This little bit has been around for some time. A friend of mine sent it to me in an email, yep, that still happens. I don’t know who wrote it but it seems to me to point to an era which lived without a guarantee of a risk free life.

To all those born 1930-1979, who survived the 1930s, ‘40s, ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking. As infants and children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts, or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this. We ate cupcakes, white bread, and real butter and drank Kool Aid made with sugar, but we weren’t overweight because we were always outside playing!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And we were okay!

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Play stations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD’s, no surround-sound or CD’s, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chat rooms. We had friends and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that! The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers, and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success, and responsibility, and we learned we had to deal with it all!

If you are survived these years, Congratulations!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good. While you are at it, show it to your kids so they will know how brave (and lucky) their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?

It was early in the morning when my daughter woke me and told me that the Trade Centers in New York had be demolished by two airplanes. When I arrived at the TV in just a couple of minutes the station was rerunning what had happened, my first thought, the Trade Centers were still standing, who could knock them down. As I watch throughout the devastating day I wondered what must have filled the minds of those who perished in this calamity in the last moments of their lives.

It was just another work day that September 11, 2001 for the many who perished. They left home, family, wife, kids and went to work. They never returned. We don’t have any idea when our last day or hour will be in this world. So we need to live the length and width of life daily, but always keeping others in mind. Remember, kind words, smiles, paying the cafe bill for some unexpected person, giving up time for kids, and a host of other things can be rewarding.

As a minister, I am often asked questions about evil. The only thing that brings me comfort in the midst of all the confusion and chaos of the world is that God is about putting his world to rights. We can’t always see very much progress by just looking at a day’s work, but working with his trajectory will eventually bring about his wishes.

Today, in September 2001 evil occurred! I remember! Don’t we all! Today, in September 2006 on the fifth anniversary of 9/11, the life that I have that is eternal is working with God putting his world to rights! For those that lost so much on 9/11 I am still saddened. For those who have and are catching God trajectory for his creation, I am excited.

GPS (Global Positioning System) systems are a great way to get to where you are going, usually the quickest way. However, what happens when your GPS tell you to turn right at the next street and you decide to turn left instead. It still knows where you said you wanted to go so it reconfigures a new path to get you there, not necessarily the quickest, maybe not even the safest, but a path never the less.

It seems that God was to be Israel’s GPS in the wilderness. An often like the driver who turns left instead of right, God reconfigured their path based on their wrong turns. The good news, he was still leading them.

I heard recently that there is a certain kind of ant that when they get lost simply begins following the ant in front of him. This is fine if the ant in front of him knows where he is going. However, it has been observed that this sometimes leads to a larger circle of ants all walking round in a circle and eventually leads to death.

Followership, the art of learning to follow, should I think be modeled on the GPS system than on the ant system. At least if you make a wrong turn in life, and we all do, God can redirect our paths to get us to where we need to be. But, if we just simply and blindly follow the, say the culture, then we may in fact, end up like the ants in a circle and eventually die.*
Which are you a follower of?

*Inspired by a thought from Tom Wright, Bishop of Durham. England.