You don’t have to read through this site very long to figure out that music flavors a lot of my thinking. I often tell people that I almost always have a song on my mind, and it’s often very random. (I’d rather not tell you what song is there right now, but it does have the phrase “freakin weekend” in it).
Hey, I never said they were all spiritual.
Anyway…
Like a lot of people, I love the idea of new ways of expressing things – of what the Bible calls “singing a new song to the Lord.” And I get tired pretty quickly of rehashing the same-old same-old.
That said, there are some songs that defy time and never seem to lose their place in the hearts of people. They may not be on this week’s Billboard Top 100, but they never lose their ability to capture the imagination and connect to the soul. They’re the songs we can sing forever.
For example, my grandmother absolutely loved music. She loved to sing it, play it, and hear it. But something completely changed in her countenance when somebody started in on “Amazing Grace.” It was a song she could sing forever. [click to continue…]
(Subtitle 1: Nine signs of an integrated life)
(Subtitle 2: Nine things to look for in a prospective leader)
(Subtitle 3: Why you love your representative but hate Congress)
Year in and year out, it’s the number one answer to what people want in their leaders, regardless of the arena. It’s more important than technical competence, talent, or even being nice. “It” is integrity.
In election years integrity is rolled out as the reason you should hire Candidate A over Candidate B. And yet who hasn’t shuddered at the extremes to which people in the high-profile political, business or ministry realm are examined for any cracks in their moral foundation or skeletons in their closets?
Hardly a season passes where we aren’t wagging our heads at another icon of power being exposed; Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino is the latest, but hardly the last. Soon we’ll be hearing some new cautionary tale about how someone laden with talent and brains lost their moral compass in the magnetic field of leadership power.
Hey, I get it. Both sides of it. I understand why integrity is so vital from a follower’s perspective, and so elusive from a leader’s perspective. I’ve also learned the hard way how difficult it can be to restore once you’ve lost it.
But it’s important to go beyond buzzwords and stop crowing about hypocrisy. When we’re talking about integrity, what, exactly, are we looking for? When you are about to select a leader in the making, what evidence are you looking for that he or she is a person of integrity? Or when your integrity has, um, “hit the ditch” (sorry, Coach), where do you start rebuilding it?
Here’s a place to start. Here are nine signs of an integrated life. No one lives this perfectly. But people who value integrity in their lives and leadership will be pointed in this direction: [click to continue…]
It’s 11:15. Things are starting to wind down. The day has had its share of sound and fury, and it isn’t quite over yet. Not in the world I inhabit these days. But as the curtain does begin downward on this day it brings a change in the vocabulary. The language of commerce and connections gives way to something different.
I love it when I’m drawn to the rhythm and melody of The Quiet Words.
In a world filled with the shrill and loud words, the passionate and proud words, where turning up the volume and dialing down the listening are commonplace, does your heart ever yearn for something more… still?
Calm?
Intentionally peaceful?
Mine does. I find myself drawn to, and longing for, The Quiet Words.
Behind the din of the marketplace, the duties of the workplace, and the drama and demonstrations of the worship-place, I’m ready for Elijah’s surprise. [click to continue…]
Cohen's first shower. Guess what he said when I told him it was time to get out?
My oldest grandson turns two this week.
I think he’s already been practicing.
Cohen has been staying with Papa and Grammy for the last few days because his six-week-old baby brother is in the hospital with a bad case of RSV.
For the most part everybody is weathering the temporary adjustment. But “the most part” wasn’t around at 7:00 yesterday morning.
Typically when he wakes up at first, he can be, um, “encouraged” to go back to sleep by putting him in our bed. Only this morning a certain somebody decided to turn over and douse my side of the bed with 20 gallons of soak-through.
Awesome.
So… changed diaper in place… You want to watch cartoons?
No.
No, Cohen, don’t touch that. Want some milk?
No.
No, Cohen, don’t throw the pillows. Want some banana?
No.
No, don’t throw your food on the floor. Want some apple? [click to continue…]
Jackie Mays was a legend. Maybe not everywhere, but certainly in some of the circles we roamed in when our kids were small. And to a couple of four-year-old twin girls, Mrs. Mays was larger than life.
Sending your kids off to school for the first time is a big adjustment. Especially when they’re your oldest, and they’re the ripe old age of four. Enter Mrs. Mays. Not only was she a faithful member of our church in Birmingham, she was one of the K-4 teachers at Grace Christian School. And a legendary gift she was, to both parents and their little darlings.
