Our grandchild marathon continued this week with two delightful granddaughters spending the week with us. Such fun!

The best toys at our house are those their parents played with when they were their age.  LEGOs and Playmobil sets and well-loved stuff animals. We also have a few new games and toys which we haul out, including a Plug & Play Puzzler. The Puzzler is a flexible vinyl cube with eight colored plugs which played correctly form the desired design. There are at least 48 variations requiring skill levels ranging from starter to wizard with junior, expert, and master in between. Our 11-year-old granddaughter is especially good with the Plug & Play Puzzler.  Me not so much so.

Earlier in the week, having solved a starter and junior challenge in mediocre time, I decided to attempt the solution to the final wizard problem. Three days later, my answer has yet to be made. And I’m not going to look at the answer section at the back of the instructions booklet. I may get it some day.

I’m better at word games than at puzzles that demand spatial awareness and would prefer Trivial Pursuit to a game that requires even the most basic mechanical ability. Problem solving of the Play and Plug sort is not my strong suit, to use a game metaphor of a different sort. Continue reading →

A little Boomer nostalgia here. We used to play the license plate game on road trips. You remember, looking for a car from every state as we drove along.  It was easier back then because every state had just one license plate – two colors, either a dark background with light letters and numerals or a light background with dark letters and numerals. Rumor had it that the states had their license plates cut and stamped by the inmates in their penitentiaries.

Advanced players in the license plate game could also cite the state motto that was stamped onto many of the state plates. We knew exactly where we were if we traveled across America’s Dairyland to 10,000 Lakes, from the Empire State to the Keystone State, the Heart of Dixie to the Peach State, or the Evergreen State to Famous Potatoes.

Wyoming did not have a state motto on its license plate, but they had that famous cowboy on his bucking bronco. Was there one inmate whose job it was to stamp that cowboy onto every plate? Continue reading →

Red poppies growing near the castle wal at Monsaraz Castle, Portugal

Lots of news in the world out there this week.  The news of the world in here is of lots of time with family.  We love it!

But thinking of the world out there, in this week of lots of news, the president has called on us all to “lower the temperature” in terms of our political discourse.  Another president more eloquently  called us “with malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds…”

I am a bit of a news junky and can find myself sucked into the high temperature discourse with its malice and lack of charity.  So, how do we lower the temperature, rid ourselves of malice, and become people of charity for all?  Yes, we must discipline our discourse, but even before that, we must order our thoughts.  Disordered thoughts lead to disordered dialog and disordered deeds. Continue reading →

This is not political commentary, though it is occasioned by events in the world of politics. And as I write about the reality of aging, I don’t intend a subtext of confession or concern.  I am 72 years old and growing older, but, as far as I know, with no cause for alarm as to my physical or mental abilities. Those of you who think I should turn in my car keys may message me privately.

President Biden’s age, or perhaps more accurately, his aging, has become the central topic of political conversation since his first debate with Donald Trump on June 27. What appears to be a decline especially in some of the president’s cognitive functions is raising questions as to his political future and the viability of his plans for a second term.

The political issues are important, to be sure, but perhaps the personal reflection and inner conversation kindled in many of us by the public discourse are of greater consequence. Continue reading →

I’m preaching in Ossian this coming Sunday (livestream/video here).  There are lots of reasons to feel honored and privileged at the opportunity, and I thank Pastor Andrew and the elders on the Session for their invitation and for trusting me with the pulpit.

The summer sermon series comes from the “fruit of the Spirit” in Galatians 5 – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, and at week five, I have been given kindness as my topic.

Kindness also appears on the virtue lists found in Ephesians and Colossians. Kindness is one of those self-evident virtues; I can’t use some exegetical magic to bring deep theological insight to the Greek word or understanding of kindness as somehow between patience and goodness.  Kindness means, well, it means kindness.  The opposite of meanness, something like that.  We think of being kind to animals and helping an elderly person cross the street.

In the sermon I will be going over to Romans 2 to develop the idea of costly kindness as an attribute of God. God’s costly kindness is meant to lead us to repentance.  We’ll see how the sermon goes. Continue reading →