Saturday, December 15, 2012

Monkey Madness


I remember hearing several years ago that a few drivers in Virginia reported their vehicles had been struck by crab apples thrown by a band of roaming monkeys.  It was either that, or it was a band of roaming crabs throwing apples at Virginia monkeys.  I’m almost certain there were monkeys involved, and Virginia.  Anticipating that some (myself included) would doubt my memory on this, I have taken the liberty of exhuming the story, as told by Virginia State Trooper Mike Scott to an AP reporter.  I shall quote the gist of it for your reading pleasure.  There is even a bonus banana in the story, to which I have not yet alluded, because I had no recollection of it. 

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Treadmills and Timbuktu

Last Christmas, my lovely wife Donna (sometimes called Darla in these stories to protect her identity) and I decided to buy a gift that would benefit us both.  I rejected her first idea, which was a one-way ticket for me to Timbuktu, on the grounds that it was unclear exactly how such a trip would benefit me.  Her second idea, rejected for similar reasons, involved Nome, Alaska.  Eventually we came up with something we could agree on.  We decided to buy a treadmill.  The thinking was, she could use it for hanging wet sweaters that she didn’t want to put in the dryer, and I could benefit from the mental gymnastics of figuring out how in the world to get the monstrous thing into the house.
We did not run out and buy the first treadmill we could find, primarily because, at this advanced stage of life, commonly known as the pre-death stage, we do not run.  A few years ago I made the mistake of running in my neighborhood.  I heard a boy say, “Look, Mommy, Santa is wearing shorts and trying to run.  I can see his bowl full of jelly.”  A lump of coal is too good for such a child.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Time Thieves

Daylight Savings Time is misnamed.  They should call it Sleep Losing Time.  It seems like The Central League of Clock Keepers of America (CLOCKsA) always picks the least convenient time to make us turn our clocks either forward or back----Sunday mornings at 2 AM.  In other words, they pick a time when they know----or should know, that most law-abiding citizens are fast asleep, and a number of us have to get up and preach in the morning. They’re always telling us what to do with our time, and our clocks.  Would it be so hard for them to move the clock adjustment time forward or backward a few hours?   Why couldn't they tell us to jump from ten to eleven, or eleven to ten?  Every six months or so, when I have to set my alarm for 2, just so I can crawl out of bed and stumble around the house resetting our clocks, I wish I had someone from CLOCKsA on hand.  

Sunday, September 30, 2012

My "60 Minutes" Interview

I don’t recall having volunteered to single-handedly prevent America’s forest fires.  I’m willing to do my part, of course, as I care about Bambi, Thumper and their woodsy friends as much as the next guy raised on Disney movies.  But as I told my church family, I was somewhat taken aback recently when a rather official-looking giant bear with a shovel told me that of all the people in America, I’m the only one who can prevent forest fires.  Granted, there is some satisfaction in being recognized among my peers, and to be honest, it doesn’t come as a complete surprise.  But I would have guessed that the national acclaim I so richly deserve would have come for being an excellent driver.  I’ve always half-expected that one day an officer would pull me over to commend me for coming to a complete stop before making a right hand turn at a red light, or for being one of the few Americans who knows the order in which to proceed at a four-way stop sign.  I assumed that, as a result, I’d be invited to a ceremony for America’s Best Drivers (maybe sponsored by Allstate, so I could meet that reassuring “good hands” fellow---you know, the one who was Jack Bauer’s president for a while).  Then I’d make a few guest appearances on the morning talk shows, and perhaps have a sit down with Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes.

“So is it true, Russ that you’ve been driving for almost half a century without an accident?” 
“That’s essentially true----no accident of any substance, Steve.” 

Monday, September 17, 2012

An Accounting of the Free Treasure

Why would a King, in an act of mercy, sovereignly pardon a criminal sentenced to death, and entrust to him an inestimable and inexhaustible treasure, with instructions to freely give it away? Why would he not, instead, entrust it to mighty messengers from his court?  How might some respond to the offer of such a free gift? How might the king react if the pardoned criminal did not offer the treasure to others, but kept it all for himself?

