One day I saw myself simply as coarse sand

Infinite shred pieces in the Master’s hand

Abrasively hard, was my roughness of stone

Cupped in Great Hands of the King of Heaven’s throne

Then in the crucible of fire He’d stoked

He blew into flames until newness awoke

His heat was so intense it burned to my core

And I became something as never before

The darkness of stone began to melt away

Til I saw something pure inside of me lay

He fanned the flames higher, higher in me

Till the hardness of sand could no longer be

With more heat yet the hardest sand disappeared

And through all of the fire I became clear

What once was dark sand had become clearest glass

Til others could see in me, Father at last.

b: a principle or force that is considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings

c: an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction

d: the sequence of physical and mental experiences that make up the existence of an individual

e: one or more aspects of the process of living

f: spiritual existence transcending physical death

g: the period from birth to death

I remember marking the book up with the letter “Q” in many places, it’s my way of designating that something said is worthy of quoting at some point and time in my life. The “Q” is one of those statements that will anchor itself in my memory, to be resuscitated at a divinely appointed time; it may be days, months or even years before life necessitates its excavation from my mind.

This past weekend I was on a spiritual retreat when one of the Qs crashed into my memory like a ’64 Ford in a county fair demolition derby.

For three days I gathered with forty or so men in tables of 5 or 6 and took a spiritual journey that caused us to bond in ways that won’t soon be broken. Two days into the retreat the five guys I sat with spent time praying together in an alcove of the church the retreat took place in. The alcove was at one time a main entrance to the church but over time and the addition of buildings the place was just a remote spot where the faithful once strode.

I recalled something Brennan Manning had written while we were praying. In The Ragamuffin Gospel he wrote this…

“Have I so insulated myself in a fortified city of rationalizations that I cannot see that I may not be as different from the self-righteous as I would like to think? The following scenario plays in my imagination:

A humble woman seeks me out because of my vaunted reputation as a spiritual guide. She is simple and direct:

“Please teach me how to pray.”

Tersely, I inquire, “Tell me about your prayer life.”

She lowers her eyes and says contritely, “There’s not much to tell. I say grace before meals.”

Haughtily, I reply, “You say grace before meals! Isn’t that nice, Madam. I say grace upon waking and before retiring, and grace again before reading the newspaper and turning on the television. I say grace before ambulating and meditating, before the theater and the opera, before jogging, swimming, biking, dining, lecturing, and writing. I even say grace before I say grace.”

That night, soggy with self-approval, I go before the Lord. And He whispers, “You ungrateful turd. Even the desire to say grace is itself My gift.””

What conjured up the memory of this part of The Ragamuffin Gospel was the story one of the guys I was with began to tell us about his daughter, Morgan.

Morgan was born with a tumor attached to her brain stem.

Throughout her fourteen years of life Morgan has endured nearly a half dozen surgeries, rounds of chemotherapy and radiation. I listened as my friend explained that the most recent round of radiation didn’t work; it didn’t reduce the tumor. At fourteen, Morgan is soon to face another surgery.

Morgan’s tumor can’t be removed because it is attached to the brain stem, and because of that the doctors can only remove pieces of it and hope that through chemo and radiation the tumor can be reduced enough to allow her to continue to live. A few years ago Morgan’s parents were told that at best she only had two years to live.

My friend mentioned that there are some new drugs on the horizon that may one day completely eradicate Morgan’s tumor.

Morgan’s dad spoke of her bravery, her zest for life and the great encouragement she is to him. She is teaching her dad how to really live through her own illness.

“You ungrateful turd,” kept playing through my mind

“You ungrateful turd!”

Over the past five years I’ve been on a journey with my youngest son, who is twenty. It’s been painful at times, it’s been frustrating at times, and it’s been embarrassing, hurtful and even seemed hopeless at times. But it’s never been anything like Morgan and her dad have experienced.

“You ungrateful turd; what do you really have to complain about?” reverberated off the walls of my mind in that alcove of that church.

