I remember it as if it were yesterday. My father, a school teacher, who always went to school in suit, white shirt, tie, and a white handkerchief in the left top pocket of his suit coat, came home and announced it was time for me...
This afternoon the checkout lady at the Dollar Store, who appeared to be very close to seventy, was being rudely ordered around by another employee who was all of seventeen. With tears welling up in her eyes the elderly lady attempted to help me. The...
When God asked Adam about eating the fruit Adam blamed Eve. Surely Eve blamed the serpent and I’m sure the serpent blamed Satan and Satan blamed God. That has been his game-plan right from the beginning. Tornados and earthquakes are called “Acts of God.” The...
Many years ago when I was the commencement speaker at Atlantic Union College, the platform party had to weave its way through the college orchestra. When I stepped onto the platform I heard someone calling to me, “Sir, sir, my music stand.” Unknowingly I had...
While the tenth commandment forbids coveting perhaps it should also have included envy. According to the dictionary coveting focuses on our desire to have something another has while envy is a negative feeling directed toward a person, perhaps the person who has what we covet. ...
Friday night when taking the dog out for the last time for the day I almost stepped in my Father’s Day present. The FedEx man left a shoofly pie on my doorstep. I barely escaped squishing molasses and brown sugar into a pancake instead of...
We have all done it. Someone is hurting or suffering from a great loss and we say to them, “If you need anything just call me.” Really? Anything? How about making my car payments or my mortgage? How about paying off my medical bills? Now...
Each of the Ten Commandments is designed to keep us happy. No one knows us better than our Creator and therefore He knows what is best for us. When He tells us not to covet He is telling us how to be happy with what...
Ever so gently and as kindly as possible I whispered to the elderly lady cashier, who had given me five dollars too much in change, and I returned the five to her. I knew it would have come out of her pay if her cash...
This morning I stared at a maple frosted sprinkle-covered doughnut pondering one of life’s great dilemmas – to eat or not to eat. Just then I spotted an ant. It wasn’t one of those big guys. This was one of the really tiny ones you...