I am extremely fortunate to have a circle of loyal friends who come from many walks of life. Some are peers and others are considerably older. In the case of some of my friends, I am old enough to be their father. My older friends provide wisdom about the issues that still lie ahead. They no longer fund car insurance for their boys and they have walked their daughters down the aisle. My peers reassure me that I that I…
I am not a creative parent. I may be a decent parent. I think I can be a real pain as a parent, but I am lacking in the creativity department. I do recognize that creativity is a good thing, when it comes to the parental role. I appreciated an interesting parental story that Donald Miller shares in his most recent release. It seems a father was engrossed in ESPN or the like when his daughter came in to show…
I love autobiographies. I find them inspiring. I am willing read the entire gamut in this area of literature. I have not always been a big fan of Teddy Kennedy, but his autobiography is in my reading queue. I just completed an autobiography of sorts. Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz, recently released a new work. The title is: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. It is autobiographical for sure, but he writes with the purpose of inspiring…
I concluded that he just did not like me. I worked for a police supervisor a number of years ago who is a fine man. For some odd reason I had a very difficult time connecting with him. He seemed distant. I found it difficult to communicate with him. And yet those who had known him for a long time obviously had great respect for his character and leadership. Long time friends seemed to have positive connections with him. My…
It is going to happen. I promise… You are going to get behind someone in traffic today who is moving at a snail’s pace. And you will be tempted. I know you will. You will be tempted to sit on your horn, or say something under your breath that would not make your mother proud. If that doesn’t happen, then it could be that you are going to be behind a person in line at Wal-Mart who is not familiar…
I got a call from Misty Walters at the Behavioral Transition Center yesterday. The BTC, as it is called, is a separate campus for middle school and high school aged offenders, who have gotten in serious trouble at school. Some districts refer to such facilities as the alternative school. I still get a little nervous when the BTC number appears on my cell phone. I wonder: Did I not finish my time back in 1979? Are they going to make…
Turn those cell phones and electronic devices off. I heard that on every flight during my recent trip. Flying on a commercial carrier is one of the rare times when people actually cut themselves off from the electronic chains that so control our lives. I found it amusing to watch fellow passengers turning their phones back on just as soon as the wheels of the plane made contact with the ground.Can you call that an addiction? Or is the image…
…Whoever wants to become great among you must become your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all…(Mark 10:43-44) My brother in-law, Robert Ross, is no doubt a direct descendant of Daniel Boone. Robert grew up in the Upper Peninsula in Michigan. I don’t know what they do for fun up there. I am not sure I want to know. I just know that Robert could be perfectly content to spend his days fishing, hunting, camping,…
Language barriers make communication in a clinical setting somewhat of a challenge. One year I inadvertently invited a teenage girl to my hotel room, because I used the wrong tense of a verb. Another year I said something else that was much worse. We have been very fortunate on this year’s medical campaign to have several native speakers as translators. They have worked very hard to assist the dentists and the doctors. I found out tonight that important life issues…
The dental and medical clinics in Chihuahua got underway in earnest this morning. We were able to see a total of 64 people on this first day. There was a quite a range in age and need. The doctors saw very small children with coughs, and elderly people with more severe health concerns. The dentists provided an entire range of services for their patients. Two events stand out to me today. I recall taking dentists to Mexico in past years…