“We locals call it ‘our Basket Full of Diamonds,’” said the guide as our tour boat glided past the lighthouse in Jupiter, FL in the diminishing light of evening.
My wife and I, both locals, gave one another an incredulous look and mouthed, “We do?”
My wife and I woke this morning to a backyard surprise, a 2-foot hole in our back fence and a 3-foot hole in our side fence.
It seems that one of our local black bears decided that going through our fences was easier than going over them.
Have you ever made a gaffe in public that was embarrassing, like, dig-a-hole-and-climb-in-it embarrassing?
One particularly memorable gaffe that had me longing for a shovel happened at another church in the same community where I was a pastor.
I am like a kid when it comes to Christmas. On our first Christmas together, I excitedly asked my wife the night before,
“When do you want to open gifts?” She answered, “Tomorrow morning is fine.” What an adult!
As a Canadian – or as the Bible refers to me, “the alien in your midst” – I still think of the second Monday in October as Thanksgiving Day. In many U.S. states, that day is Columbus Day, and in others, Indigenous Peoples Day.
Whatever you choose to call that day, one fact remains, I am not getting any turkey.
A group of men from Compass Church and I have begun meeting weekly to study the book “Disciplines of a Godly Man” by R. Kent Hughes.
This excellent book is founded on the command in the Bible for Christians to “discipline” themselves for godliness. The author begins by highlighting famous, successful men, who made their craft look easy.
My idea of an enjoyable morning is sipping coffee with my wife at a café and watching the world pass by. Our favorite perch when we lived in Naples was a bagel shop in a very busy plaza.
On Friday mornings, we’d seat ourselves at a table facing the small, very full, parking lot to watch the clumsy ballet of cars attempting to enter and exit.
Years ago, I enjoyed a short career as a professional musician, a choice that took me in an unexpected direction.
I had been working at an animation studio in Toronto churning out Scooby Doo cartoons for Saturday morning consumption.
One word that I would never use to describe myself is “athletic.” I played baseball in a municipal league in my youth, but I hung up my cleats and became a musician.
So, it was strange that, some 20 years later, I would be standing on a basketball half-court, about to go three-on-three against teenagers half my age. I have no recollection of how that absurdity came to be.
I met Rev. Williams through his son, who served on a church staff with me. It was early in my ministry. He was near the end of life, his mind ravaged by dementia, living in a care facility. Sometimes when I visited him, he was lucid; often he was not.
Every Wednesday, his son would bring him to the church to have lunch with the staff. The staff’s lunch conversations were lively affairs, sometimes humorous, sometimes serious.
