I’ve not been happy with the picture on my blog header for some time, so how about this one?  It’s not quite as bad now as when this was taken in the ER at Riverview Hospital last evening, though currently the eye is swollen shut.  I had ridden 18 miles, planning for 30 when everything went blank.  I came through Forest Park across the White River into Noblesville, approaching just north of the old Hamilton County Courthouse.

I knew I had to hit the old railroad tracks at an angle to keep from slipping into the cracks and wrecking.  What happened?  I don’t know.  I don’t remember falling and wrecking my bike.  The next thing I recall is being loaded into the ambulance, then I was at the hospital to check for broken body parts. All tests came back with good news – no spinal injury, no bleeding in the brain, no broken bones; just a few bruises and abrasions, so I was released to go home.  My only handicaps are temporarily reading with one eye and discomfort in my right hand when typing.  Apparently, I kept my grip on the handle bars and my fingers were pressed between the bar and the pavement. Continue reading →

As I approach 35 years of pastoral experience this month, it has been virtually an unbroken chain of walked alongside people (and their families) who dealt with cancer and various other frightening diseases. I haven’t donned pink shoes, shirt and a cap yet (don’t hold your breath), but pink’s irrevocable link to breast cancer has now become personal.  Continue reading →

This Friday marks 39 years since I stood with Linda Kankey in front of family and friends at Faith Baptist Church in Andover, Kansas as we took vows of marriage. We decided it would be meaningful to memorize the vows and declare them directly to each other without repeating the words after Pastor Bill Atkinson.

When it was time, I went first with the traditional King James Version language: “I Tom, take thee, Linda, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, to love and to cherish ‘till death do us part [or was it “for as long as we both shall live?” we’ll have to listen to the tape again] and thereto I pledge thee my faith.”  Linda said her vows to me and we were married. We took off in our 1967 Oldsmobile Cutlass for Garden City, Kansas on the way to Colorado Springs. Continue reading →

[My brother, Wesley, lacking his own blog, submits at various times, random musings that I find most enjoyable. For context and a reference point for "near east" and "far east," the reader should know that this writer hails from Viking country, central Minnesota. Unlike my brother who half heartedly chooses one team over the other, my support is unquestionably for the Packers]

It is a perplexing conundrum for the citizens of our great republic when the annual super festival featuring the two teams most notable for delivering bone jarring, teeth rattling, brain bruising collisions face each other on the field of battle. Continue reading →

Sunday afternoon, my daughter and twin granddaughters invited me to the basement to watch the recently released DVD of Secretariat, a film I intended to watch at the theater, but never made it.

Secretariat is the epic story of the record setting Triple Crown winner Continue reading →

Are there parts of the Bible you hope others never read because you aren’t sure how you would defend it?  In the past week, I’ve just finished the Book of Joshua and started Judges, which include some of those difficult passages. 

Joshua stands tall as a man of faith and courage, but it was while he presided over the conquering and thus, the killing of thousands of people as entire populations were destroyed in Israel’s claiming the land promised to Abraham.  And what’s more, the first part of the Book of Judges is an indictment against Israel for not completing the job, that is, for not killing all of them.  Why?  How can this be defended?  Continue reading →

Among the people I admire most in this world are the “retired” missionaries in our church. Each of them support my contention that retirement is not a biblical concept, not that I or they object to a transition from a career of earning to a more relaxed period of time in the older years, but that our calling as followers and servants of Jesus does not have an expiration date.  Continue reading →

It’s easy to pick on ancient Israel.  After they were delivered from Egyptian slavery through the Passover (Exodus 11, 12 -  judgment on Egypt by the angel of death and salvation for Israel by the substitute sacrifice of the lamb, the primary Old Testament picture prophecy of the Cross of Jesus Christ); and after God’s presence was even more manifestly revealed, leading them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Exodus 13:17-22); and after they had experienced deliverance through the Red Sea (Exodus 14, 15 – by human standards, one of the really big miracles, but no stretch at all for Omnipotent God); after all this, you would think they would find obedience to God almost natural. Wouldn’t we have fully trusted and obeyed God in these circumstances? Be careful of your answer to that one! Continue reading →

Last November 20, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., the Manhattan Declaration was announced and released to the press, what Charles Colson called “one of the most important documents produced by the American Church.”

Drafted by two Baptists and a Roman Catholic; Colson, Timothy George of Beeson Divinity School, and Robert George of Princeton University; and originally signed by 140 Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Evangelical Christians, the Manhattan Declaration addresses three of the most pressing moral and social justice issues of our day; the sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage, and religious liberty (including the rights of conscience).  Continue reading →

The fallout from the Supreme Court this week is about free speech and campaign spending limits, the setting aside of McCain/Feingold and other restrictions. I have opinions about that, but I don’t have a firm enough grasp of the issue to voice them, so I’ll leave that to others. And anyway, though I have strong political views, I generally consider them outside the purpose of this blog.

But where I cannot be silent is in regard to the infamous decision made by the Supremes thirty seven years ago today that struck down existing laws against abortion. The Court arbitrarily established a trimester system for pregnancy, but even then, effectively declared all the unborn not sufficiently human to deserve even the most basic right to life, let alone liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Continue reading →