I have attended dinners to show appreciation to a person or group, I have signed letters or posters to show support, I have witnessed the unveiling of statues and monuments in honor of some celebrity. I have seen the stars in the sidewalk in Hollywood, watched as athletes’ numbers are retired, and participated in the dedication of a building named for the honoree.

If you someone were to honor you, what would you consider the best/highest possible way to do so?

Recently our youth group at church decided to spend a day in our community doing random acts of kindness. They did all sorts of things, like hand out water to workers on a construction site, offer to wash car windows or check tire pressure at gas stations (after asking permission from the manager), clean up an old city cemetery, and more. They did not even give out information about the church, they wanted to do something good without expectation of reciprocation of any kind.
 
It was an eye-opener to the kids. The primary response to the young people, at least the initial response, was mistrust. Folks were either afraid of the kids or thought there was some scam involved. Most often the recipients of the RAK were able to loosen up and accept the kindness, but some completely refused.
 
Does that say something about our society, teens, or just our town?

Manny Ramirez got his wish and was traded from the Boston Red Sox today before the trading deadline. I was a bit surprised, because his antics in Boston are not that new, but this time he really got on the nerves of the front office and they made a big deal today. In the three team deal, Los Angeles, the Dodgers, received Manny. In return they sent two prospects to the Pittsburgh Pirates, who also received two prime prospects from the Red Sox. The Pirates sent their best player, Jason Bay, to the Red Sox.

The Dodgers will get a lot of offense from Manny and will probably be in the playoffs. The Pirates got four players for one, two of whom are very highly regarded! The Red Sox got rid of a problem child–who can really hit. But they may not reach the playoffs. The big winner in the deal seems to me to be the Tampa Bay Rays, who should pull away from Boston in the AL East race!

I just finished the third in the Civil War trilogy of novels written by Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen. The series is very entertaining. The historical work of these two authors is impressive. The depiction of the weight of command in the midst of war is intense and the horror of the carnage in our country’s struggle is gruesome. The strategies are illuminating.

The most fascinating element of the last book, Never Call Retreat, to me was that the Gingricgh and Forstchen brought the war to a close about a year and a half earlier than it happened in history. Their presentation suggested that if the war had ended in the way they depicted, the country would have healed in a much shorter time and the equality of all men would have been a reality at least a century earlier.
If you enjoy good writing and a look into some of the most important people and issues of our society, I would suggest you take the time to read the entire trilogy!

I have daily home delivery of the Houston Chronicle. Except on Sunday, I like to start my day with the paper, but I usually only read the sports page and the funny papers. One of the comics I check every day is Mother Goose and Grimm. It often has a new twist on old thoughts or phrases. I often laugh. Today was one of those. I thought you might enjoy the laugh and start reading the funnies, if you are not in the habit.

Here is my report on this month’s selection for the Book Club Discussion started by Marathon Bird.

I don’t know why I had never read The Hiding Place, but maybe it was partly because I did not want to visit the things that went on at the hands of the Germans in WWll. When I was a kid I went with my dad to see Mein Kampf, the documentary that showed the depravity of the Holocaust. Those pictures were deeply etched in my mind.  I think that is why I did not want to see Schindler’s List.
 
As I read of the heroism of the Ten Boom family, I was horrified again at the treatment of those considered by the Nazis as inferior. But I was buoyed by the faith of the family, especially Corrie and Betsie as they were incarcerated and mistreated. I could identify with Corrie, as she wanted to honor God but who constantly had to deal with the emotions of anger and hate for her captors. I was truly inspired by Betsie, who was more Christ-like in her dealing with the deprivation and the persecution.

I am glad I read this book, because its message was not really about creating a hiding place for Jewish refugees and an underground network to get them to safety. Its message, at least to me was that all of us need a Hiding Place as described in Psalm 32:7 “Thou art my hiding place; Thou dost preserve from trouble…”

Teaching at church camp is one of my favorite things in life, and it is always a learning experience for me as well as the kids. Last week I again had the tenth graders, thirty eight of them. They were great! And I was tickled to have a young minister work with me this year who not so long ago he sat in my class at the same camp!

Usually at camp I am a pretty creative and active teacher. I use a lot of teaching techniques to keep the class thinking and discovering for themselves. This year our study was in the Minor Prophets, with the aim of seeing “How Great Is Our God.” We have a morning class of an hour and fifteen minutes and an afternoon class of forty five minutes. I made a decision that the sophomores would read, or hear read, as much of the texts of those books as possible. Paul set the scene for each reading and then one of the guys would read the message of God through the prophet. The kids were then asked to create a MySpace bulletin that might be sent to the rest of the campers to transmit the message they had just heard.

I went to camp thinking that at least half the kids would fall asleep during the readings. I mean, it is hot and the kids are tired and the messages are, in some cases, long and a bit repetitive! I figured that for the first time in my camp experience they would find my class boring. But I wanted them to hear the Word of God so much that I was willing to take the chance.

We did have a three or four that could not keep their eyes open, but I was pleasantly surprised at how many read along with the “prophet” in their own Bibles. I was even more pleased at how much they understood the main message of the various texts, especially the traits of our great God!

It made me wonder how I could have doubted that the Bible itself would not suffice to teach those precious kids. And it reinforced my idea that we all need to actually read it more than we do!

Temptations and trials are difficult to deal with rationally. When tragedy strikes we automatically think of self. If a hurricane comes and destroys the home in which I live, my first thought is, “Why me?” If someone near and dear to me is struck with a serious illness, my first question is, “How much must I bear?”

I fail o remember that Go has ordained that the sun will shine on the just and the unjust. He does not discriminate! The best answer to the question, “Why me?”, is, “Why not.”

Matthew 5:45 “For He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and send rain on the righteous and the unrighteousness.”

A friend of mine from the Caribbean is in town for a couple of days. His son graduated from college in Tennessee earlier in the month. He has extended his stay to allow him to make contact with churches that have supported him in his ministry over the past 30 years.

Tomorrow I will take him to a small town in the Hill Country of Texas. He will speak there on Sunday. I am going to take my two grandsons along for the trip. We will stay overnight, then get up on Friday and allow them to shoot the BB guns at the turtles in the catfish pond on our host’s place.

They are excited, this is the first time I have let them shoot the BB gun. I bet they wake up early Saturday in order to get out to the pond. I wonder if the turtles are in any danger.

Dad called early this week to let me know that he had just finished digging the ‘taters in his back yard garden. He harvested 167 pounds of new potatoes. I had to get down to his place, about sixty miles away, before all my siblings and dad’s neighbors had taken them all. So we went today.

Dad loves to dig in the dirt and his yard is a showplace almost all year round. He still has poinsettias as tall as the eaves of his house, which have been blooming since November. The amaryllis, the Confederate roses, the larkspur, the hidden ginger lilies, the esperanza and the gladiolas all are in bloom. But the real jaw dropping beauty is in his day lilies. Dad has over 300 different varieties of day lily. He colors are amazing. People in the community often stop to take pictures. My secretary goes through the town where Dad lives when she is on the way to visit her mother. She loves to take a three block detour to see what is going on in Dad’s garden.

To add to the joy of the day, my grandsons took their ball gloves so they could play while we visited. As we loaded up, I threw in a couple of gloves as well. As I suspected, the boys asked Dad if he would play catch with them. He said he did not have a glove anymore. I told him I had a couple in the car, if he was up to playing. We went out and threw the ball around for a half an hour. Before long Dad was telling the guys how to turn their gloves and to use two hands, and to get right in front of the ball. It sure brought back memories of the thousands of days he said those things to me when I was the age my grandsons are now!