Thursday, August 30, 2012

The Mouse That Roared

When I was a child, our family received a wonderful present every year from Dad’s sister in London, an aunt we children had never met.  A week or two before Christmas, something remarkable would happen.  A box full of luscious Belgian chocolates would travel all the way across the ocean, the same ocean, I was assured, that we’d go swimming in each summer, and that box would magically land at our door in NE Baltimore.  Somehow, my dad’s sister had access to the world’s best chocolates. These chocolates were related  to the Milky Way and Three Musketeer bars on our drug store shelves, in the same way that Baltimore’s jumbo lump crab cakes are related to the frozen hockey puck-like objects that Mrs. Paul sells---that is, in name only.  Aunt Money’s boxes included orange flavored bars, and strawberry flavored bars, white chocolates and dark chocolates, chocolates shaped like sea shells and chocolates shaped like tiny pyramids.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Who Can See Better?

Who Can See Better - those who can only see the transitory things of this world, things which are fading away and will soon be no more, or those who can also see the things which are spiritual and remain forever? Do you look forward to coming days on earth only, or that day when you will see God face to face? Can you see better when you are young and your eyes work well, or when you are old, and your eyes are failing, when you have been weaned from the milk of human kindness and long for the wine of heavenly joy?


Thursday, August 2, 2012

Biting the Screen that Feeds You

I grew up watching TV---Robin Hood, Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, Sky King, Superman, to name a few, and tons of westerns: Roy Rogers, Hop-a-long Cassidy, Maverick, Cheyenne, Gunsmoke, Have Gun-Will Travel, The Rifleman, and my favorite, The Lone Ranger.  I think I was twelve years old before I met any three-dimensional people.  In my TV world, I knew that if I fell in a well, there would always be a collie nearby to summon help; if bad guys robbed my wagon train and left me hog-tied, a masked stranger and his trusty Indian companion would come along and make things right; and if I ate all the cream-filled chocolate eggs I was supposed to sell for school, my older brother Wally would somehow get me out of the jam, and ask Mom and Dad to not be too hard on me, because I was just a goofy kid.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Mother Country Syndrome

Most Americans love Britain. She is, after all, our mother country, and how can you not love your mother? That’s why America ground to a halt when we heard the news about Lady Di, and why we were glued to our satellites when Kate Middleton married Prince What’s-His-Name. I believe the technical term for this is Mother-Country Syndrome (MCS). As unpopular as it may be to say it, perhaps our love for Britain causes us to overlook some important things.

Here in rural Maryland, for example, lots of people have been diagnosed with Lyme disease, which we are told comes from ticks. I’m not so sure. I’ve noticed that some of those who contract it are indoor types who work in offices and live in homes that are generally tick-free. Besides, it’s called Lyme disease, not Tick disease. Surely I’m not the only one to notice that lyme is obviously a British spelling of lime. We don’t need Miss Marple or Inspector Lewis to deduce that America’s outbreak of Lyme disease can be traced to infected British fruit. Was it just coincidental that America’s first reported incidents were in New England?

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Count Your Children

My parents had piled the kids in the Plymouth station wagon and we were on the first leg of a long vacation trip, no doubt headed to a beach, with Dad driving late at night.  The back seats had been folded down, and the five kids were lined up like logs on blankets, trying to sleep.  Somewhere along the line, Dad stopped for gas.  Later, when he came to a toll booth, the attendant said, “Count your children.”
“What?”
“Count your children.”  
Dad turned around.  “Ricky, Russy, Kenny, Dindy…Wait!  Where’s Dougy?”  

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Field of Nightmares

The summer after I completed sixth grade (yes, Pretty Boy, I completed sixth grade, and I resent the question) my family moved from Maryland to central Florida.  (And yes, they brought me with them.  One more question like that and I might just stop answering you.)  The move was exciting, although I was concerned about being so far away from the Orioles. One of the first things that my younger brother Kenny and I did that summer was look for a place to play ball.  Until we found a vacant field, we played catch on the lawn of the Lake Dot Motel in Orlando, where the family stayed until we moved into a rental house in Winter Park. 

By the way, the Lake Dot Motel was (and perhaps is again) a lovely peaceful oasis.  But it wasn't very peaceful when the Sukhia boys arrived with bags of firecrackers and cherry bombs.  We had finagled them from a fellow named Pedro a few days before at his establishment that he called South of the Border, by shrewdly trading for them American paper money.  If he knew that cherry bombs exploded even under water, Pedro would never have parted with them for a few gringo dollars.  Let's hope the fish population in Lake Dot has recovered from the Disaster of '62.

