What Do You Spend Your Liberty For?

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I love to tease my friends who are planning to get married. “Hey buddy, ya know, she gets a ring for her finger, you get one for your nose so she can lead you around. Marriage is a great institution but who wants to live in an institution?”

I say it teasingly but there’s some truth: when you get married you trade large amounts of your liberty.

The second day of my honeymoon, we were driving down the road near a blue lake and suddenly I had a thought that nearly smothered me. “It’s done. No more dating other girls. No more making “Lone Ranger” decisions without considering her. You’re married.” (If my wife is reading this, just know that the feeling passed in a few seconds and I’ve been happy about it ever since.)

I had spent a large amount of liberty but I thought the purchase was worth it.

You can stay single and keep your liberty in your pocket if you want, but you don’t get the girl. And a good one of those is worth more than gold. It gets awfully cold by yourself those long winter nights. Continue reading

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Are You Romantic?

Are You Romantic?

Phyllis after she had married had been married to this romantic man for 1 1/2 years

One of the speed bumps of packing and moving is uncovering stuff you forgot you had. You blow the dust off some old letters and suddenly you flash back 40 years in time.

That happened to me when I found some old love letters I had written to my girlfriend. (She’s now my wife. I threw the others away a long time ago).

As I read along, I must admit that I was a bit embarrassed. I wrote that?

I’m not very romantic, but evidently at 20 years of age there was hope for me, at least as far as romance goes. I wonder where I went wrong. Continue reading

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The Correct Emotional Reaction When You’re Being Sniffed By a Bear

A mature person has learned to be the commanding general of his emotions

Our five senses help us to know the world around us, but in reality they don’t do a lot of interpretation. They work closely with the interpreters.

We interpret what we hear, smell, feel, taste and touch with our emotions, our logic. These help us to make sense of all that’s going on around us. We hear a noise in the forest. We see a bear running towards us. Raw fear sends bolts of electricity up our backbone. Our brain says, “That bear is going to kill and eat you.”

And your emotions kick in and say, “Get out of her, fast!” And your legs fly into motion. (Note: some experts counsel you to avoid running because that excites the bear and provokes him to attack. These men in the know counsel you to lie down and cover your head with your arms. I don’t know myself. I think if a grizzly was sniffing around me, I’d probably die of a heart attack. That might be preferable to getting ripped apart and eaten. Having never been there myself I just leave it to you to decide. I guess it’s according to how fast you can run or if you have someone slow and tasty with you).

Our eyes see a sunrise over the mountain. Our brain says, “The sun is coming up.” Our feelings and emotions say, “Wow! That is beautiful.” Our spirit chimes in with, “O, Lord, what a gift you’ve given us, providing us with such beauty.” Continue reading

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Growing In God By Imitating a Cow

cow

It’s simply amazing the things that stick in your mind over the years—and the things that don’t stick.

I can remember jokes, funny stories, and even humorous poems for a long time. Algebra, what little that even traveled a tiny distance into my brain, disappeared like fog before a bright morning sun. So total was this disappearance that few traces can be found that it had ever been there. (x+y to the power of 6? Get out of here!)

Here’s a poem that I remember from nearly 50 years ago, though:

“The gum chewing student and the cud chewing cow
look quite alike, but they’re different somehow.

What is the difference? Oh! I see it now…
It’s the intelligent look on the face of the cow.”

Kind of moves you doesn’t it? I don’t know who wrote that but he’s up there with Browning and Longfellow.

You know, it is true. That old heifer, lying in the shade, looks like she’s deeply reflecting on something. She’s probably smarter than most of us today because, for the most part, we take in a deluge of information, but take little time to think it through. To meditate about life if you will (this meditation is completely different than sitting on the floor and chanting, “ummmmm” in c flat) Continue reading

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Giving Up My Right To Revenge

 
Police shows have succeeded cowboy shows in our imagination. Roy Rogers used to leap on his faithful steed Trigger and barrel away after Black Jack Jenkins or Black Jack Somebody-Or-Other. A hoof-pounding horse chase followed.

Today Tom Hanks jumps in his Ferrari and squeals and screeches through the streets chasing Black Jack’s cinematic children.

I think one reason we like cowboy movies is that they give us such a sense of fulfillment, at least the cowboy movies before 1965. The bad guy always gets it in the gizzard at the end and he’s paid back for all the evil he’s done. Things are evened up.

In high school our glorious team got stomped 59-6 by the Murfreesboro Rattlers one year. I may have already told you that but I was really marked by that beating. The next year we came back and beat them 44-0. You can look it up in the annals of the Nashville News. Our theme that year was, “We ain’t forgetting!”

What a good feeling to even up the accounts like that.

Except when I analyze it, it’s not really what the Lord taught. Vengeance? Continue reading

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