My son doesn’t have a tumor on his brain stem, never has. He’s been healthy most of his life, except for a scare we had when he was one year old and was diagnosed with Kawasaki Syndrome.  I remember standing beside his crib in Nationwide’s Children’s Hospital the night he received a blood transfusion. I felt that night what Morgan’s dad must feel every night—every night for fourteen years.

So, I sit here and wonder, is my life filled with plausibility of a Gospel worthy of belief? Can I trust God with my son, as Morgan’s dad trusts God with his daughter? Do I believe that God loves me, and loves my son, and loves Morgan’s dad, and loves Morgan, even though at times it doesn’t seem like he does.

I was again reminded that God’s grace shows up in ways we don’t often expect and often don’t realize.

My pain would come and go as if it had a mind of its own, and often felt like I had a cantaloupe growing inside of me. Nothing I did seemed to provoke the pain; not running, not doing sit-ups, not cleaning the garage out, not shoveling snow and not even playing basketball.

I stand all of five-foot-seven so I don’t doubt that by being vertically-challenged on the basketball court could well have been where I might have obtained a hernia. Have you ever run into Don Cordle on the hardwood? Don feels like a man-size can of butter beans, except the can of butter beans is noticeably softer.

And, I ran into Matt Chittum once too; Matt reminds you of a six-foot-two sofa standing on end, I remember the audible urghh I coughed when I ran into Matt. Matt was concerned for me, maybe that’s where I was gifted a hernia.

I was willing to accept the idea I might have a hernia when Dr. Schwartz suggested it, but going to speak with a man with brand new scalpel gave me pause to think: Do I really want some guy slicing me like a Veg-a-matic so that he can pay his country club dues at Muirfield? So, I politely suggested to my doctor that maybe we should check the plumbing before I’m gutted like a wild boar in the outback of Somalia.

I had turned fifty four years ago and men like me are supposed to have a colonoscopy screening once they turn fifty. Now, mind you, I was never in a hurry to have a colonoscopy for the simple fact that a few years back I had a sigmoidoscopy. If you’ve never had a sigmoidoscopy the doctor smiles at you without any anesthesia coursing through your body and tells you “this won’t hurt.”

The sigmoidoscopy was darn near pleasurable until the “sigmoid turn,” at that point it felt like the old boy was shoving the handle of a garden rake in me and I thought it was coming out my stomach wall. I moaned and grimaced through a loss of breath and cursed the doctor’s firstborn.

Modern medicine is both miraculous and menacing; last year I had a Lower GI, which I believe was invented by Joseph Mengele. I’m not sure there’s too much more that the nether regions of my body can experience and I live to tell about it.

Conveniently, I was out of town last autumn when my family doctor attempted to schedule the colonoscopy for me; I guess my Gastroenterologist had to do a 97-year-old sailor to pay his country club dues last year.

I had a whole file of excuses why I wouldn’t call the Gastroenterologist’s office back, with most of them being I was fearful of garden hoses that looked like a black mamba. I do not exaggerate when I say that. I finally got up the guts two weeks ago to call and schedule my colonoscopy. There was something about the thought of tumor the size of a Titleist Pro V1 golf ball growing inside of me that was motivation enough to pull the trigger and have the procedure.

Last week I received a packet of information in the mail from my Gastroenterologist with more paperwork than it takes to apply for a Pell Grant to go to college. The good people at Dublin Methodist Hospital wanted to know my complete health history, including the time I shoved a hypodermic needle up my middle finger while emptying a trash can in the hospital laundry that I worked at while in college.

There was the proverbial list of instructions for cleansing the colon and a doctor’s prescription for liquid that must have also been invented by Joseph Mengele.

The journey intensified on Saturday afternoon around 3:00pm with a couple of Dulcolax pills. Dulcolax softens things up kind of in the same way Ken Norton’s body shots to Muhammad Ali’s ribs softened him up so that a crashing left hook could break Ali’s jaw in their fight in San Diego in 1973.

Earlier in the day the pharmacy tech at Target smiled politely as she handed me what looked like a one-gallon gas can as part of the prescription the Gastroenterologist had prescribed for me. I think deep inside of the tech she was thinking “poor sucker.”

