsmiths. But most of us merely arrange previously coined words. What a thrill it must be to actually create a word and see it become a part of the lexicon. The Seinfeld television show was known for inventing new words and phrases that are now in common usage. I was reminded of that this week when I read a survey about the phenomenon of regifting. Regift is a verb and means “to give an unwanted gift to someone else; to give as a gift something one previously received as a gift.” (dictionary.com) That term, as well as the noun regifter, were first used in a Seinfeld episode from 1995 called The Label Maker. Seinfeldians will recall this dialogue…

George: The wedding is off.  Now you can go to the Super Bowl.
Jerry: I can’t call Tim Whatley and ask for the tickets back.
George: You just gave them to him two days ago, he’s gotta give you a grace period.
Jerry: Are you even vaguely familiar with the concept of giving? There’s no grace period.
George: Well, didn’t he regift the label maker?
Jerry: Possibly.
George: Well, if he can regift, why can’t you degift?
Jerry: You may have a point.
George: I have a point, I have a point.

Trust me,  before this is over I hope to have a point, I hope to have a point. Knight-Ridder Newspapers reported that nearly 60 percent of us receive unwanted gifts over the Christmas season and half of us admit to regifting. That is the percentage that will admit to the practice. The study was commissioned by eBay and they found that more women than men admit to regifting (59 percent vs 45 percent). A number of questions arise. Are women just more honest? Are men too thoughtless to even regift? Is it because the average bad man gift (i.e. Billy the Singing Bass) is just too tacky to even regift? According to the survey the top regifting items were knickknacks and pampering products so that might explain the lower masculine percentile. I wouldn’t admit that I regifted pampering products even under duress.

But for Christians the concept of regifting is noble and even encouraged because the gifts we have received are not unwanted. For example, we have received the gift of hope in Jesus. Hope makes a lovely gift to share with a world that is very short of that commodity.

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. Ephesian 1  NIV

How about regifting those who feel guilty and downcast with the concept of the grace that you have received as a free gift? Twenty times Paul refers to grace in his letter to the Roman Church. Grace is such a liberating gift for a wounded world. We don’t have to live as a slave to sin anymore.

For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.  Roman 5 NIV

This amazing and unmerited gift of grace is a message that we have not done a very good job of telling…or of gifting to one another.

All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down.  All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life–a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.    Romans 5 The Message

Aggressive forgiveness. I love that phrase! That is what grace is all about. Philip Yancey gave me the knowledge of this gift through his wonderful book What’s Amazing about Grace?. I was raised in a church where we wouldn’t have recognized grace if it bit us on our hindquarters. So this has been a life changing gift for me. I want to regift everyone I know with this message.

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.   Romans 3  NIV

Package up a little hope and grace and feel free to regift others. Who needs more pampering products when you can share gifts like these?

So I am sitting in my home this morning minding my own business, reading the Dallas Morning News, and I get clotheslined by a small note in the GuideLive section. There it is at the top of page 5G…

Birthdays….Barbara Eden, 72.

Are you kidding me? Jeannie is 72? How old do I feel today! I was twelve when I Dream of Jeannie appeared in stunning black and white on our Sylvania TV. I don’t like to brag but our television featured the “halo light” innovation. The halo light was a fluorescent light which surrounded the picture tube in order to provide, well, I have no idea why it was there but we had one and no one else on our block did! A little research time did reveal the answer to the mystery of the halo light. The website tvlamps.net  gave me my answer.

TV lamps originated from a perceived need to diffuse the contrast between the brightness of the television screen and the comparative darkness of the surrounding environment. Concerns of permanent eye damage were taken quite seriously, and industry stepped up to tackle this modern problem. The solution would come in the form of ambient (surrounding) light, heralded as the savior of eyes everywhere. And so it went, as the 1950s saw the advent of the Sylvania Halo Light television. This nifty bit of ingenuity consisted of a fluorescent bulb that cast a “halo” of light around the screen, surrounding the picture with ambient light. Sounding somehow familiar, this technology was called “Surround Lighting”. The Halo Light ads, usually featuring a lovely lass in a golden dress, made it clear that this new discovery was a must-have: “You’ll see the difference instantly! Pictures framed in exciting HALOLIGHT appear larger, sharper and clearer!”

Courtesy www.tvlamps.net

So the Halolight was the TV version of parental obsession with eyesight in the 60’s. That was why Ralphie couldn’t have a Red Ryder BB Gun in A Christmas Story.  The dreaded parental trump card of “you’ll put your eye out” haunted the hero of that Christmas classic. I am not sure that the Halolight delivered on its’ promises to save our vision but I do remember sitting in the mysterious aura of its’ fluorescent glow watching Barbara Eden as Jeannie. The show debuted in 1965 with astronaut Tony Nelson’s (played by Larry Hagman) one man space capsule landing on a deserted island. There he finds the genie bottle (which was actually a 1964 Jim Beam whiskey decanter) and out comes Jeannie after being imprisoned in that whiskey bottle for years (sounds like a country song). The madcap hijinks (officially endorsed entertainment descriptive words) continued for five seasons.

    Courtesy of www.photobucket.com

I felt nostalgic and very, very old when I read that Barbara Eden is 72. I felt even older when one website described her as a “retrobabe”. This is the woman that I had an adolescent crush for in 1965. I also remember that the show was controversial in the mid-60’s because of Jeannie’s costume. The original costume showed a glimpse of her navel and that caused an uproar among parents. Apparently it was okay for a single woman to wear a harem suit and live with a single man but it wasn’t okay to show her navel. Ahhh yes…the confused mores of the sixties. But the thing I remember other than the harem costume was Jeannie’s subservient devotion to Major Nelson. She called him “master” and lived to do his every bidding. I used to dream…wouldn’t it be great to have a relationship like that?

