Ministry > Our Daily Bread
If Day
February 19, 1942, was a fascinating day for Canada. It was “If Day”—a World War II staging of a fake Nazi invasion of Winnipeg, Manitoba. The intent was to show what it would be like “if” Canada fell under the harsh occupation of Nazi forces, and so that Canadians would support the war effort more fully.
Tell It All
A clerk who helped me purchase a small digital voice recorder told me that he kept one just like it in his car when he worked in California. “When I began driving home after work I switched it on,” he said, “and I talked about everything that happened that day on the job, good and bad. When I pulled into my driveway, I hit the erase button.” Then he smiled. After telling everything to his voice recorder, he apparently had no need to go over the day’s problems with his wife or family.
In The Car Wash
I’ll never forget my first experience using an automatic car wash. Approaching it with the dread of going to the dentist, I pushed the money into the slot, nervously checked and rechecked my windows, eased the car up to the line, and waited. Powers beyond my control began moving my car forward as if on a conveyor belt.
Detecting Toxins
San Francisco and New York City are using bluegill fish to check for the presence of toxins in their water supply, which could be a possible target for a terrorist attack. A small number of bluegills are kept in a tank at the bottom of some water treatment plants because the fish are sensitive to chemical imbalances in their environment. When a disturbance is present in the water, the bluegills react against it.
Defining Failure
During the Great Depression, many people in the US lived in shantytowns made up of plywood, tarps, and blankets. These decrepit dwellings, known as “Hoovervilles,” housed those who had been evicted from their homes. Many blamed President Herbert Hoover for the economic woes.
Showing Real Love
Chinese New Year happens to fall on the same day as Valentine’s Day in 2010. While these two festivals have very different origins, there are some similarities in how they are celebrated. In both cases, loved ones give gifts to express love for one another. Whether it is giving roses to your beloved on Valentine’s Day or hong bao (red packets with money) to family and friends on Chinese New Year, they represent tokens of love.
Reunion Dinner
Many Chinese go to great lengths to attend a traditional annual reunion dinner with their families. Held on the eve of the Lunar New Year, the reunion dinner usually takes place at the home of their parents or eldest sibling.
Chinese working overseas have to arrange their travel bookings early to ensure they have tickets for the heavily booked airline flights and bus journeys. To fail to book early is to risk missing out on the family reunion.
Send The Light
American businessman Mark Bent has spent $250,000 to develop and manufacture an affordable solar-powered flashlight. Thousands have been distributed free or at low cost to people living in African refugee camps. One daily solar charge provides 7 hours of life-giving illumination for people in homes, schools, and medical clinics where darkness had encouraged crime and violence.
The Other Side
When someone said to my friend, “See you in a year,” it sounded odd when he replied, “Yes, see you on the other side.” He meant that he’d see him on the other side of a one-year deployment for the US Navy. But because the phrase is often used of heaven, it made me think about the uncertainty of life. I wondered, Who will be here in another year? Who might by then be on the other side—in heaven?
Rich Toward God
I watch the fluctuations of the stock market and reflect on the effects of fear and greed. A character in a 1980s movie had this philosophy: “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right! Greed works! . . . Greed [will] save . . . the USA!” What foolish thinking!
I think of that occasion when a man asked Jesus to serve as an arbiter and make his brother share their inheritance. Jesus refused the request but went on to do the man a greater kindness.
God Incidents
In the normal course of providence, God works in and through creation, not despite it. For this reason, some answers to prayer are difficult to prove with certainty.
“Only faith vouches for the connection,” C. S. Lewis writes. “No empirical proof could establish it.” We believe a prayer has been answered not because of any scientific criteria proving it, but because we have faith.
In Praise Of Slowness
If there were a contest for most popular virtue, I suspect that “fast” would beat “best.” Many parts of the world seem to be obsessed with speed. The “fast” craze, however, is getting us nowhere—fast.
“The time has come to challenge our obsession with doing everything more quickly,” says Carl Honoré in his book In Praise of Slowness. “Speed is not always the best policy.”
Distracted
The university where I teach as an adjunct professor provides laptop computers for its students. While this can be an aid to the students in many ways, I have discovered one way it hinders learning: The laptops can become a distraction during class.
Because the students take notes on their laptops, they have them open on their desks during class. The problem is that they find texting their friends, visiting Facebook, or checking things on the Internet more interesting than my lectures.
Charlie’s Walk On The Moon
The documentary In the Shadow of the Moon includes the story of Charlie Duke, one of the Apollo 16 astronauts launched to the moon in 1972. While the command ship orbited the moon, Duke and another astronaut landed the lunar module Orion on the moon’s surface. After 3 days of running experiments and collecting lunar rocks, the Apollo 16 crew safely returned to earth.
Like A Tree
In the quietness of my final years I plan to watch a tree grow—a birch tree I planted as a tiny sapling over 30 years ago. It stands now in mature splendor, just outside our picture window—beautiful in every season of the year.
So it is with our spiritual endeavors: We may have planted, watered, and fussed over our “saplings” (those we’ve mentored) for a time, but only God can make a “tree.”