Getting back to baseball---as it happened, the Lutheran church our family began to attend in Winter Park had a pastor who had once been a Minor League player (in the Pirate organization, as I recall) and he conducted a baseball camp in South Carolina.  I spent two glorious weeks there---sliding pits, batting cages, individualized instruction, movies of old World Series games at night, and grits at every meal.  I think Kenny got homesick and left after the first week, or else he came up just for the second week.  For the facts, you’ll have to consult his future blog, Littler Loaves.   
That camp was the scene of one of the greatest embarrassments that a 12 year old could endure.  On the final day, when the parents came to pick up their kids, there was a father-son game. 

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Guess Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf

I don’t know if you’ve ever had this experience, but when I was about ten years old, a wolf would come to my bedside at night.  He wasn’t the sort of wolf that howls at the moon and travels in packs.  He was the sort of wolf that walks upright on his hind legs, with a long snout and a dangling tongue dripping saliva.  In other words, he was the type that would occasionally get bit parts in Disney cartoons.   He didn’t watch me from my closet, or from across the room.  He would come right up to my head, sit on his haunches so he was at eye-level, and stare at me.  What particular interest he had in me, I did not know, and he would not say; but I guessed it was the same interest that Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother with the big teeth had in her; which happened to be the same interest that the huffing  puffing pursuer of the three little pigs had in them. 

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Dougy's Big Adventure

When we were kids, in the fifties (yes, I mean the nineteen-fifties) our parents used to say that my brother Doug was accident-prone.   What they meant was, he had a defective warning light.   In normal children, as you know, that light blinks in their brain just before they do something like jump from a moving vehicle, dive in an unfamiliar body of water, climb a rusty water tower, or otherwise endanger life or limb.  Doug’s warning light had evidently shorted-out in some dirty pond.
Our home in the NE Baltimore area called Overlea was on Powell Avenue, a dead end street, and we lived at the end of the dead part.  I know it sounds weird that a dead end street would be called an avenue, but I don’t make the rules, although, of course, I should.   Today our street would be described as a cul-de-sac, but this was back before America purchased the word cul-de-sac from the people of France.  I understand we got it for just $300 billion and Euro-Disney.  This is a lot more than we paid for the word chauffeur, picked up just before the war for next to nothing; but it’s quite a bit less than we paid for the word carte blanche, for which, I was told, we gave the French a veritable blank check. 

Thursday, May 3, 2012

The Impossible Mission

When I was in high school in central Florida in the sixties, the Mission Impossible TV show was popular.   In the unlikely event that you aren’t aware of the Impossible Mission Force (IMF), it was (or is) a secret band of government agents---so secret in fact, that if they were killed or captured, “the Secretary” would actually “disavow any knowledge of their actions.”  We were never quite sure who this secretary was, or why it would be such a big deal if she said she didn’t know what these guys were up to.  Now that I have a secretary, I understand how implausible it would be for one to claim no knowledge of her boss’ actions.  The secretary normally gets blamed for her boss’ screw ups.
 
Each member of the IMF was picked for his expertise in deactivating bombs, breaking into impregnable fortresses, or changing his appearance and voice so dramatically that he could trick a bad guy into thinking he was the bad guy’s mother.  This one came in handy.  Whenever they were out of ideas for how to stop a nasty foreign agent from detonating a nuclear weapon and starting the war to end all worlds, his mother would pop into his apartment, and he would casually mention to her, over lasagna, where he hid the bomb.  Then Mom would pull off her mask, the walls of his apartment would fall down, and the bad guy would discover that he was actually in the back of a truck on the way to a federal prison. 

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Is God Sovereign?


Did God, who created all things, simply set His creation in motion through the use of natural laws, or has he been actively and sovereignly engaged in the outcome of all events great and small?


Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Ica-russ Epilogue

I know some of you have been waiting with bated breath for this third and final installment of the Ica-Russ saga.  I’m not clear about just what bated breath is, but I’m pretty sure the phrase refers to the sort of breathing one does when in high anxiety in anticipation of something.  Give me a second to see if my computer can clarify this...Well, that’s what I thought:  “with bated breath--in anxious or excited anticipation.”  But I still don’t know why those words mean that.  Breath I get, but bated?  Here’s something, “Bate (intransitive verb), beat wings…to beat the wings wildly or impatiently in an attempt to fly off a perch or a falconer’s fist when still attached by a leash.”   That helps a little, but I would still not use bated in any sentence in which it is not immediately followed by the word breath

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

The Seed of the Church

Can the enemies of the Gospel prevent it from spreading by the sword?  How has persecution affected the Church of Christ over the centuries?





