Christmas has traditions that you should change and make your own, but some things get worse with tinkering. I should know. My children had two bath toys, a pony and an elephant, that endured through many adventures in cleanliness. They lasted long enough to need their own song and I “wrote” one called The Pony and the Elephant. This literary wonder was set to the tune of The Holly and the Ivy. By great good luck, this Christmas song is almost never sung, but merely played.... Read more
Scrooge has a great many problems and one of them is a weird irrationality about the world. He is a materialist. He thinks (!) that nothing exists, but matter. When confronted with a refutation of his beliefs in the form of a ghost, he refuses to be convinced. Here is the exchange: “You don’t believe in me,” observed the Ghost. “I don’t,” said Scrooge. “What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?” “I don’t know,” said... Read more
When I was a boy, my Papaws made me want to be old. They had time to tell stories, being retired and all, and they were gentleman. They wore suits to church and had great hats. Even when he was a young man, my dad was well on his way to adulthood: he has spent his life being a man, not a boy. Now that he is seventy-eight, Dad keeps doing interesting things. He gives old age a good name.... Read more
Beautiful messengers of peace: that is the role of angels and that was what our fifth graders thought when they took a look at a painting entitled “Angels” by artist Chatout donated by a Houston ambassador and public servant. They also get to travel and eat great food . . . Or so kids decided. Ambassador Edward Djerejian has served our nation as a peacemaker in Syria and Israel. Starting with Kennedy, he served most of our Presidents. He is man... Read more
Jesus loves the whole world and Jesus loves my little family. Our family is about as American as one can be by history and habits, but our faith is global. We learned to celebrate the coming of Jesus (glorious!) as Americans and so good traditions work for us that would not work elsewhere: A Charlie Brown Christmas, our California surfer-dude nutcracker, and our Golden Book version of the birth of Jesus. Yet the birth of Jesus was for everyone and the party... Read more
Christmas is a chance for a profound change: rebirth. One moment our broken being makes perfection impossible and the next everything good is possible. Jesus chose to become a man so all of the rest of us could become like God. When the angels announced Jesus coming down, we gained the ability to hope for the Heavens. This is very good news and makes Christmas graduations particularly special! For years I worked for my college degree and for a time... Read more
Viewed from the Keel of a Canoe is a very good book of poetry by a very interesting man. The man made the poetry, but the South, God, and his grandfathers made the man. Matthew Boyleston is a rarity: a published poet with business savvy and a deeply conservative man. His recent collection of poems should be required reading in the Carolinas and would be a good choice for a modern poetry class everyplace. Here is a sample of a... Read more
Don’t Rejoice in Failure Dad knew a man who preached the same sermon every week. People left his church until only a few faithful were hanging with the congregation to try to save the church after the pastor would (hopefully) wear out and leave. Was Pastor Tedium worried? No. He had, from his point of view, weeded out the sheep from the goats. People who wanted a different sermon had “tickling ears” and were followers of trends. He was “preaching... Read more
Let’s build a new city for the remnant of the people of God! That’s a good, big, and honorable call and it can be done. People have gone to new lands and built something out of almost nothing. How much easier to create a community in this land! If you are building a new business, ministry, or school the lessons of the community builder apply to you. Somewhere in the DNA of any Western culture, there are the founding lessons... Read more
By now on December 7, Pearl Harbor was a smoking ruin. The Empire of Japan decided to take on the United States of America in a war the Empire could not win if the United States decided to fight. Japan may have done the one thing necessary to provoke such a fight. We are right to remember Pearl Harbor. Brave men and women fought and died. Such courage is worth remembering, but courage in the instant moment of crisis is... Read more
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