Shortly after 3:30pm I followed the instructions on the gas can-like contraption and filled it with water—the thing was so heavy it could have been used as a door stop to the gates at Buckingham Palace. The gallon came with a delightful assortment of “flavor packs:” Yummy Cherry, Zesty Lemon Lime, Citrusy Orange and some other flavor I completely ignored by going straight for the orange.

The prescription called for drinking 8 ounces of the concoction every fifteen minutes until your colon melted or your rectum was as raw and red as a Porterhouse steak  in the meat case at Giant Eagle.

I laid in a supply of Life Savers just before the drinking commenced. I’d throw back 8 ounces of the solution like Charlie Sheen on a weekend bender, followed by a Life Saver chaser. I did this about six times until the first wave kicked in. When I say wave, I mean it in its most literal sense. It was something akin to what people along the Scioto River in Pickaway County experienced in recent days with the torrents of rain and melting snow. The banks of my bowels were overflowing.

I think I should have installed a revolving door on the bathroom just for this occasion.

By the time 9:00pm rolled around Sunday evening I felt like I’d hooked up a garden hose to my mouth and somebody turned it on full blast. There was no chance the dear folks at Dublin Methodist were going to see anything but clear liquid when they shoved the camera inside me.

I had finished about 80% of the gallon when my psyche suffered a breakdown; emotionally I couldn’t suck down another drop of the salty liquid only to make a mad dash for the bathroom. And this is advancement in health care mind you!Even though I was drinking a solution that was mostly water I knew I had begun to dehydrate by bedtime because I was getting a headache and was starting to have muscle cramps and spasms.

Just prior to starting the cleansing process I had drank 4 one-liter bottles of Spring Water, and now that I was dehydrating I drank another 3 one-liter bottles. Sandwiched in between all that was a half-bottle of Mexican Coke and a half bottle of 7up.

Did I tell you I didn’t sleep much last night?

During the night I made as many dashes to the bathroom as Kirstie Alley makes to the refrigerator during an evening at home watching reruns of Cheers and dreaming about Sam Malone.

The sky outside lightened sometime before 7:00am and I awoke to a volcanic rumbling in my stomach. I had last eaten Saturday evening, it was now Monday morning. My stomach was rumbling for another reason too, the last of Mengele’s elixir was screaming to be expelled.

I spent some time with God this morning; I think it was the only way that I was going to make it through the rest of the journey. I showered, got dressed and checked my email while waiting on my wife to get ready.

Having a colonoscopy requires somebody accompany you and drive you home. I was about to learn why that is.

I was checked in, and then double checked in, then verified, then verified a second time before I was invited to slip into my birthday suit to be draped by a hospital gown. I’d like to meet the person who invented the hospital gown; I can’t help but wonder if it was a great great great uncle of Charlie Sheen.

I received two lovely bracelets, one explaining who I was and my date of birth, the other warned the staff that I had a sensitivity to Codeine. I discovered my sensitivity to Codeine after having a tooth pulled about a dozen years ago.

I took one of the Codeine laced pilled the dentist had prescribed and felt like Timothy Leary at Berkeley in the 60s. I didn’t see pink elephants or psychedelic colors, but I understood why somebody might want to feel that way all the time. That was until I sat up or stood up; unless I was flat on my back nausea overwhelmed me, making the experience a rather cruel joke. So, I really can’t take anything with Codeine in it.

My nurse, Mark then shoved an IV into my left arm. I really don’t like needles and can’t watch when I get a shot or in this case, an IV. So, there I lay on the bed; IV sticking out of me, my colon completely empty, my stomach crying, a cool breeze slipping up my backside, all while wearing neon yellow socks. Glory!

Mark retrieved a blanket that had been warmed and draped it over my body; I felt like a puppy.

By now visions of the black mamba were dancing through my head as I watched Sports Center on ESPN to take my mind off what was coming. A short time later, Sally rolled in and rolled me out to the procedure room.

I was amazingly calm as I entered the room; the place looked like something out of Frankenstein’s laboratory. And there lay the black mamba. I could see it curled up on a stainless steel table like gigantic version of Indiana Jones’ whip, but far more sinister.

