Think About It

Well, it is finally here. Opening Day, 2021. I have to admit that I was growing kind of disillusioned with Major League Baseball the last several years, then we had the debacle of 2020 – a sixty game season that started sometime in the summer and had all kinds of odd new rules. I guess you have to be glad for the world champion Los Angeles Dodgers, but everybody else is probably eager to forget MLB 2020. And that is exactly what we get to do today! No, we aren’t back to the good of days of baseball, but we are a lot closer than what we were this time last year. The boys of summer are playing in front of live people in the early days of April. Maybe that is the aroma of freshly mown grass I smell and the warmth of brilliant sunshine I feel! Every once in a while, I need a reality check and today is a good one for me. I can fuss and pout about the decline of my favorite pastime or I seek to find the good in what is still the best game in town. Yes, certain aspects of the game ...

There are times when context helps us to understand biblical passages, then there are other times when the context might divert our attention. Take, for example, I Peter 2:18, “Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable.”. What stands out to you when you initially read this passage? Is it easier to focus on the message or the audience? Is the lesson lessened because it is addressed to “servants” who are supposed to be “submissive to masters”? I can understand the hesitation in applying this message – especially in our nation where freedom is advocated and agued to the degree it is. Yet, if we can set aside the immediate audience for just a second and take a look at the intent, I think we can see something impressive. When Peter challenges his readers to treat people with respect – no matter who they are – he sets the tone for doing what is right because it is the right thing to do. ...

I struggle with the way our society behaves – I will be the first to admit it. I get upset when people are mean and nasty to each other on social media. I get down when organizations fuss over what seem to be simple ethical issues. I get distraught when people who seem to have lost their moral compass lash out against those who try to promote what is good and decent. I mean society should know better, shouldn’t they? The other day, I caught myself getting frustrated about what was going on around me, then I realized that the people I was getting irritated with made little pretense to be Christian, much less spiritual. Their arguments were based on human logic and they made it a point to emphasize the basis for their rationale. It dawned on me that I was getting upset that people didn’t share my values when they had made it clear they didn’t share or care about my principles. They had already explained that they weren’t going to look at things through my lenses, yet I was gettin...

Eight people killed in Georgia … ten more murdered in Colorado … another three were gunned down in Virginia. Wow! As bad as this sounds, it is just the tip of the iceberg. How many single homicide victims were there in our communities last week? How many more were sexually assaulted? How many were shot, but survived? How many children and spouses were abused? How many were sold drugs – and how many of them died of overdoses? You might be wondering why I am getting this week off to such a morbid start. The answer is simple – we have a problem in our nation! However, the problem isn’t with laws and lawmakers. The problem isn’t the police or an ineffective criminal justice system. The problem isn’t COVID … or an upside educational system. The problem is much greater, but much simpler than that. Our problem is the evil that satan has sown in the world! When we focus on the various aspects of what is amiss in our society but don’t address the prince of darkness, we seek to...

Periodically I like to quote people in my articles, but I often find myself quoting voices from history. I know who I like to listen to – and those people I trust – but so many of them are dead and gone. These days, if I quote a popular person, I am apt to make one group happy and another faction irate. So, I thought I would do a search of the most “trusted people in American” and guess what I found? In the early 1970s it was CBS news correspondent Walter Cronkite and in 2013 it was actor Tom Hanks … then it went dry! I struggled to find a recent poll about who people trust today and there just wasn’t much out there. Folks, this isn’t because there aren’t people talking – everyone is sharing opinions – could it be that we just can’t find the person whose wisdom bridges gaps and transcends factions? Not only did I find the silence on a reliable voice in our society interesting, I found it disturbing. Is it because we can’t agree on who to believe or is it because of the lack of ...

It was on this day in 1954 that RCA manufactured its first color television set. According to the article I read, it was 12.5 inch screen and cost about $1000.00. While that might seem to be a useless bit of trivia for some of you, let me see if I can put this in perspective. I was nine years old when we got the first color television set at our house. Up to that point, even though SOME shows were broadcast in color our televisions displayed it in a mixture of black, white and grays. No, we weren’t the first or last family on our block to get a color television set (that got three channels); but when we finally got our 19 inch set, our entertainment options were greatly enhanced. One of the things that I remember most about the color televisions sets was the way it changed the perspectives of what we saw. The trimmings on the Orioles uniforms were orange and the Cardinals’ red birds really were red. Lucille Ball had flaming red hair and the country music stars’ Nudie suites we...

I have to admit that daffodils are not my favorite flower (that would have to be the hibiscus), but I admire their fortitude. Living in Southern Maryland, we have to be reminded from time-to-time that spring is here. Sure, we’ll have a few warm days that will tease us into hoping the temperate weather is upon us, but before long we get a disturbing reminder or winter. Low temperatures in the twenties, gust and raw (cold) rain make it feel more like February than March. However, the daffodils are committed to sprouting and blossoming and spreading their yellow glow throughout the community. They don’t delay … they don’t come and go … they endure. Sometimes I wish humans had the same resilience and commitment as our flowers. A lot of us spring up when it is convenient, but when the challenges of life hit us we fade away. Others are so concerned about what might happen to us that we never blossom in the first place. What would happen if we did what the daffodils do and just bloom ...