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My daughter, Kara, and her husband, Vince, love dogs. No, I mean it, they really love dogs. My son-in-law especially. He becomes attached to dogs so very easily. Let's face it. There's something special about dogs that cats don't have. Walk in the door of a home where a cat lives and you probably won't know it, unless there's that odor. But walk in the door of a home with a dog and you know it immediately. Dogs are the welcome wagon of pets. Their owners rarely open the front door to a guest but what their dog isn't right there with them either saying, "Glad you're here,"…  ( Click for more )

There is an argument raging that has been steadily gaining fuel over the past few years. At question is the formerly accepted mantle of "Greatest Running Back of All Time." For more than forty years that title has rested firmly in the hands of Jim Brown. Brown was the son of a fourth generation slave family from Georgia. He was born and raised in the St. Simons Island community of coastal Georgia. After amazing people in high school with his athletic prowess in pretty much every sport, he matriculated to Syracuse University in upstate New York where he played both football…  ( Click for more )

We preachers are rarely asked to serve as pallbearers for funeral services. Probably the exceptions are when it comes to our families. The last time that I served as a pallbearer was for my Uncle Orlyn Kelly. Late in their lives he and my dad had gotten closer as brothers should. I had always been fairly close to my cousins and thought the world of Uncle Orlyn and Aunt Helen. I was privileged to be able to be at his bedside when he passed away and even more honored when I was included as one of his pallbearers. Such is a sacred trust handed out by a family to those whom they…  ( Click for more )

"From the bottom of the hill..."

That tag line used to be the lead in for a number of columns that I wrote when we lived in the little community of Waco, near Richmond, Kentucky. We lived on the top of the hill about a quater mile from the recognized hub of the community. That hub was the Waco Food Mart. Along with it's grocery store there was also a rather nice little restaurant. Every morning the local men would gather in there for breakfast and conversation. My neighbor on the hill suggested that I needed to become a part of that gathering, so I did. I never…  ( Click for more )

In the 1986 Masters, Jack Nicklaus sank a putt that served as a pivotal point in his victory. He said that he was able to see the line of the putt so plainly and rolled it at the perfect speed for it to go in. This past season, at Hoylake just outside Liverpool, England, Tiger Woods put on a performance for the ages as he won The British Open handily and hardly ever used his driver. Golf pundits were lauding his performance as perfect. Hmm. Perfectly putted ball, perfectly played tournament. Perfection.

Baseball and bowling both have their "perfect game." In baseball…  ( Click for more )

My office is a place where worlds collide. I spend many hours a week in my office studying, making phone calls and doing projects as well as writing my sermons to deliver each Sunday. So my office reflects the different areas of my life that are important to me to give me an environment that makes me comfortable enough that I am not distracted.

I love golf, which many of you who receive these weekly thoughts have figured out no doubt. I have some memorabilia in my office; two racks of logo golf balls from golf courses and some wall hangings. I also love lighthouses, which have…  ( Click for more )

Today is an interesting day for me. This morning at 6:00 a group of six men were supposed to meet at my house to prepare to leave for Florence, South Carolina, and a four day golf retreat. We had started with eight men going. One had to drop out due to work problems. Another chose to drop out for health reasons. Still we had six. But of those six, one starts a job today while another is fighting a herniated disk in his lower neck. A third was not sure he wanted to go if the one starting the job was not going.

Such is life. I had decided to take the first three days off…  ( Click for more )

Ever wonder where you fit in in the grand scheme of things? Whether or not your life means anything to anyone else? We have a marvelous lady in our congregation at the Minorsville Christian Church. She is the mother of one of our Senior Saints. And she has been wondering where she fits in. She asked that very question the other day. "Why am I still here, preacher?" She is 96.

I looked into the eyes of that dear sweet lady. Those eyes had seen much in their time; twenty presidents, two world wars, countless friends who have come and gone, as well as loved ones whose memories…  ( Click for more )

When I was six years old I noticed that there were other people who must have been a whole lot older than be just because they were all bigger. My parents kept telling me that I would grow bigger the older I got. Mom told me one time that I asked her, "Is Dad really old? He's so big." Dad was, to a six year old, huge. Now, he wouldn't have been very big at all.

Dad was, in his prime, almost six feet two inches tall. He was very slim built possessing a metabolism that could have fueled the electricity for our little town. He weighed all of one hundred and sixty five pounds…  ( Click for more )

One of my favorite times of the year is baseball season. Yeah, I know, it seems interminable. Spring training starts in February and the season ends with the World Series in October. That's nine months. But for a baseball junkie who once had aspirations of playing professionally (okay, so I was ten) it's nine months of heaven. My favorite team to live and die with, and I've died a lot the past few seasons, is the Reds.

They're in a new ballpark now which seems a shame considering that they finally got the old one to where it was a decent place to watch a game. I hear the…  ( Click for more )

The movie "Little Big League" is a wonderful story about an eleven year old who does the improbable. He inherits a major league baseball team from his grandfather, who suddenly passes away with no warning. The boy throws himself into the situation to the point where he fires the current manager and hires himself to replace him.

Through all of this is wound the story of the relationship he has with his widowed mother. He finds out that being a manager of a big league team is not just about knowing baseball, which he knows better than most people around him. Its not necessarily…  ( Click for more )

One of the items that I keep handy on my desk is a tape measure. It's a small one. It only measures about two inches square and is barely a half inch thick. Yet this diminutive Stanley PowerLock will measure distances up to ten feet which makes it indispensible as an aid for me in my office. Most of the measuring I do in my office is to see if a bookcase or other piece of furniture might fit in a certain area.