On the ride to the procedure room I mentioned to my nurse, Sally that I had a heart catheter done seven years ago and was supposed to have been given a twilight medication to relax me during that procedure, but I ended up watching the whole thing on the monitor and talking to the cardiologist as he shoved the catheter up my thigh into my heart. I wanted Sally to know I wanted some good medication.

There were two nurses, and two assistants in the procedure room when Dr. Arlin walked in and shook my hand; I wondered where that hand had been a half-hour earlier. Everybody in the room verified my name and date of birth and the procedure I was going to have.

The doctor called for 103 of something to be given to me. The nurse had me roll on my left side and draw my knees to my chest, then I saw her shoot something into the IV and watched as it dripped into my arm. Sally said, “This should give you a nice buzz.” Man, I hadn’t heard those words in many decades, but I knew what they meant.

I stared at the monitor in front of me waiting for something to happen. “Oh crap,” I thought to myself, “was this going to be another twilight fiasco like I had for my heart cath?” At that moment I became a little light headed…and my wife woke me up.

The black mamba had done its job; as well as Roto-Rooter does its job. The doctor said everything looked great and said I didn’t need to have another one for 10 years. Ten years; I hope scientists have invented something similar to a liquid tornado by then that doesn’t include drinking a gallon of rectum rocket fuel.

About a month ago I started receiving photos via email from some dear friends in Tennessee. At the same time those same photos and others began to appear on Facebook. They were photos of their infant son, Martin.

Some of the photos were beyond poignant. One photo was of Martin lying on his stomach with his arm folded under him with his chin cradled on the back of his hand staring into the camera’s lens as if to say “so this is life?”

I laughed at another photo when I first saw it; the angle of Martin’s head, and him being a newborn, caused him to look like an alien baby—his eyes were big like dark almonds and he had about as much hair as his dad, Jerry.

I cheered at another photo which showed Martin wearing Pittsburgh Steeler slippers!

Martin is one of life’s gifts that make you smile; he makes you smile big and wide and long like a Mayflower moving van. He makes you smile sentimental smiles because he stirs memories of your own sons.

And, his parents make you smile big and wide and long too. They make you smile because they’re people who are smiling on the inside.

For many years Judy and Jerry Day were unable to conceive children. I have to imagine that Judy and Jerry felt something of what Hannah in the Bible felt. There was a barrenness anchored inside of Hannah that was as profound as the barrenness of her womb. She would go to the Temple to talk with God about her barrenness, and her groaning to God was deep, guttural and silent. I imagine Judy and Jerry had a few moments like that.

I’ve not met Martin personally yet, but I’m guessing he’s quiet like his dad. Jerry listens more than he talks; it’s a quality I wish I had. Inside of Jerry’s brain, which has now pushed its way through his hair, gray matter is spinning like the cars on a Tilt-A-Whirl. Somehow Jerry manages to keep it all inside his mind, while mine flies out my ears, oozes from my nose, seeps from my eyes and is vomited out of my mouth.

Other photos of Martin seem to depict him as tranquil, just observing sights, sounds and smells; that’s what Jerry does too, and he does it well. There’s a photo of Martin wearing a plaid jumper and smiling so big his head almost disappears; he looks like Judy. Judy has a smile so genuine it makes you question whether your own smile is genuine.

For many months I joked with Judy and Jerry about what they were going to name their baby. Jerry’s answer was always the same, and he would say it with a laugh, a laugh like a sinister clown—funny but scary.

Every generation has a set of popular names that they give their children. My grandparents’ generation named my parents earthy names like Robert and Mabel. They named my aunts and uncles Marvin and Ruby and Rachael and Opal. Those were solid names; solid like the bricks in a four-story warehouse.

My parents gave their kids names like Wanda and Donald and Alan; they were names that were different than those solid names of the previous generation. These were names that seemed more like the mortar between the brick; useful and unassuming.

