At first, they were frightened, even bruised faces appearing on Iraqi TV. Early in the Iraq War, there were seven American soldiers and pilots who had been captured by Saddam Hussein's forces and then they were paraded on television for all the world to see. After that, none of us could be sure whether they were hurt or healthy, or dead or alive. S…

Most of the courtrooms I've been exposed to are on TV. But there was a moment in a courtroom I will never forget. It began when we learned the whereabouts of a young Native American friend we had been trying to locate for a while. Let's call her Cathy. We learned, almost miraculously, that after a dark time away from God, Cathy was in jail in Nebra…

We were sitting on the runway at O'Hare Airport for a long time, in an airplane that is. I thought we were on our way when we left the gate. I said to myself "Okay, in a couple of minutes we'll be in the air and on our way." And then they routed us across the backside of O'Hare, and I saw some lovely storage facilities. We finally ended up in a lon…

Now there are happy video tape recordings. You know, audio recordings of our kids when they were little before their voices changed, Karen and I giving our vows to each other at our wedding. And then, there are not so happy tapes. Like the ones of former President Richard Nixon years ago, after the Watergate scandal. The accusations flew back and f…

Years ago I had some friends who lived near a heavy industrial area where the mills filled the air with a shall we say very distinctive aroma; well, actually, smell would be a better word for it. It was sort of a sulfur-like, rotten eggs type of odor. When you first went there, you would sniff and you'd go, "What is that?" And the people who lived …

I once spoke for a large youth conference at one of the East Coast's most popular vacation spots: Ocean City, Maryland. The boardwalk, the hotels, the restaurants, the amusements seem to stretch for miles there. My friend told me he'd been coming to Ocean City since the 1970s, when most of what I was seeing wasn't there. Not that many folks used to…

Back in my old school days, we used to do an experiment in science class. When I told my then teenage sons about this, they were very surprised to find out that there was a science class when I was in school! But there was and we used to dissect the triceratops and the tyrannosauruses. There was this little experiment we would do for real. Maybe yo…

There was a young man we knew who was pretty distraught over a death in his family. He acted it out by deciding to just delete a bunch of Facebook friends. And think we all know someone that has been "deleted" or "canceled." It's just the world we live in today and it hurts! You can delete a relationship with a stroke of your finger. Sometimes it c…

Some people have wall-to-wall carpet. Me? I have a wall-to-wall schedule. Maybe you do too. It was like that even when I had to take my daughter to college years ago. She had just returned from a mission trip to Manila and so had I. We had one day to get her to Chicago for college. Not only did we have to get her to school that day, but on that par…

So there have been several Supermen, well, you know, men who have played Superman over the years. From TV to all the movies. The first one was George Reeves, on the TV show many years ago. Some supermen have had tragic lives. George Reeves who played Superman from 1951 to 1958 actually committed suicide after his career had stalled. He was forever …