This very day I will be using my sleek little steel encased beauty to rearrange my bookcases so I can get a little more room for books in my office space. Since our…  ( Click for more )

Life is great, isn't it? Evening comes, work is done, and we sit back in our easy chair and watch a little something on the telly. We grab this device with rows of buttons on its top side and start pushing buttons until we achieve the desired result. What were our ancestors thinking making televisions without remote controls?

Consider this. Since the 1950's, just after TV's invention and coming of age, America has grown obese and more sedate according to recent studies. Guess there was something to having to get up off the couch to turn the TV on and off and change channels.…  ( Click for more )

A newspaper that is curculated in the Louisville, Kentucky area ran a story on Kentucky basketball in this week's rag. They tied the idea of "passion" into it, which, in and of itself, was not a problem. However, the front cover showed Jesus holding a basketball with the story's caption emblazoned in print reminiscent of the move, "The Passion of the Christ", just below the picture of Jesus.

The owner of the paper said that he was not mocking the Lord in any way. One of his deliverers saw it differently. David Wine refused to deliver the paper saying it was, indeed, a mockery…  ( Click for more )

I had just finished reading an e-mail and there it was. That little tag at the end. The e-mail was a moving piece concerning God's love and then I got to the end. There at the end was that addendum that just aggravates me. I'm sure you may have seen it sometime. It goes something like this: If you love God you'll pass this on. If you delete this... You get the picture.

Just this morning a dear friend of mine sent me an e-mail concerning 9/11 that ended this way. "Pass this on to someone else if you'd like. There is NO LUCK attached. If you delete this, it's okay: God's…  ( Click for more )

In twenty-seven years of playing golf I have seen people who absolutely did not belong on a golf course. How do I know that? I had to follow them for the day. Someone once said that, "Golf is a good walk spoiled." Well, following people who have enough money to buy golf clubs and pay greens fees but know nothing of the game must be at the very heart of that statement.

That is the problem with golf. People can afford to play the game. But they refuse to invest the time to learn the game. They will not read about it, study it, practice it or even watch it. Then they go…  ( Click for more )

Marshalltown, Iowa. Why Marshalltown, Iowa? Because Marshalltown, Iowa is where the legend began. Legends always have to begin somewhere and this one began in Marshalltown, Iowa in the mid 1920s. A young man with a drive in his spirit that few had seen before was new to this small town in Iowa. The school had a limited budget as schools did then. Many of the teachers were not only coaches but also coaches of several sports.

Adolph Rupp was the coach...of the wrestling team. Before he came, the team had struggled to get boys involved and those who were involved weren't very…  ( Click for more )

Someday I plan to write an article called, "You know you're getting old when..." I know, someone has probably already written it. As the popular response is today...whatever! I never thought I'd say this, but that word carries a world of meaning. Of course it depends on how it's said and why as to the reaction of those receiving it.

Two people are involved in a heated argument. One feels that their point is crystal clear. The other responds that they just cannot believe it. "Whatever!" A teenager has been confronted by their parents with being late getting home from a date.…  ( Click for more )

Ever listen to a baby's cry? Over the past few years I have been in the homes of several young couples who have new additions to their families. Someplace along the way that new addition has awakened and seemingly has not been too happy about doing so. The parents take a certain measure of time to try to quiet the little bundle of upset emotions.

But is a baby's cry the cry of emotional distress? Consider this. In raising three children my wife and I found out that babies cry for different reasons. If they are hungry they cry. If they are needing changed they cry. If they…  ( Click for more )

I have always found nature fascinating, even frightening at times. Lightening and thunder storms have been able to keep me riveted for their duration. I have sat and stared at tornadoes in the distance from the front porch of my ancestral home in Ohio. But what has kept my attention more than anything else are the critters that populate nature. Not the big ones that big game hunters bag for wall decorations, but the little ones under our feet that collectors obtain for...uh...er...wall decorations. You know, insects.

Many of the people I know are shorter than me while some…  ( Click for more )

Ever see a bottle of champaign opened? The cork in a bottle of wine is inserted before the fermentation process is completed. As a result, great pressure builds inside the bottle from the fermentation. The cork, when given a little nudge, pops off the bottle. Sometimes it gets fired across a room, sometimes it just pops up a tad.

Fermentation is the introduction of a living organism to a fruit juice which causes the sugar to change to ethyl alcohol. The process causes carbonation which builds the pressure under the cork. It's kind of like what happens when you shake a bottle…  ( Click for more )

Paul Dickson once said, "Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig." I used to work on farms during the summers of my teen years. One farmer, Robin Wright (no not THAT Robin Wright...this was a guy 20 years older than me), raised hogs. Every now and then I would have the chance to work the hogs with him. It was difficult work but fun, nonetheless.

One particular day we were trying to get the hogs to go through a run to a chute and into a pen. One sow wasn't cooperating. She kept turning around and going back the other way which created confusion…  ( Click for more )

An amazing story has come out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A woman named Luz Cuevas saw her six year old daughter at a birthday party she was attending. Why is that amazing? Her daughter had been declared dead six years ago in a house fire.

Here is what went down. In 1997 Cuevas was married to Pedro Vera who, that year, had fathered their daughter Delimar. A fire suddenly blazed in Delimar's room where she was supposedly sleeping. The blaze was so hot and so sudden that no one was able to get into the room to rescue the child whom fire officials assumed burned in the blaze.…  ( Click for more )

Johnson Bible College has been affectionately called The Hill for a number of years. Seeing the sparawling forty acre campus now as compared to old photographs from the early 1900's reveals why. J. B. C. was built on a hill originally. Ashley S. Johnson, the founder, set it there to be easily seen. From the White House, the President's home since it was built in the early 1900's, to the old administration building which bears the evidence of the "School of the Evangelists", Johnson's dream was realized.

The Hill has, over the years, rendered the results that many hills do.…  ( Click for more )