My siblings and I gave our kids names like Christopher and Ryan, Dawn and Troy, Jesse and Brittany, Caleb and Brandon. They were names that could be worn nicely, like a good pair of designer jeans. They were names that lots of our contemporaries were naming their kids.

Martin, at first blush, seems like a name out of place in 2011. Martin was one of those useful and unassuming names of my generation. Martin isn’t trendy like a pair of designer jeans. Martin was the last name of my boyhood friends, Noble, Marty and Morris.

Martin is a throwback to the 60’s. Martin was a name that Dion sang about in the 1968 song “Abraham, Martin and John.” Judy and Jerry threw a line back over forty years and pulled Martin into today.

Martin Luther-King Day. It’s the name that elicited that sinister clown laugh from Jerry. Who’d ever name their son, Martin Luther-King Day? Judy and Jerry Day would.

I think Judy and Jerry are the only people I’ve ever known who could pull off naming their son, Martin Luther-King Day. They could pull it off because the very thing Dion sang about in his 60’s song Judy and Jerry embody. “Abraham, Martin and John” has a few lines that go like this…

Anybody here seen my old friend Martin?

Can you tell me where he’s gone?

He freed a lot of people,

But it seems the good they die young.

I just looked ’round and he’s gone.

Didn’t you love the things that they stood for?

Didn’t they try to find some good for you and me?

And we’ll be free

Some day soon, and it’s a-gonna be one day…

I want to dream that Martin Day will “find some good” for the world which he’s been thrust into.

I want to dream that he will be the kind of person his mom and dad are.

I want to dream that he’ll make a difference in the world for the better.

I want to dream that his name will open doors into the lives of people that need the message that his namesake carried about God; “I just want to do God’s will.”

            Mankind was also known as Bigness, Bulldog, Spud, Big Nick and Gentle Giant. My friend, Nick slipped into eternity a few minutes before 2:00pm. I learned a lot from Nick’s death; a lot about people and about myself.

            Nick was given the nickname Mankind because of his love for Professional Wrestling and because he was such a kind man; he was only 28 years old when he passed.

            I’d known Nick for a couple of years; his mother attended the church where I pastor. In January I officiated the funeral for Nick’s dad; none of us dreamed we’d being having a funeral for Nick in the same year.

            Nick was a giant of a man; he’d worked in security at a strip club in Columbus where he earned the name Gentle Giant which was given to him by one of the girls that worked at the club because he used to protect her.

            Over the past few days it became apparent to me that Nick loved people and people loved Nick.

            I heard story after story of Nick’s generosity, love, kindness and care. Over a few years period of time Nick and his mom opened their home to 25 different foster children. There was a photo laying in Nick’s casket today with a little 2-year-old girl named, Selina laying on his belly as they lay on the couch together—he was “daddy” to her. He was daddy to a couple dozen kids who didn’t have someone to call daddy.

            I learned that a family friend’s young daughter couldn’t say “Big Nick” when she was small, but instead it came out “bigness”. The name stuck and Bigness was born. Nick was big, he was bigger than life; he was bigger than 28 years normally makes a man.

            I heard more stories of how Nick befriended people; he would give them anything they needed, and, if it was possible, he’d given them things they wanted but maybe couldn’t afford.

            Nick was a huge Insane Clown Posse fan and a dozen or two of his ICP brotherhood testified to the kind of friend and man he was. Others from the strip club where he had once worked testified of the same thing.

            Nick made me wonder what kind of a legacy I’m leaving. It’s easy for me to go through the day-to-day routine of being a pastor; preparing sermons, conducting church business, helping people, feeding the poor and homeless and myriad other things—but the big question is “am I loving people”. Do I love people so much so that they would think of me as Mankind as people thought of Nick as Mankind? Is my love for people so great that I’m known as a kind man?

            Jesus said the greatest thing is to love God with all our heart and to love others as we love ourselves.

            I realize that I have the capacity to love God, but my love for people is sometimes restrained. I want to love people the way Nick did—without conditions. I want to love people who work at strip clubs and rock out to ICP; in many ways I don’t think they’re so far from God. I want to love daddy-less kids. I want to love those our world thinks are unlovely. And, I want Jesus to think of me as Mankind; that I was a kind man who loved God and loved people so much that it was the legacy I left with my life.

