I hate it when a call like this comes in. A young man whom I wed to his fianc
Monthly Archives: April 2009
Love a Kid
3
My grandson Grant is nearing 15 years of age and I love him dearly. However, it will not surprise readers who are grandparents that I miss the Grant who was the little boy of two or three or four. I was pastoring the First Baptist Church of Kenner and, with his parents’ permission, would often spend one afternoon a week with him. We would have lunch at McDonald’s — he was enamored with Ronald McDonald — and then visit the Audubon Zoo or a park to feed the ducks or a playground somewhere.
One day, I wrote this little poem about our relationship, from Grant’s perspective—
Title: “We’re very good friends, my grandpa and I.”
He tells me long stories
Of bad guys and thieves,
Of boys Joe and Jason
Who live in my trees.
He takes me to McDonald’s
At least once a week.
He reads his magazine,
We play hide and seek.
We love to feed the ducks
And sea gulls and squirrels.
We throw them bread and popcorn
–just us guys, no girls.
He tells me how much he loves me;
I say I love you more.
I love you all the way to Alabama.
He loves me to Singapore.
(This seems to have been inspired by a child’s book of a similar title. I should have gone further with the poem, and as I recall, that was the original plan. But this is all there is of it.)
In his commentary on James, Kent Hughes tells of an experience Howard Hendricks had while speaking at a Sunday School convention. (Hendricks taught Christian Education at Dallas Theological Seminary for over 40 years; he’s one of the Lord’s true originals.)
Leadership Verities
Vision doesn’t last and must constantly be renewed….
Over three centuries ago, a ship filled with travelers landed on the Northeast coast of America. In their first year, they established a town site. The second year, they elected a government. In the third year, the town government announced plans to build a road five miles westward into the wilderness. In the fourth year, the citizens tried to impeach their elected leaders because building a road into the wilderness was a waste of public funds. Who needed to go there anyway?
Here we have people with the vision to see 3,000 miles across an ocean and overcome great obstacles, but within a short time, they could not see five miles out of town. They had lost their pioneering spirit.
Leadership is all about vision and the ability to convey it to others….
John Sculley was running Pepsi when Apple Computer’s Steve Jobs invited him to move to California in order to manage his struggling company. Sculley was faced with a real dilemma. Then Steve Jobs said, “John, do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want to change the world?” Sculley says, “That knocked the wind out of me.”
Vision has a way of doing that.
Leadership knows the inspirational value of a great story….
Gleanings
As of last Saturday, I am the age of Ronald Reagan when he was elected president the first time. With him as my role model, I now have time for another career.
Someone asked this morning if I intend to enter politics. I said, “No. The movies.”
Two days before me, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and movie actor James Caan also reached the advanced age of 69. They look better and younger than me because they color their hair.
I’m considering going into denial about future birthdays. I may resort to the Greer Garson line: “Age is just a number and mine is unlisted.”
Got time for some stuff?
(In a conference, a friend, observing me dropping in an occasional humorous line, accused me of shallowness. I responded, “Everyone of those quips is profound. But most people don’t take the time to study them. That’s their problem, not mine.” That’s not entirely true, but I like to pretend it is!)
This fellow said their family used to have a “mobile” outhouse. In the summer it was 65 steps and in the winter it was a mile-and-a-half.
I had a garage sale. In the very first hour I sold $849 worth of stuff—for 39 dollars and 50 cents.
Two old men were talking. One said, “I’m going to live to be 120.” The other said, “I’m gonna miss you.”