To view the entire sermon click on this link- http://youtu.be/CVRHT3cFXjE

Friday, March 30, 2012

God Overrules


Where was God when ...? Why did God permit this horrible tragedy? God has wise and holy ends to accomplish by allowing evil to take place. When bad things happen as a result of man's sin (sin for which man is responsible) God overrules them for his own purposes.



Thursday, March 29, 2012

Ica-russ Falls (or Ica-russ Rises,The Sequel)

We were on the ground, but we were still flying high.  We had soared over our school, dropped our cargo, and at least one of the precious Sukhia for President pillows had been found and retrieved (ironically, by the one classmate of whose vote I felt assured, the one who is sitting next to me as I type this, 45 years later). The mission had been a success.  It would be the talk of the school the next day; now, if we could just get through the next 48 hours or so without any nasty consequences...
It was History class, on the morning after our triumph; a fitting class for an event to occur that would put an end to what might have been a historic political career.  It was a day that will live in infamy in the annals of-----that will go down in the record of------a day that will forever be memorialized in-----well, in point of fact, there are no annals or records of such things, but if there were, then what I’m about to tell you would be in them. Oh yes, it would assuredly be in them.  

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Legalism or Liberty?

There are many ways we can fall into bondage when we've been granted liberty. We can fall into the trap of trying to earn our salvation by our good performance. We can follow unfairly imposed, extra-biblical rules, out of fear that if we don't, we will be judged a bad Christian, or no Christian. In this video clip, Pastor Russ discusses the bondage of legalism and the liberty of conscience.


6 minutes 29 seconds
To watch "Blinded But Seeing," the entire sermon from which this video was extracted, 
To hear the entire sermon click here
________________________________________________________________

From Little Loaves, the blogging fellowship of Pastor Russ Sukhia. All rights reserved. Website:http://littleloaves.blogspot.com/ | Phone: 410.655.5466

Friday, March 23, 2012

Flying High: Ica-russ Rises

It has occurred to me that I may have an inexhaustible supply of material for Wry Bread, as pandas can wander into my mind’s kitchen anytime they wish.  But as far as the things which actually happened to me are concerned, I have only limited time to recount them before my neurons, which are already slowing down, stop firing altogether. (Maybe if I had been using high test gas in my various Speck-mobiles all these years, my brain would be running cleaner). So while I still can, I will attempt to recount the story that was, as a sixteen year old, my brief claim to fame. This much I remember:

The year was 1967.  I was a junior at Lyman High School in Longwood, Florida, and it was time to elect class officers for our senior year.  “Who better than I to be class president?” I thought (and I tended to put my thoughts in quotations back then).  “If not me---who?  If not now---when?”  The reason I decided to throw my proverbial hat into the proverbial ring, was not because I had any serious thoughts about how to improve our proverbial school, or benefit my proverbial classmates.  My sole thought was decidedly non-serious and un-proverbial.  “Wouldn’t it be cool to be class president?” 

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

The Indestructible World Trade Center

On the hill of Calvary stands an everlasting exchange. The Gospel proclaimed by Pastor Russ on 9/11/2011.





3 minutes 49 seconds
To watch "Who's in Charge Here?," the entire sermon from which this video was extracted, 
To hear the entire sermon click here
________________________________________________________________

From Little Loaves, the blogging fellowship of Pastor Russ Sukhia. All rights reserved. Website:http://littleloaves.blogspot.com/ | Phone: 410.655.5466

Monday, March 19, 2012

Tater Tales

My first conversation with Tater was by phone.  I can’t say for sure that there was a piece of straw in his teeth, or a wad of tobacco in his mouth, but I’m pretty sure he was in a rocker on his front porch, and there was a lazy hound dog close enough to hit with a projectile.  
We had just moved from Florida to the lovely town of Maryville, Tennessee, in the foothills of the Smokies, with our son Nathan, 13, and daughter Grace, almost 12.  I had spotted a cute little log home nestled in some trees, within a mile of the church grounds.  My thinking was, “We’re in Tennessee now.  We should live in a log home, as Lincoln would have done, if he had lived in Tennessee.”  The family could hardly argue with that logic.  The house I liked was vacant, so I left a note, asking if I could have it.  The owners, Kirk and Gail (to protect their identity, we’ll call them Dirk and Dale) who became friends and members of our church, called several weeks later to say they were planning on moving into the home soon; so no, I couldn’t have it, but they would put us in touch with the builder, a fellow named Tater.
“Sure, Bud.  I kin bild you a house.  You find yerself a lot, I’ll buy the lot an build the house an you kin git a loan from the bank fer the hole amownt and buy it from me.”  