            I gotta believe that Jesus would smile on that type of kindness; it’s a kindness that does the one thing we were created to do, and that is to reflect to people what Jesus looks like and what God looks like.

Our grill was somewhere around seven years old; the black cast aluminum body had faded to ghostly gray, the guts of the thing were crumbling under the rust causing the flames to engulf anything I’d cook on it—it was our version of hamburger hell.

The $79 price tag was too good to pass up, especially since it came assembled.

I attempted to hoist the gangly beast into my trunk only after removing one of the shelves; then I barely squeezed it in, in what looked like a 400 pound gorilla trying to put on a ballet slipper.

For several weeks our new grill sat side-by-side with the old one, during which time my wife asked me if I could move the old one before it killed the grass. We live in a condo in the heart of the city and our piece of turf is only twenty feet wide, so killing any of the lawn is as noticeable as a comb-over on a bald man’s head.

I got busy over a couple weeks period of time and completely forgot about my wife’s request, only to come home one day to the grill having mysteriously levitated and moved itself from the center of our yard to a place beside our privacy fence. Actually, my wife had wrestled the thing; I guess she’d given up on me ever doing it.

As she had feared our lawn now had a spot of dead grass in it about four feet long and a couple feet wide; a blemish if there ever was one. I guess I’ve been hoping the Lawn Fairy will come one night while we’re sleeping and Hydroseed that bare spot—you know, that mixture of grass seed, water, fertilizer and wood fiber that looks like bluish-green oatmeal. Hey, there’s a Santa Clause, isn’t there, why not a Lawn Fairy!

The past two weeks have been very busy and draining for us, my nephew was involved in a head-on car crash, lived for a week on life-support and passed away last Friday. The funeral was this week on Wednesday, so the two weeks have been a blur.

I’m not an especially emotional person, but I became emotional when I was reminded what death looks like in the eyes of the dying. When the decision was made to take my nephew off of life-support I stayed in the room with my niece, her sister and a few other family members and watched the monitors that my nephew was hooked up to begin to fade like letting the air out of a tire. There is an emptiness in the eyes that is indescribable.

I think grieving takes time; none of us grieve completely all at one time, but it kind of moves like the second hand on a clock. With each passing second one deals with the grief in different ways with differing amounts of intensity, and, there are many steps to complete the process. But, sometimes we never get over our grief.

My wife and I were sitting in our living room this morning and she asked me if she could share something with me; “sure” I said.

She began to tell me about looking at the dead grass in our back yard, that spot that happened because I failed to move the grill. Initially, I thought I was going to end up on the proverbial doghouse, but I soon discovered I wasn’t. Thank goodness, because I hate kibbles-n-bits.

She mentioned how that patch of dead grass had helped her to process my nephew’s death, and, those things that we think are negative or damaged or blighted, can actually be used to help us make sense of some of things that life is about; when otherwise we just see dead grass.

  My wife recounted how she had stood at out kitchen window and watched as a robin landed on our lawn and began to accumulate blades of dead grass in its mouth. The robin bobbed to pick up piece after piece of brown, lifeless grass, which a few months earlier had been a vibrant verdant.

The robin gathered the dead grass and flew away, only to return for a second trip. Again, the bird danced and bobbed picking up brown blades with its mouth and flew away for a second time.

In that moment it struck my wife; the things in life that sometimes appear to have no meaning, like dead grass, actually can be life-giving with great purpose. The robin was collecting dead grass to weave its nest, and in that nest it would raise baby robins. What was dead would help to provide a living environment for the robin.

We don’t always see it, and even sometimes when we do it takes a really long time, for something life-giving to come out of the death of nephew who’d been killed in a head-on car crash.

But, if we’ll look closely, we’ll see single blades being picked up and used to give life. In the case of my nephew, his death, one blade at a time, began to teach us all how to live as though we’re dying; how we need to make the most of each day, tell people we love that we love them, and, allow those things in us that are selfish to die.

