What Is a Heifer?

For a good number of years my wife and me had the most satisfying volunteer experience of our lives…We served as a volunteer (“Vol”) at Heifer International Learning Center at Heifer Ranch in Perryville, Ark.  We did not know what we were getting into when we first stopped at the Ranch for a visit with a friend who was already a “Vol”.   We had just spent a few weeks vacationing and had explored vacation rentals on the Gulf.  It took us just one day at the Ranch to convince us that we didn’t need to spend another winter on a beach or golf course somewhere, with its superficial elements of satisfaction, when we could be of service to a very important mission…addressing the issue of hunger and poverty in this world, including the U.S. Continue reading

Hot Wheels, Love and Giving

In Rachel Remen’s book “My Grandfather’s Blessings” she tells of playing Hot Wheels with her 6-year-old nephew, Kenny.  Kenny had two of the little cars and they had a great time with imaginary traffic events, and crashes, and drives along the cliff edge, the window sill.   An oil company’s promotion of giving away Hot Wheels for gas purchases allowed Rachel and her friends to present Kenny with a box of every model of the cars. Continue reading

Disappointment in

When I was a younger man, one of the things I liked about golf is the feeling that I got when I have a really good round!  One of the things I didn’t like about golf was the feeling that I got when I have a really bad round after a really good one.  My expectations were thwarted and I was DISAPPOINTED!  Now I am much older (and wiser?) and, while I still like golf, I am seldom more than momentarily disappointed in my game.  Missed putt, yes.  Wayward drive, yes.  But I’ll still play.  I say that if you don’t like disappointments, maybe golf isn’t your game! Continue reading

Fear, Love and an Angel

As I write this blog a friend, I’ll call her Mary, is going through a double mastectomy.  I can’t imagine what Mary has been going through these past days right up to this day and this moment.  Even with a heart attack and nine surgeries of my own, including part replacements, I cannot get my mind around the impact that this surgery will have on Mary.  She is strong, and on the outside she will be who she was, but this procedure takes away so much and will be a measure of who she is on the inside.  I have faith and confidence that Mary will overcome and recover. Continue reading

Just When You Aren’t Expecting It – A Nudge from the Past

The following scribbling was written about 1970 in my “den”, a 1955 Yellowstone travel trailer.  “The Unfamiliar” has survived three moves and a lot more on the back of a Terry Andréa State Park map (Wisconsin).  Funny how you write something in one set of emotions, then decades later read it and you recapture the feelings of that moment, if only for a moment.   Peace…aloneness… joy…sadness… uncertainty…  A composite of conflicting emotions, now history, but, for that moment, very real. Continue reading

Waiting for Spring

The beautiful tulips that has adorned my blog header recently was there to remind us that sometime (months from now?) the snow will be gone and the beauty of the sleeping world will take center stage.   I am reminded of a line from Bette Midler’s hit “The Rose” which speaks of  new growth under all the snow that will come alive with spring and get all showy with blooms.  Something to think about for all us “cabin fever” sufferers. Continue reading

What Does That Mean?

Are you a literalist when it comes to the Christian Bible?  Does a friend challenge you that the King James Version is the only “true” translation of Holy scripture when you are reading from the NIV or perhaps the Living Bible?  Do you bristle when someone says to you that the Bible is just a book of stories?   Or maybe when a friend tells you that Jesus was just one of several good teachers at that time? Continue reading