Fast forward forty-one years and my answer is now a resounding no. How my views on relationships have changed. When I shifted from I Dream of Jeannie to I Dream of Joni my ideas about what love looks like changed. I did somehow marry a beautiful woman. But I thank God that Joni has not been a subservient wife who does my every bidding. She has loved me when I was unlovable. At times I am sure it was only faith and commitment from that fateful day in 1976 that allowed her to love me. Because of that commitment she loves me enough to challenge me. No one (other than Jesus) knows me better than Joni. And the fact that both of them still love me is a miracle of grace that astounds me even as I ponder it.

Like nearly every Christian couple in the 70’s we had 1 Corinthians 13 read at our wedding (we did pass on the Carpenter’s We’ve Only Just Begun). We did not, tragically, pass on the baby blue “Dumb and Dumber” tuxes that were popular then. But I embarrassingly digress. Most of us have heard and read the “love chapter” so many times that we are almost desensitized to the power of Paul’s words written to the church at Corinth. That church had, in today’s parlance, issues. One of their big issues was sexual immorality. So Paul was defining what Christian love looks like in relationship. Slow down, pour another cup of coffee (aka Chrisitan speed) and ponder each word.

     Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

    Love will last forever, but prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will all disappear. Now we know only a little, and even the gift of prophecy reveals little! But when the end comes, these special gifts will all disappear.

     It’s like this: When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child does. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now.

     There are three things that will endure–faith, hope, and love–and the greatest of these is love.  NLT

I love my bride more today than I did thirty years ago. When I was a child I dreamed of Jeannie. Now I am so thankful that I am slowly, agonizingly putting away childish things and learning how to really love my wife. Emphasis on slowly. Now I dream of spending many more years with Joni. That is not guaranteed. But I believe that I will have that privilege. I approach the rest of our years together with faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a brake company in the Dallas area that runs radio commercials featuring a very concerned and extraordinarily helpful employee explaining why a female caller needs to get her car in right away to save money and to be sure she is safe. They are even willing to stay later to make sure her car is safe. Impressed, she asks the question, “why do you do it?” And then the jingle singers let us know why. Because they really do care. That ad is for Just Brakes and I have no reason to doubt that they really do care. Someone asked me the other day a similar question about my almost daily blogs. “Why do you write a blog everyday?” The tone was incredulous. Why do you do it? Since I don’t have jingle singers I will have to write out my answer to a question that proved more complex than it seemed at first blush.

I describe blogging as ego journaling. There are a few dedicated and beleaguered readers of these humble ramblings that regularly visit to be occasionally blessed or mildly entertained. And I have to admit that I love that feedback and affirmation. But that is not enough of a reason to get up every morning and spend the time required to write daily posts to this blog.

A practical reason is that blogging has driven book sales a bit. Visitors to the Crosswalk.com blog often bounce over to the mother ship (the cleverly named daveburchett.com) and they will sometimes take a chance on buying one of my books. But that has not proven lucrative enough to justify the time spent.

I believe the real reason I have become so committed to these daily ramblings is purely selfish. The very public nature of blogging forces me to evaluate myself as a follower of Christ everyday I write. I would be a hypocrite of record proportions if I wrote about Jesus and never turned that focus on my own life. I rather like the forced accountability of being on the record. Several irate readers roundly criticized me when I called a Christian leader to task for behavior that reflected poorly on the name of Jesus. “How would you like to have people judging you like that?”,  several wrote smugly as if they had played the trump card of logic. My answer is I would like that very much. If my behavior in any way damages the name of Jesus I want to be accountable. I need to be accountable. If I do damage I want to have people who love me enough to tell me I am going astray. Very few people are looking for perfect, sinless Christians. But I have found a lot of people who are looking for authentic followers of Jesus. They are desperately looking for Christians who love others, admit their mistakes, accept the mistakes of others, are hopeful when hope isn’t in abundance, and joyful when circumstances don’t merit that response. I have often said that one authentic Christian can offset dozens, and maybe hundreds, of bad Christians. That is want I want to be as I grow in my faith. An authentic follower of Jesus. Honest about my many failures. Quick to repent and repair when I do fail. Grateful for every blessing and good thing that comes my way. Trusting of a God who has proved loving and faithful when bad things come along. I am not there yet.

The blogging helps me to daily examine how I am doing in that pursuit. Just like x-rays at various stages provide a basis to examine the progress of healing I can examine earlier posts to see how I am growing or regressing in my journey with Jesus. And that may be the main reason I blog. I can look back over the archives and see how God is working in my life. That is why I would encourage every reader of these humble ramblings to consider journaling (if you are modest) or blogging (if you are like me and my buddy Ray Pritchard). I look back in amazement at how the Holy Spirit was working in my heart before Joni was diagnosed with cancer. I had written a number of posts about troubles. For example, I wrote about life being hazardous and our faith does not guarantee no trouble will come our way. At the time I had no idea why that topic was on my radar. Now I realized how God was preparing me for the trial that was just over the horizon. I have followed how God has worked in our lives from Diagnosis Day to this point in the cancer journey. And I can read and be reminded how He has been faithful over and over in this trial.

Why do I blog? I am grateful that some of you apparently enjoy these daily posts. But I blog because it reminds me of how God is moving in the life of one Bad Christian.