Maybe it wasn’t an accident that I killed the grass; maybe it was God’s way of giving life—to the robin and to my wife.

If we are to really find it I think we will have to look in the hearts and souls of men…The great problem facing modern man is that, that the means by which we live have outdistanced the spiritual ends for which we live…The problem is with man himself and man’s soul…My friends, all I’m trying to say is that if we are to go forward today, we’ve got to go back and rediscover some mighty precious values that we’ve left behind.

That’s the only way that we would be able to make of our world a better world, and to make of this world what God wants it to be and the real purpose and meaning of it…The first is this—the first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws.

I’m not so sure we all believe that…I’m not so sure if we know that there are moral laws just as abiding as the physical law. I’m not so sure about that. I’m not so sure if we really believe that there is a law of love in this universe, and that if you disobey it you’ll suffer the consequences…The first thing is that we have adopted in the modern world a sort of a relativistic ethic.

Now I’m not trying to use a big word here; I’m trying to say something very concrete. And that is that we have accepted the attitude that right and wrong are merely relative…But I’m here to say to you this morning that some things are right and some things are wrong. Eternally so, absolutely so.

It’s wrong to hate. And so long as we adopt this relative attitude toward right and wrong, we’re revolting against the very laws of God himself. Now that isn’t the only thing that convinces me that we’ve strayed away from this attitude, this principle. The other thing is that we have adopted a sort of a pragmatic test for right and wrong—whatever works is right. If it works, it’s all right. Nothing is wrong but that which does not work.

If you don’t get caught, it’s right. That’s the attitude, isn’t it? It’s all right to disobey the Ten Commandments, but just don’t disobey the eleventh, “Thou shall not get caught.” That’s the attitude. That’s the prevailing attitude in our culture. No matter what you do, just do it with a bit of finesse. You know, a sort of attitude of the survival of the slickest. Not the Darwinian survival of the fittest, but the survival of the slickest—whoever can be the slickest is the one who right.

It’s all right to lie, but lie with dignity. It’s all right to steal and to rob and extort, but do it with a bit of finesse. It’s even all right to hate, but just dress your hate up in the garments of love and make it appear that you are loving when you are actually hating. Just get by! That’s the thing that’s right according to this new ethic.

My friends, that attitude is destroying the soul of our culture. It’s destroying our nation. The thing that we need in the world today is a group of men and women who will stand up for right and to be opposed to wrong, All I’m trying to say to you is that our world hinges on moral foundations. God has made it so…

There is something in this universe that justifies the biblical writer in saying, “You shall reap what you sow.” This is a law-abiding universe.  This is a moral universe. It hinges on moral foundations. If we are to make of this a better world, we’ve got to go back and rediscover that precious value that we’ve left behind….

Well this you say, “Why is it that you raise that as a point in your sermon, in a church”…But we must remember that it’s possible to affirm the existence of God with your lips and deny his existence with your life…And the world, even the church, is filled up with people who pay lip service to God and not life service.

And there is always a danger that we will make it appear externally that we believe in God when internally we don’t.

We say with our mouths that we believe in him, but we live with our lives like he never existed.

That is the ever-present danger confronting religion. That’s a dangerous type of atheism…The materialism in America has been an unconscious thing. Since the rise of the Industrial Revolution in England, and then the invention of all of our gadgets and contrivances and all of the things and modern conveniences—we unconsciously left God behind…We just became so involved in getting our big bank accounts that we unconsciously forgot about God…we had unconsciously ushered God out of the universe…

And may I say to you this morning, that none of these things can ever be real substitutes for God.

Automobiles and subways, televisions and radios, dollars and cents can never be substitutes for God. For long before any of these came into existence, we needed God. And long after they will have passed away, we will still need God.

And I say to you this morning in conclusion that I’m not going to put my ultimate faith in things.

