This past week the Nobel Prizes were announced. Albert Einstein spoke at Hendrik A. Lorentz’s funeral in 1928. He spoke of Lorentz’s “never failing kindness” and his love for others. Einstein said about his fellow physicist and Nobel Prize winner – “Lorentz devoted himself to the work of reconciliation.” This story about Hendrik A. Lorentz […]
Do you have control of what comes out of your mouth? My father and I were putting a new roof on our house one day when I hit my thumb with the hammer. The first words out of my mouth were not ones that could be used in church. My mother heard what I said, […]
When I attended Duke Divinity School, I took every preaching class I could. I was already serving two small churches and wanted to be the best preacher I could be. Once when I had to present a sermon, the professor told me that I reminded him of Billy Graham. He said, “You used your hands […]
At several of the churches I served at, we had large clothing closets. At one of these closets we requested winter coats, gloves and scarfs. It was a highly successful request because winter coats came in by the carload. The sad part to all this was that many of the coats were worn out and […]
My mother-in-law is 95, so when we go to visit I try to do things for her that she no longer is able to do. Two years ago, I pruned her Crape Myrtle bush. This was no small task. I had to use a ladder and some of the branches were so large that I […]
When I was growing up, I used to ride horses every day. I had a mare named Star. She was seventeen hands tall and a joy to ride but she did not like to jump. More than once, she’d do a U-turn and throw me into the jump. C.S. Lewis once said that being a […]
When God called me to preach, I was sent to Moncure United Methodist Charge in Moncure, North Carolina. Moncure was so small it only had one stop sign. I had never preached a sermon before I entered Divinity School – I was a Chemist! On my first Sunday, I titled my sermon, “Why Am I […]
My son, Marc, gave me an outside weather station for Christmas. I wasn’t sure I would ever use it, but I put it on a pole. It didn’t work at first so I replaced the batteries, but I still couldn’t get it to work. Finally, I called the company and they explained how to reset […]
My grandson, Silas, loves to pick a handful of dandelions and give them to his mother or grandmother. He thinks they are so pretty and wants his mother to have some pretty flowers. To Silas, dandelions are different from weeds. He doesn’t pull them up by the roots so they don’t come back again. David […]
Carolyn and I attend New Song UMC who is pastored by our son, Chad. New Song has a wonderful tradition of having a Methodism 101 Class once a month. I helped teach this class last week and we had a delightful young family attend with a precious 18-month-old little girl. I asked if they had […]