Christmas, 1973.  The previous spring I had graduated from college and had started my first full-time job. I was working at a school for special needs kids In Santa Cruz, California, 500 miles from my parents’ home in San Diego. I’d keep the job for another 18 months, and so far it has been my only full-time job not on a church payroll. I am thankful for the time working in the real world. Thanksgiving weekend, 1973, I had purchased my first car, a 1966 Mercury Comet, 200 cu in straight six, three on the tree. Underpowered, the Comet got decent mileage, a good thing during those dreary months of the Arab Oil Embargo, double daylight saving time, and a newly imposed 55 MPH speed limit. Continue reading →

They don’t come very often. If they came often, there would be nothing unusual about them. We wouldn’t remember them for the rest of our lives. They are precious reminders, personal, that our lives have meaning, that there is something more than the daily, more than the stuff of getting by. The daily, the stuff of getting by, matters, too; it’s what we are called to do. But then one of them comes – I think from God – as an amazing gift.

Our lives matter. My life matters.

Last week I had some personal and professional work to do with our mission partners in Burundi. In addition to the Mission Committee business, Becky and I had sent a contribution to help a little in the work at Kibuye Hope, something to do with the school side of the project. I was back and forth in emails with Jess Cropsey about the details. After all the work was completed, Jess wrote:

We deeply feel Langhorne’s love and care for us. Thank you so much for the many ways that you come alongside us from afar.

Continue reading →

This morning I googled the phrase “Trump Era” and got 1,440,000 results. I did not read them all. The New York Times and the Washington Post, Fox News and the Drudge Report use the phrase. It’s descriptive and appropriate. We are six weeks away from a president who promises to be like no other president before him. To say that Donald Trump is unpresidential is simply a statement of fact. Precedents set by 44 previous presidents will be subject to wholesale disregard.
 
I think I’ll take a pass on the Trump Era. Continue reading →

You may have heard of fake news. It’s been in the news. In its simplest form, fake news is just the grandson of the grocery store tabloid, the estranged daughter of an old Gray Lady. Whether your motive is profit or propaganda, just about anyone has the ability to become a purveyor of fake news. Set up a website, give it a name that fits your cause – federalnews.com or celebritybuzz.net (don’t worry, they’re fake; I’m thinking of buying the domains) – and start writing all the news that’s fit to entice.

During the last election one fake news site posted a story about the Pope endorsing Donald Trump and then watched as it was Facebook shared and re-tweeted a hundred thousand times. Another said it had evidence that Hillary Clinton was using a body double as she convalesced in Chappaqua from some life-threatening illness. Continue reading →

Americans have been observing a National Day of Thanksgiving on the last Thursday in November since 1863.  When the nation paused to give thanks that first Thanksgiving Day, the guns at Gettysburg and Vicksburg had been silent for less than five months. President Abraham Lincoln, already anticipating a tough reelection campaign, had spoken at the dedication of the national cemetery at Gettysburg only a week earlier.

In his brief remarks at Gettysburg, Lincoln reminded his listeners that the nation was dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal. He named those who had died defending that cause ones who had given their “last full measure of devotion” to the nation and its cause. He called those listening who met on that great battlefield to “highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Continue reading →