Saturday, March 17, 2012

A Blinding Enemy


If you were walking along a beach and you saw the words, "Earl loves Joann," written in the sand, it would be possible for you to conclude that the writing was caused, not by an intelligent being, but by the natural forces of wind and waves, snails and crabs.  But would that be a reasonable conclusion from the evidence?




6 minutes 31 seconds
To watch "Blinded But Seeing," the entire sermon from which this video was extracted, 
click here!

To hear the entire sermon click here
________________________________________________________________

From Little Loaves, the blogging fellowship of Pastor Russ Sukhia. All rights reserved. Website:http://littleloaves.blogspot.com/ | Phone: 410.655.5466

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Intelligent Design


This clip describes a process that is presently underway to simulate, with an IBM super-computer, the functions of a human brain.  [Note: The IEEE to which Russ refers is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers]







To hear the entire sermon click here ________________________________________________________________
From Little Loaves, the blogging fellowship of Pastor Russ Sukhia. All rights reserved. Website:http://littleloaves.blogspot.com/ | Phone: 410.655.5466

Luther's Prayer

Are there times when you feel like a failure as a Christian because you doubt, fear, you are weary, or even feel as if God is not listening and has abandoned you? You aren't alone. On occasion, even heroes of the faith have felt this way. Listen to Luther's prayer the night before he refused to recant his writings before the leaders of church and state.



Wednesday, March 14, 2012

What, More Bears?

OK, full disclosure:  There is a sense in which it could be said that not everything in the story Panda-Monium happened precisely as I described it; in the sense that maybe I didn’t find a panda chewing on our kitchen’s bamboo floor, and in the sense that maybe our kitchen doesn’t have a bamboo floor.  But I steadfastly stand by my account of our having a kitchen, and the rest of the story happened pretty much just the way I imagined it.  The following bear story however, has some basis in fact.

When we lived in east Tennessee, my brother Doug and his wife Nancy came to visit us. (That we once lived in east Tennessee, that I have a brother, Doug, and that he has a wife, Nancy, could all be independently verified by a reliable source, if you could find one; so far so good.)  When out-of-staters come to the Smokies, locals often take them on the Cades Cove Loop, a long slow drive past the remains of the original homesteads of mountain settlers, situated in the southwestern stretches of the Smoky Mountain National Park.   Before their land was purchased (or confiscated) so we could drive through it and admire it, folks used to farm, worship, get wed and get buried in those parts, often in that order.  (I noticed, walking through their preserved log homes, that those early settlers were also accomplished graffiti artists.) 
One of the attractions of the cove is the wildlife, much of which would be better called tame-life, because they’ve grown accustomed to being photographed by Yankees wearing Red Sox caps. I suppose someone, at some point, may have driven along the loop road without seeing any deer, but that person would have to be legally blind, and shouldn’t be driving. 
From time to time, however, black bears are sighted along the loop, and when it happens, people tend to pull over to watch them.  On this particular day, as I recall, Doug and Nancy were in the front seat and Donna and I were in the back.  Presumably we took Doug’s car because he and Nancy didn’t want to be crammed into the back of whatever miniature car we owned at the time (the youth at our church christened one of my fifty-mpg cars The Speck.  Sometimes they would move it from my parking spot without bothering to start it.  I think I found it once in a church closet).  The cars ahead of us had pulled over, and I knew this probably meant that there was a black bear ahead.  I asked Nancy to hand me her camera, and I hopped out of the car and hurried to the spot where some tourists had gathered in the nearby woods.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Arminians in Heaven?

 
You may be surprised to find, in heaven, positions of honor occupied by Christians who on earth were members of denominations whose doctrine was lightly esteemed by you.





