Opinions
Up on the Roof
Some like it hot; What's up with them?
I wonder how hot it is on Mercury in the summertime. Mercury, as you know, is the closest planet to the sun and therefore the hottest. This South, as you know, comes right between it and Venus giving us the number two status in the solar system for heat production. Or so it seems, in the summertime. I remember the summers of my childhood 40 years ago. The heat was different in the 1960s--it was everywhere. You had little or no air conditioning with which to compare the outside air, so you merely looked for the coolest place outside. I can tell you where it was: under the mimosa trees in the morning, in the back bedroom which was shaded by magnolias at noon, in the cool spray of sprinklers in mid-afternoon and under the sheltered carport before suppertime.
Devoted to loving God's people
What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you think about the word, “fellowship?” Since I am a Baptist, I start thinking about potlucks or really any gathering oriented around food. How do youth ministers get students to gather together? They offer free pizza! But fellowship is about something more than just food. Last month, we started breaking down the traits of the early church. In Acts 2:42, it says that they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship and the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Previously, we focused primarily on what it meant to be devoted to the apostles’ teaching. Continuing down that road, we want to ask the question, “What does it look like to be devoted to fellowship and the breaking of bread?”
The Fourth of July: it wasn't a party
When I look back to the Fourth of July during my earliest years, it wasn’t a party. There were no computer-generated displays of fireworks. It would begin, instead, with a quiet picnic lunch underneath a cross. That may surprise you, but for those who knew my family well, it wasn’t a big surprise. We didn’t own a boat or a swimming pool. My father was tied to his desk on Commerce Street most days, but when a red, white and blue holiday came to pass, he took my mother and I to some church, on some hill, with some creek running by it, where the breezes were cool and the day was quiet. And nobody else would be there.
Wine snobs
When I’m looking for a bottle of wine, I might as well be in the auto parts store looking for brake calipers. I spend so much time on the wine aisle that people think I drink a lot. I don’t drink a lot. I don’t even drink a little. I’m simply overwhelmed, confused and uncertain of which bottle to choose. The major difference between the grocery store and the auto parts store is that wine bottles are so pretty—beautiful shapes and lovely colors of glass, with labels that are stunning.
The City That Never Sleeps
Nineteen million inhabitants call New York City their home, well-deserving of its The Big Apple tag. Currently No. 11 on the world’s largest list, the Melting Pot just had a tumultuous week. Just 24 years after Islamist extremist terrorists leveled the World Trade Center by intentionally using jet-liners to destroy the buildings, the city voted for a – grab your binoculars to see - a far-away leftist candidate in their current mayoral election. Uganda-born Zohran Mamdani, 33, dark-haired and handsome (but still a) Communist, defeated former Governor Andrew Cuomo, 67, in the Democratic primary, 44-to-36 percent. Mind you, Cuomo is a tainted man. He resigned in 2021 when Attorney General Letitia James commissioned investigators who charged him with sexually harassing eleven women from 2013-2020.
A Mary Poppins purse
One of the most courageous jobs on the planet doesn’t involve fighting fires or crime. Instead, it is leading children’s church. This is the time in our church when the children come forth, typically without their parents, and sit at the pastor’s feet while he tells them a short story hoping to catch a millisecond of their attention before they head out for apple juice and snacks. For this “moment with the children,” you must be ready for any question, or worse: any answer. You can ask if there’s something around the house that these young ones can do to help, and someone will surely say, “Pick up my daddy’s underwear because Mama said if he didn’t quit leaving it on the bathroom floor, she was gonna beat his hiney.”
Love Birds in search of a partner
A pop hit by Counting Crows called Mr. Jones, has a line that reflects so much of mankind. Frontman Adam Duritz, then adorned in dreadlocks, sang of things he lacked and thought, “Help me believe in anything. ‘Cause I wanna be someone who believes.” There truly must be something innate in all of us that compels us that there is something, rather someone, that is beyond our ability to reach. That yearning or longing for, is a connection to that which we sense will fill the inner void. We can quench it with plenty of meaningful fillers, temporarily, though they don’t always suffice forever.
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