I’m not going to put my ultimate faith in gadgets and contrivances. As a young man with most of my life ahead of me, I decided early to give my life to something eternal and absolute. Not to these little gods that are here today and gone tomorrow, but to God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Not in the little gods that can be with us in a few moments of prosperity, but in the God who walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death, and causes us to fear no evil. That’s the God. Not in the god that can give us a few Cadillac cars and Buick convertibles, as nice as they are, that are in style today and out of style three years from now,  but the God who threw up the stars to bedeck the heavens like swinging lanterns of eternity…

I’m not going to put my ultimate faith in the little gods that can be destroyed in an atomic age, but the God who has been our help in ages past, and our hope for years to come, and our shelter in the time of storm, and our eternal home. That’s the God that I’m putting my ultimate faith in. That’s the God that I call upon you to worship this morning…

If we are to go forward this morning, we’ve got to go back and find that God.

That is the God that demands and commands our ultimate allegiance. If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover these precious values: that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.

Wild strawberries are the sweetest

Lilacs blossoms don’t last long enough

Billy Graham is beautiful

Third grade kids can be cruel

Toy soldiers are slaves

Milk Duds can be used as a bribe

Heroes die too soon

Permanent teeth aren’t permanent on a playground

Class clowns are insecure

School lunches taste great when you’ve never had one

The Salvation Army was God’s idea

Neighbors want to be left alone to swim in their own pool

Mrs. Bartel loved teaching 6^th graders

Fresh baking bread smells best early in the morning on cold days

Kids who like to spend money make bad paperboys

Black kids and white kids could be best of friends even in the 60’s

It’s hard to play basketball in socks on a gym floor

An Ohio tomato in August is manna

The high dive at Schoonover Pool was high

Walking on a railroad rail is easier for a ten year old than a fifty year old

I use to be able to run fast

A Dr. Pepper can last for hours at the basketball court when you’re twelve

Jesus shows up at Vacation Bible School

Moms make great sacrifices

Little brothers can be quite annoying

Eight people can live in an 810 square foot house

The inventor of Chum Gum was a genius

Toothbrushes are good things

It hurts when you wreck a mini bike in the street

French fries cooked in lard taste best

Dreams don’t always come true

Almost anybody can beat me up

Watching your school burn can be fun

A temperature of 103.5 makes you feel hot

Old men with arthritis can be cranky

Jumping off a garage roof at 10 is felt when your 53

Coke in bottles tastes better than Coke in cans

Male teachers used to paddle harder than female teachers

Teenage boys’ feet stink after playing basketball

Summer school isn’t fun

Jimmy Spees had a great Ft. Apache playset

Fresh mown grass makes you glad you’re alive

God knew what he was doing when he made girls

Sour milk is lumpy and doesn’t taste very good

Tom Jones is a stud

Cussing around little kids will cause a parent to call the police on you

Manure smells good at the County Fair but no place else

Cars get wrecked at a Demolition Derby

Grandmas are special creations of God

Walls don’t move when you crash into them while roller skating

The Kewpee is the best hamburger in the world

The theme song from Bewitched was cool

Smelling like fish will never get you a date

Elvis danced better than Michael Jackson

Unrequited love can last a long time

A car engine doesn’t work without oil in it

Green bananas are the best

45 rpm record fly really far when thrown

Mother Theresa was the best mother in the world

Kissing as an expression of affection is better than slugging a girl

Girls bikes should have been made for boys

Mosquitoes suck

My mom looked a lot like Santa Claus

College gave me a big head

Chugging a Hires Root Beer will create one huge belch

A friend will never get off the teeter totter when you’re in the air

Every family has a black sheep

A day never lasts longer than 24 hours

Hospital laundries are not pleasant places to work

Cats don’t like baths

Elephants never came when Tarzan yelled

Running a marathon hurts

Isuzu makes a bad vehicle

Dads worry about sick sons

Divorce is diabolical

Men don’t have to be drunk to dance

Lingerie is the best foreplay

Soft cookies are better than crispy cookies

You need your mother

Prayer works

Chuck E. Cheese is a rat

Newspapers don’t tell the whole story

People change

Canadian geese will chase you if you get too close to them

Playing full court basketball one-on-one makes you tired

Walt Disney was Sunday nights

I miss Jimmy Stewart

God doesn’t want us to go to church; he wants us to be the church

Jesus loves me