Monday, March 12, 2012

Panda-monium


I wouldn’t call myself a coward, necessarily. Let’s just say I’m careful.  For example, even though I’ve spent a good portion of my life in Florida, I’ve never been scuba-diving, because I have O-positive blood,  which means, as I understand it, I can be eaten by a shark of any blood type. 

The same goes for bears, so I see no reason to attract them, which is why I’d rather not live in a house with a den, and I refuse to grill salmon outside. Why live dangerously? 

Unfortunately, these precautions have not succeeded in keeping our home entirely bear-free. Trying to do our part for the planet, when we needed a new kitchen floor, we chose bamboo, because it grows so fast. It was fast growing all right; within a week it had spread into our dining room.  It got worse.  I came into the kitchen one morning to find a panda gnawing on my floor (at that moment I regretted not reading the small print that came with the flooring). 

My first instinct was to try to chase it away with loud noises---banging pans, for instance.  Unfortunately, all the pans were in the kitchen, with the panda. Then it occurred to me that chasing it away might be a bad idea. I had a vague recollection that the Chinese claim ownership of all pandas, and I didn’t want to cause an international incident, and single-handedly bring on (or should I say, accelerate) the collapse of the US economy, which Congress seems quite capable of doing through deficit spending, so I called the Chinese embassy in Washington and spoke to a man who called himself Cho.

“One of your pandas is in our kitchen.”

“Which one?” 

“The upstairs kitchen---off the dining room. Why do you ask?”

“No, no. Which Panda?”

“How should I know?  He’s black and white.”

All pandas are black and white.”

“That’s my point.” 

“Does he respond to Tsing Tsing or Ling Ling?”

“He responds to bamboo.  He’s eating my floor.” 

“You are not supposed to feed him.” 

Cho seemed to be getting frustrated with me, and I was the one being eaten out of house, if not home.  I protested, “I’m not intentionally feeding him.” 

“Send me a photo,” he said, giving me his private cell number.

I sent him one of my best---the one of me sitting and smiling in a suit jacket. 

           Cho texted me back.  “Send photo of panda.”  That made sense.  I did, then he called me back.

“That’s Tsing Tsing. Can you put him on the phone?”

“How would I go about doing that? He doesn’t seem inclined to talk. He’s eating.”

“Just let me talk to him.”

I called to Tsing Tsing. (We were now on a first and second name basis.) I brought the phone close enough for him to hear, and I put it on speaker.  As I recall, the conversation went something like this: 

Cho: Unintelligible, animated Chinese.

Tsing Tsing: Pauses his chomping on bamboo.

Cho: Unintelligible animated Chinese.

Tsing Tsing: Resumes his chomping on bamboo.  

I perceived this was going nowhere (not unlike this story).  So I got back on the phone. 

“Can you just send someone to pick up your bear please?  He has eaten half my kitchen floor.”

“This is not good,” Cho said.  “Bamboo flooring is not fresh.  No nutrition.  We forbid it. Pandas are endangered.”

“This one certainly is,” I said.  “If he keeps eating the floor he’s in danger of falling into my basement.  Anyway, you need to get him out of my story so I can try to draw some spiritual lesson from all this while I still have a reader or two.  You’re not giving me much to work with.”

“Why don’t you write about your inordinate fear of sharks and bears, and your fear that a wolf sits at your bed and watches you while you’re sleeping?”

“How in the world do you know about that?”

“Facial recognition,” Cho said. “If we can monitor a billion Chinese, you don’t think we can keep track of a few hundred million Americans?  We know more about you than Google™ does.  I suggest you address your fears with a Bible verse like,

‘Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God that passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.’”

“Wow, you even quoted it in the New King James Version, the translation I use in preaching.  So that’s my story, a panda and one verse?  That seems kind of lame.”

“Yes.  We would say it’s heavier on the wry and lighter on the bread than your typical story.  But the good news is, very few people read what you write.” 

“Well, you have a point there,” I said. “Maybe you can find me some readers in China.  Wry Bread might take off there.  It could give your people something to read to improve their English during your next pandemic.”

“Yes,” he said, “that’s a good idea. We’ll put it on their English reading list: Hamlet, Moby Dick, Paradise Lost and Wry Bread.”

That made me feel good, until it occurred to me that advanced ESL classes must teach sarcasm.  Say it ain’t so, Cho.
    



