The Joy of Destruction
 
2012, the latest and some are saying the biggest if not the best disaster movie of all time opens everywhere tonight.  If you haven’t read a review yet, you can try this.  As best I can tell, lots of people will die and nearly every famous building in the world will topple; even the trailers have hints of bad new age theology. I can hardly wait to see it. 
 
I don’t think we’ll see 2012 tonight, though Becky likes watching disaster and destruction as much as I do. I’d really like to see it with our son Christopher. There’s no one better in the whole world with whom to watch the whole world end than our son Christopher. Oh, he loves the action and all the amazing techie effects, but what really makes it so good to watch a disaster flick with Christopher is his sardonic sense of humor. He’ll shred the over-the-top dialogue and the improbable plot turns with just the right comments.  But we won’t be seeing Christopher and his wife Katie until Christmas time. I’m not sure 2012 can wait so long.  Continue reading →

The Blessing of Giving
 
As the Apostle Paul bade farewell to the elders of the church in Ephesus for what would be the last time, he remembered the three years he had spent among them.  He spoke of the tears and the trials they had shared and he commended them “to God and the word of his grace.”  He told them to keep up the hard work they had begun and be diligent in helping others.  Then he reminded them of the words of Jesus not otherwise quoted in the gospels, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Continue reading →

The Re-formed Life
 
October 31, 2009.  World Series Game Three, Citizen’s Bank Park.  Series tied 1-1.  Let’s see, anything else we should know about the day?  Oh yeah, Halloween. Porch light off, door locked by 7:57 p.m.
 
October 31 is also Reformation Day as we remember that All Saints Eve day, October 31, 1517, when the young monk, Martin Luther, posted his list of grievances against the Medieval church on the chapel door at the university in Wittenberg.  If there is any date from which to mark the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, October 31, 1517, is that date. Continue reading →

Missing Minneapolis – or Worse:  Why Jesus tells us to be alert
 
Did you hear about Northwest Airlines flight 188 and how it overshot Minneapolis by 150 miles Wednesday evening? The flight from San Diego was supposed to land in Minneapolis around 8:00 p.m., but the pilots apparently were so embroiled in an argument about company policies that they were half way across Wisconsin before they realized where they were.  Neither the lights of the Twin Cities glittering 37,000 feet below nor the frantic calls of the air traffic controllers could pry their attention away from their “heated discussion.”  They were over Eau Claire before they figured what they’d done and set a new course back to where they were supposed be in the first place. Continue reading →

At Heaven’s Gate
 
Yesterday afternoon I brought communion to an LPC member. Her name is Grace and she is under hospice care and does not have long to live.  It had been about a month since I last visited with Grace.  She was much weaker and very frail. Simple sentences were not easy for her to form and she spoke barely above a whisper, but she had things she wanted to say. She talked of her family, as she always does – her children and the seventeen grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.  More than anything though, she wanted me to know that she was ready; ready to go, ready for what is next, ready for death – ready to be with her Lord.  Continue reading →