Think About It

For several weeks Jeane had suggested that I should watch the movie, “Saving Mr. Banks” so we watched it the other night.  For those of you who haven’t seen it, it is the story of how Walt Disney obtained the rights to the book “Marry Poppins”.   I have to admit that the setting and costumes were very good and Tom Hanks was remarkable in his portrayal as Walt Disney; however, I did not like the movie.  As I reflected on the show, I think the reason I didn’t like it was that I just couldn’t connect with P. L. Travers.  I don’t know if it was Ms. Traver’s nature or the way Emma Thompson portrayed her, but I found her disposition to be self-serving and augmentative.  I might have been able to tolerate a little bit of it, but it lasted too long which soured me on the rest of the movie. The reason I bring this up is not to critique the movie (and honestly, I don’t figure that the director, John Lee Hancock, really cares about my opinion), but I did get to thi...

Today is a somber day for our community.  One year ago, we experienced a fatal school shooting.  While our experience may not have risen to the level of others, it did have an impact on us.  As I reflect on our first anniversary, a few things come to mind: 1).  There may be people in our community who are struggling, but we may never know it .  How often have you heard someone comment following a tragedy, “I would have never expected them to do anything like that!”?  We will never know everything in everyone’s mind, but let’s make it a point to check in on people we know might be struggling.  We might be able to make a big difference by a simple show of concern. 2).  Violence can produce “collateral damage” .  Just because we are not directly involved in explosive situations doesn’t mean that we are safe.  With this in mind, we should ALL be working together to make our communities safer places to live.  Public safety is not ju...

          The other day I was reading a book by John C. Maxwell where he quoted another writer, Bob Moawad.  Maxwell’s book focuses on ... well, focus.  The concept is that if we are going to live successful lives, we must have a purposed life.  To demonstrate one of his points, Maxwell refers to Moawad’s observation, “Most people don’t aim too high and miss.  They aim too low and hit.”.  In essence, we have become deadly accurate in our mediocrity.  We don’t expect much from ourselves and we achieve it time and again.           As I reflected on this I kept coming back to the concept that “good enough” is “good enough” or as a friend of mine used to say, “If the minimum wasn’t good enough there wouldn’t be a minimum”.  The problem with setting a minimum standard and reaching it is that with each new effort we might be tempted to keep lowering the bar.  Since we are the ones ...

I am not much of a basketball fan, but even I get excited about this time of year.   March Madness is contagious – and this year is even more interesting for me because my alma mater, Abilene Christian University, is making their first appearance in the Big Dance.   (Those of you who attended ACU might find a bit of irony in that statement, but it is exciting nonetheless.)   The thing I enjoy about this part of the college basketball season is the presence of the longshots (I prefer to call them the “Davids’ in the field of NCAA Goliaths).   The chance of these lower seeds making it to the Final Four is slim, but for now – for a couple of days – hope springs eternal.   The odds don’t matter, the chance to participate does. As ponder this bit of Americana, it reminds me of another “Cinderella Story”, the beginning of the Kingdom of God.   The early church – who followed Someone perceived to be a martyred teacher – wasn’t given much of a chance at succes...

One of the troubling things I have found in today’s society might be called the “polarization phenomena”.   I am sure there is some other name for it, but it is a belief that to be true to our commitments we have to fervently choose one side or the other.   Through the years we have seen this in our sports teams (we like all of “our” players and will defend them no matter how poorly they perform or how bad they act), but this type of mindset has crept into more important things such as political agendas and moral beliefs.   The only way we can be true to our core beliefs is if we completely accept everyone who stands with us and shun anyone who isn’t as committed (radical) as our group.   For example, all liberals are good and all conservatives are bad (or visa-versa).   As such, only certain news networks are truthful, only certain spokespeople are reputable, only certain political parties (or sub-parties) are worthwhile.   Another example is that only th...

           Folks, I like Tim Tebow – I am not ashamed to admit that.  I realize that he was not be most polished football player and may not be the most talented baseball player, but as a person he has a lot going for him.  Tim has had to endure a lot of teasing because of his “good guy” image, but through it all he has managed to come out on top.            The other day I read an interesting leadership quote by him, “ When you try to be a role model, not everybody can relate to some of your highs - awards, championships. But everybody can relate to the lows. Everybody's gotten fired from a job or gotten cut. People learn more about you in those lows than they do in the highs.”.  For those of us who have watched Tebow’s life we tend to see his blessings, but in all honesty, the thing that makes him intriguing is how he has dealt with failures.  Whether it was public ridicule, an awkwa...

Do we have any unused Christmas parents laying around?  It is now the middle of March but if some of us looked we would probably find some Christmas gift still sitting in a closet or drawer.  We may have looked at it and we may have acknowledged our thanks to the giver, but we just haven’t done anything with it.  When we ignore these gifts (whether we are thankful or not) we are missing out on taking advantage of the joy or blessing the gift was meant to provide. The reason for this question is less related to Christmas than it is to Christ.  Before Jesus left the earth He told his disciples, “   Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” (John 14:27).  Wow, that sounds pretty cool doesn’t it?  Yet the problem is that many of us have not taken advantage of the gift of peace that Jesus has offered us!  We still find ourselves at odds wit...