Thursday Thought

Cheese fries, funnel cakes, and elephant ears.  The air was heavy with the smog of greasy grills and heart-unhealthy taste treats. But what a fabulous fragrance it was smothering the grounds of the Bureau County Fair. Fleeing these temptations—and the sun's unrelenting heat—we dove into buildings where colorful ribbons declared the winners of creative competitions: largest pumpkin, tastiest apple pie, best pen and ink drawing, etc. In one building, we saw folks handing out safety brochures, nail files, cup holders, and ten-thousand other logo-emblazoned products: many of them solutions in search of a problem. Then there was the unassuming table…

I should never have clicked the link that came with the headline. I’m talking about the images of Zaki Anwari the 17-year-old soccer player determined to leave Afghanistan hanging on to a C-17. Capable of flying two M1A2 Abrams battle tanks, or 16 Humvees, the plane's belly swelled with passengers desperate to evacuate. You’ve seen the photos. Zaki clutched at the landing gear with a gritty resolve as the transport accelerated to 50, then 100, then 120 miles per hour. Just a few hundred feet into the air, Zaki lost his grip. Nor was he the only one to die…

Taking offense. In the last two or three years, it has replaced baseball as America’s pastime. These days, it seems everyone is offended and going to bat about something. There is nothing, it seems, over which we will not be offended. While humans have managed to irritate each other since Adam and Eve, today's cultural climate offers two distinct differences. First, social media has created a global platform to air those grievances.  And air them we do. Second, a sustained pattern of lawsuits has given birth to the notion that "If I am offended, so you must placate me." The…

A friend at work recently texted to thank me for praying about a family health situation. Good thing it was a text and not FaceTime. I’m sure there was a strained look on my face as I pondered whether, in fact, I had prayed. Perhaps I did pray initially, but not nearly as much as my friend credited me. Can you relate to that? Someone asks you to pray, and you give hearty agreement to their request with every intention to follow through. And then, you don’t. Your friend is assuming you’re praying—counting on it. They've told others that you…

Attempting to put sunscreen on a two-year-old is like trying to catch a greased pig. You can try, but it’s not going to be pretty. Yet Emma wanted to play in the park and it was sunny outside and since she was in our care, we dug out the sunscreen. A dab on her nose and each cheek should have been easy to smooth out. Should have. Did I mention Emma is two? She looked this way and that and up and down and around. I tried rubbing that lotion in for all I was worth. And failed. Her head…

Air travel is back.  In a big way! Between July 1 and July 5, TSA workers screened more than 10 million people.  That's a record exceeding any pre-pandemic numbers. Snaking through the Disney-like security lines at O’Hare last week, I observed a flight attendant's ID tag marked in bold black letters, "Known Crew Member." The speed with which she breezed through lines that bogged down the rest of us gave new meaning to the expression, "cleared for takeoff.” Finally shoehorned into my airplane seat, I watched as fellow travelers attempted to mash luggage into overhead bins that seem to shrink…

I heard something the other day that nearly curled my toes and curdled my milk. Some guy was relating a personal incident that he summarized with the phrase, "that's my truth." Like a noxious weed, this expression is invading the landscape of American thought. The big deal? Truth and personal experience are both treated as equals. But there's an ocean of difference between the two. Truth operates independently of experience. Experience is personal, flexible, and open to interpretation. Truth is impersonal, fixed, and not open to interpretation. Truth exists outside of opinion—yours or mine. For me to claim that water…

What are you seeking most in life? What’s the secret driving passion of your soul? The honest answer is surprisingly easy to gauge. I say real because most believers are wired to give a “Sunday School answer.” That Sunday School answer, of course, would be Jesus: He’s number one in my life, we insist. But here's a simple test to determine what you are genuinely seeking: it's the first thing you think about every morning and, likely, the last thing you think about at night. Despite our claims to love Jesus best, many of us primarily seek comfort, power, influence,…

Dressed in a powder blue paper gown, I sit crinkling on the exam table.  The doctor looks over every inch of my skin for evidence of skin cancer or pre-cancerous growths. Armed with her magnifier, she always finds something (thankfully pre-cancerous, to this point). Nothing escapes her examination! The reward for all this probing and poking and intimidation? She blasts every problem area with a can of liquid nitrogen. It's an instant burn that throbs, turns red, then oozes, then scabs over. Maybe you’ve had the same (not joyful) experience. Frankly, there is nothing about this examination that is pleasant….

The sticker stood out on that electrical switch box on the scoreboard at the football field. It said simply, "You are beautiful." My initial reaction was, What a great message! Then the cynic in me said, Wait a minute. Nobody posts anything these days online, let alone on an electrical box, without some kind of agenda. Maybe it's an internet hoax or a British rock band or PR campaign for some new product. After a brief online search, I arrived at the website, you-are-beautiful.com. There I learned that more than 5 million of these 1.5" x 2" friendly sticker reminders…