Saturday, March 10, 2012

Salesmen and Suckers


Multi-million dollar "parsonages," private jets, paid family "ministry staff," Bentleys and Rolls Royces, these are the trappings of some of America's most popular pastors and evangelists. The Scripture warns us of those who will use the gospel as a means of personal gain.  Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for "devouring widows' houses."  What would He say to these modern scoundrels?

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

The Veil

The law God revealed to Moses was glorious.  So much so, that  when  Moses descended Mt. Sinai with the tablets of the law, his face was radiant.  But Paul calls that glorious law a "ministry of death," because it could only reveal our sin.  It had no power to remove it.  That glorious law pales in comparison to the gospel, as the light of a candle fades in the light of the sun.  The gospel not only shows us the way of life, it carries with it, when anointed by God's Spirit, the power to make us alive. The glory of the law is properly understood by those who have been driven by it to the much more glorious Messiah; and when one turns to the Lord Jesus Christ, the veil is taken away.

10 minutes 20 seconds
To watch "A More Glorious Ministry," the entire sermon from which this video was extracted, click here! http://youtu.be/jCqiwThudUA

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Corrupt Clergy

In this segment of a Reformation Day sermon, Pastor Russ attempts to summarize 1500 years of church history, emphasizing how false teaching may have crept into the church over the centuries.  To understand the Protestant Reformation, we must understand that the state of the Roman Church of the 16th century was evidently quite corrupt.  The Church seemed to have more interest in raising funds to build St. Peter's Cathedral than in teaching the message of salvation by grace through faith.

9 minutes 18 seconds

Working at Love


A strong lasting love demands effort and sacrifice----not the stuff of which fairy tales are made.
5 minutes 7 seconds

Friday, February 24, 2012

A Moving Lesson




During a household move, several years ago now, I was on one end of a bulky piece of furniture, backing into our kitchen from our garage. The fellow on the other end will go unnamed to protect his identity, but for the purposes of this article, we'll call him Pat Stevens ----of Mt. Airy, Maryland. Before lifting his end, Pat had paused just long enough to put on a pair of heavy leather work gloves. As I was backing up, bare-knuckled, he was explaining that he had torn up his hands so often helping people move that he had adopted the gloved-hand practice. “That may be necessary for a young buck such as yourself,” I thought, “but I was an experienced mover when you were lip-synching to your first Milli Vanilli album. My cat-like reflexes were finely honed before you swallowed your first strained pea.” 

Distracted by the thought, “I wonder if it was Mr. Gerber or Mr. Beech-nut who first made that ill-advised decision to strain peas?,” I receded through the doorway, somehow catching my left pinky on the latch as I went by. In the kitchen, I saw the tell-tale sign that I was bleeding--- blood proceeding from my skin. To make matters worse, it was coming from my little finger, which has always depended on me, and to which I've grown quite attached over the years. Perhaps you've already noted the irony of the situation. Seconds after Pat put on his heavy work gloves, explaining that he did so to protect his hands, I was leaving a substantial portion of one of my favorite fingers at my kitchen door. 

This State Means Business

Donna and I live in Maryland, which is an oddly shaped little state that was stuck between Pennsylvania and Virginia to keep Yankees and Confederates from having to rub shoulders with each other.  Our daughter and her husband live near Richmond, so we have occasion to travel Virginia interstates, where I've noticed signs that read, "Speed Limit Enforced by Aircraft." If the signs said, "Speed Monitored by Aircraft" I would tend to believe them, but enforced by aircraft? Exactly how does the state of Virginia go about enforcing speed limits by aircraft?  Do they use a fleet of drones, or do they use attack-helicopters?

"RED TOYOTA VAN WITH NEW YORK PLATES TRAVELING SOUTH ON I- 95. IF YOU DO NOT IMMEDIATELY DECREASE YOUR SPEED, YOU WILL BE FIRED UPON. WE REPEAT, YOU WILL BE FIRED UPON. THIS AIRCRAFT IS EQUIPPED WITH HEAT SEEKING MISSILES, AND ONE IS PRESENTLY LOCKED-ON TO YOUR VEHICLE'S EXHAUST. THIS IS YOUR THIRD AND FINAL WARNING!" 

Monday, February 6, 2012

The Fowler's Snare

Have you encountered someone who laid a trap for you, or an authority who  falsely accused you?  As Christians, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. CS Lewis in his Screwtape Letters identifies some of the devices that Satan and his demons can use to make inroads into our lives, devices of which we should not be ignorant.


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