Lizard Leaps

This coming week we celebrate our Independence Day, July 4th. It is a good thing that we celebrate on this day and remember all who serve and who have served this nation's interests. Especially we remember our men and women in service during this time. The troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, and other places where they stand in harm's way. Young men and women of today stand alongside those ghostly figures from Bunker and Breed's Hills, Gettysburg, the Meuse Argonne, Iwo Jima, the Chosin Reservoir, the Tet Offensive, and the streets of the Middle East conflicts of today. All of them, past and present, are equally to be honored for their service. Those who served whom I remember will stand large in my memory this week: the man next door who serviced machine guns in WWI, the dentist who lived on the other side of me who slipped ashore Pacific islands as a pre-invasion specialist in WWII, my wife's father who served a 75mm Recoilless Rifle and was wounded in Korea, my ...

This week a guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. was killed by a white supremacist/neo nazi named James von Brunn. Von Brunn is 88 years old, and has hosted a website for years that I have checked and found filled with the all-too-typical irrational hatred found in such sites and publications. Twisting the Bible, ignoring the truth of history, and completely missing the love of God, these people and their organizations thrive on hate...hate for all who are different from themselves. They hate all ethnic groups, all other races, other nations...I believe they are like the character "Gollum" in J.R.R. Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings . Gollum is actually a man named Smeagle, who has been seduced by the power of one of the rings which exist in the mythical world of hobbits and faries. Gollum was once an ordinary person, but he came into contact with something which appealed to the basest and most horrible parts of his makeup. It promised power if he simply pu...

Pentecost Sunday is this Sunday. Pentecost is the birthday of The Church, and also is the day upon which the Disciples received the gift of The Holy Spirit. After receiving that gift, the Disciples were able to speak other languages, and preached to people in Jerusalem in their native tongues, with the result that a great throng were baptised and became Christians. One of the most interesting things about this day is that the Disciples received The Holy Spirit when they were gathered together. They received it as a community of faith, not individually at separate locations and times. The birth of The Church was an event of the community of faith receiving God's blessing of The Holy Spirit as a group. One of the most prevalent things we hear today is people stating: "...well, I'm not religious, but I'm a spiritual person." What that usually means is that they do not express faith in the gathered community we know as The Church. It usually means that they dabb...

Spring is finally upon us. The bullfrog in our pond is becoming increasingly bombastic at times, and the whipporwill which has chosen our place to take up residence during the past few years has returned in full volume...obnoxiously so. Anyone who thinks whipporwills have a lovely song ought to be subjected to that repetetive verse at full blast night-after-night. I swear our whipporwill uses Peavy speakers set at full gain. He can wake the dead. One of the great tragedies of modern life is the loss of the sounds of nature. I grew up with the distant sound of steam engine whistles from Inman Yard in Atlanta and the nightime sounds of the acres of woods surrounding our home. Since Angela and I have bought our home near Barnsley Gardens in Adairsville, we have both returned to the sounds of our childhoods...the sounds of the natural world. The average kid with whom we work never experiences those sounds. Instead, their lives are filled with the passing notes of boom-boxed cars, th...

February is upon us, and I have finally begun to recover from my knee replacement surgery enough to have a few lucid thoughts. I do have to thank the therapists who have diligently worked with me so that I am finally beginning to be able to turn the crank of a bicycle again with my incredibly stiff left knee. I have struggled with the knee for over twenty years, and it had finally gotten so stiff I was not able to ride. I'll let you know when I am back on my bicycle again with any sort of regularity. When you have your first major surgery at age 66, you begin to see how incredibly lucky you are. After all, I have had my share of adventures and scrapes, and it has taken this episode to show me how incredibly brave all those people I have worked with over the yeard during their surgeries and recovery have been. You never know another's situation until you walk in their shoes. It is also interesting to begin to feel your body coming back to life after such an adventure. I fi...

Our scripture this week is Mary's Magnificat...that wonderful song of praise which begins, "My soul doth magnify the Lord..." In that beautiful song in which Mary both subjugates her will to God's and praises God's magnificent power, we are taken again into the mystery and depth of the coming of Christ. The birth of Jesus is not an isolated event. It begins with Elizabeth's pregnancy with John, continues with the Immaculate Conception, the Angel's visit with Joseph, the journey to Bethleham...the journey of the Magi...the appearance of the Angels to the Shepherds...there is such miraculous depth and complexity. But, that is all eclipsed by the birth itself. God presents Himself to us in the form of a child. This story is not to be approached as adults, but as children ourselves. As we come to the manger, we forget all which leads to the moment and are captured by the event itself: God sends His mighty answer for humanity in the form of a helpless baby...

Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat, Please put a penny in the old man's hat, If you haven't got a penny, a hapenny will do If you haven't got a hapenny, then God bless you. This Christmas we come as travellers through a time of want. Across our world millions have lost their lives to tribal warfare, terrorism, and other atrocities. Where is the light? Who will come to save us? Enter again the child, Jesus. Who comes to save us? The helpless God who strives to bring our hearts into the light of his love. The child who pleads for all the world to put aside those easy lives of hatred and spite, and come to the hard Gospel of Peace. As Herod slaughtered the infants trying to maintain his awful power at all costs, so do the forces of evil always try to keep goodness at bay. Yet, each year, He comes again...quietly...helpless...a child born among us to bring us light. Herods of the world die away, and others rise...but, always comes again the Child. Comes aga...