“Daddy, Mrs. Mays says…”
“Daddy, that’s not how Mrs. Mays…”
In Mrs. Mays’ class they learned the basics of reading and writing and that other “r.” They learned the pledges and the Star-Spangled Banner. (Cassie used to come home with that wistful, “I just love America.”) They learned to love God’s word, and learned the gospel and about heaven and hell and the price Jesus paid to snatch us from the one to take us to the other. And they had fun learning it all.
There were no assistants, aides, or volunteers. Just one amazing woman and a room full of four-year-olds, who most days sat mesmerized or did what was expected.
I want to tell you one of her not-so-secret secrets. [click to continue…]
Perdido Key, Florida. I was in a hotel room, desperately reading my Bible, even more desperately crying out to God. Somewhere along the way I had, well, lost my way. And I couldn’t find my way back.
Back to a consistently focused walk with God.
Back to a first-love commitment to Jesus.
Back to a sense of spiritual usefulness and power.
Back to a faith that could at least move me, even when it couldn’t move mountains.
Back to the hope that somehow tomorrow could actually be better than today.
I could have told you how to find your way back to wherever you left your path. But I was lost as last year’s Easter egg when it came to me.
I heard all the things I already knew in my head. Didn’t help.
I heard all the platitudes and steps and methods I’d told others and they had told me. Ditto.
I heard all the sermons I had preached to others about coming back to Jesus, and they were profoundly useless to me.
And what I was reading in the Bible wasn’t helping much, either. I kept reading passages in psalms where David would pray things like, “Vindicate me, O God, because I have walked in my integrity.”
I didn’t have any integrity. And the last thing I needed to see in that situation was vindication. Justice either.
In desperation I silently cried out, “God! Is there a verse in there for the rest of us?”
And He showed me something that changed my life. [click to continue…]
I.
If you ever wanted to write a forever kind of song
That angels or children or the big choirs sing…
If you’ve ever wanted to rhyme with the heart
Of the One who bends the rainbow
And deserves even more than your finest praise…
Then make your music with a life of passion.
Spell it out with clearly with actions of love.
Dance in the reign of King of the ages.
Promise your steadfast, immovable service,
Then hold in His beautiful power your faithfulness.
Show the whole world His symphony in you.
II.
If you ever wanted to write a together kind of song
Of friends or family or heroes or darlings…
If you’ve ever wanted to love someone else in the music,
Yet knew that your most heartfelt expressions
Were still so short of all they deserve from you… [click to continue…]
Here comes Ed.
Here comes bad news.
Have you ever had anybody like that in your life? They love you. They’re for you. But no news is good news. And if you ever see them coming, something’s wrong. Somebody’s complaining. Somebody’s offended. Somebody’s angry. And they’re coming by to help.
Ed was that kind of guy. I once told him, “Ed, just once when you come by, let me know I’m doing something right.”
Never happened.
That said, Ed taught me a couple of very valuable lessons, one of which I repeat regularly to this day. It’s the lesson about the stinger. [click to continue…]
Live in 30 seconds.
Go Camera One.
Camera one.
Go Camera Two.
Camera two.
Cue Intro.
And five… four… three… two…
From around the world, across the nation, and up your street, we welcome you to another edition of…
(bup bup budup bup baaaaaah!)
Hanukkah Hams!
It’s been a while since our last edition, so for the uninitiated, let me catch you up. A Hanukkah Ham is sort of like Candid Camera without the “candid” or the camera. It’s a glorious celebration of people who later asked “What was I thinking?” Hanukkah Hams are named after the Greenwich Village market who did this clever ad display. And in the past we have explored drains on the brain such as airline travel, higher education, electricity, hunting laws, and Christmas.
Today we go live and on the air to the world of news, weather and sports broadcasting, where, as you probably know, anything can happen.
Live.
Like this: [click to continue…]
Remember when you wanted that whatever-it-was from Santa Claus? Or your employer? Or your spouse or parents or educators or whoever… only to get it and be disappointed?
Remember when you thought, “If I could just make this amount of money, I would be content?” And you did… and you weren’t?
Remember the time you dreamed and dreamed and dreamed some more about a meaningful goal and were disappointed? But it didn’t keep you from dreaming some more?
Remember when you didn’t have your health or didn’t have any money or didn’t have anybody and it was all you could think about? Then when health or wealth or somebody showed up, it only served to point out something else you don’t have – and now all you think about is that?
All these and more are examples of something that stirs us, motivates us, alarms us or moves us in a certain direction, but never quite allows us to rest once we get where we think we’re going.
I’m talking about your Driving Force, and yes, you have one. Maybe more than one. [click to continue…]
You don’t have to read through this site very long to figure out that music flavors a lot of my thinking. I often tell people that I almost always have a song on my mind, and it’s often very random. (I’d rather not tell you what song is there right now, but it does have the phrase “freakin weekend” in it).
