Welcome to my Point of View commentary. Enjoy!

February 7, 2011     Wednesday afternoon, February 2nd. I was flying to Dallas, scheduled to lead a session for The Master’s Program on Thursday (ultimately, scrubbed because our Country Club venue had a “weather malfunction” and could not open). My high-mileage gets me free upgrades, so I was sitting in seat #5B, up in […]

January 31, 2011         Name association time: what do these men have in common? Here’s the roster: Owen Honors; Charlie Sheen; Tiger Woods. Give up?     These were not “two and a half men.” They were three grown-up men, playing at the top of their game. All had won the respect […]

January 24, 1011         “Now I will have to say that, if we don’t have the same daddy, we’re not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to […]

January 17, 2011     Pittsburg. Green Bay. Chicago. New York. Another weekend coming up for non-sports folks to tolerate the hooting and hollering – and the home-delivery pizza world to put all of their cars on-the-street for emergency calls – until the cast is determined.     For the non-recovering footballholic, the binge will […]

January 10, 2011 Okay, here’s Part 2 of my Welcome to 2011 Point of View counsel. If your career activities are anything like mine, you spent 2010 trying to rake your yard during a hurricane. Your efforts had little effect, against the 100+ MPH winds that pummeled the Marketplace. Last week, we packed up the […]

January 3, 2011     My parents – and, parents-in-law – had unique perspectives about life that were formed, in part, through their experience in the “Great Depression” (1929-1940). We’ve been cast as characters in the 21st Century sequel to that drama: it’s been tagged the “Great Recession.”     Everything happens faster today, in […]

December 27, 2010 Okay, it’s a wrap. Retail Rescue ’10 is in its final stages; the game was in the win column before the holiday weekend. The post-holiday turnout put the icing on the cake; RR’10 got extra time on the game clock with the day-after happening on a weekend day, allowing shoppers to show […]

December 20, 2010 Well, this is the week; it’ll likely be “all ‘christmas’, all of the time.” Do you hear a little “bah, humbug” coming from my keyboard? I’ve chosen to refer to the onslaught as “small ‘c’ christmas” rather than “big ‘C’ Christmas.” Small “c” for the mall version; big “C” for the Bible […]

December 13, 2010 I preached for a pastor friend yesterday; it isn’t often that a “guest speaker” has the chance to do one of the lead-up-to-Christmas Sundays… Between you and me, that’s tough duty. Everyone knows all of the details of the Christmas story, so there isn’t much mystery left to be explored. How would […]

December 6, 2010 “So, whatcha gonna get ’em? Are you done with your shopping? Are you ready for Christmas? What in the world are you gonna do??” The modern madness is unrelenting. In an earlier era – pre-iPad – it was kinda cute when you said, “I think I’ll make them something.” What, cookies? We […]

If this was a weekly installment of NCIS – the CBS hit series combining cop-drama, military decorum and a Washington, DC venue – I could hear special agent Anthony DiNozzo pop up with an outtake from I Saw What You Did.

Tony (played well by Michael Weatherly, in the top-rated weekly) is known for a few quirks; one of them is his incessant reference of old movies to draw parallels with current events. He hits those cinema classics with a batting average approaching 1.000…

You’d have to be a certified MB (movie buff) to archive an impression from I Saw What You Did. Made in 1965 by Universal Pictures, it was panned by critics as lackluster. Saturday Review said, “ Unfortunately, there is little for the eye, ear, or mind in [the film] …”

November 22, 2010

A few weeks ago, Cheri and I were in London on a week-long multi-focus trip (in large part, a Sabbath break to renew, but also a “working trip:” to sow seeds for a possible Master’s Program entry into England). It included the opportunity to introduce friends to friends: two American couples, living as “ex-pats” in London.
A few days ago, I was copied in an e-mail exchange between the two couples: they’re getting together on Thursday this week, for dinner; not in a restaurant, but in one of their homes. Agenda: it’s Thanksgiving.

November 15, 2010

Dear Marketplace Friend,

Talk about stark contrast: if you’re in the magazine business – competing for the newsstand shopper who is visually stimulated – you’re pretty careful about whom you put on the front cover. Blonde starlets are Choice #1, it seems. Wait: what’s the big guy with the big open mouth doing on that cover?
On the cover of Newsweek, it’s Rush Limbaugh. The cover story is “The Power 50.” The exposé inside explores the question of America’s most influential players on the political field.
They used a strange criterion to form a list that begins with Limbaugh and ends with #50, David Axelrod. In between the top and bottom are names like Glenn Beck (#2) and Sarah Palin (#6); Bill Clinton (#8) and George W. Bush (#18); Karl Rove (#35) and Dick Cheney (#32). The measuring stick, oddly enough, was their most recent annual earnings. Rush pegged $58.7 to be first; Sarah Palin is slotted at $14 million, while President Obama occupies #20 with $4 million (book sales, not salary).
It causes me to step back and ask an unpopular question: is influence really measured in income? Have we come to

It may never end! Innocent me: I thought that I’d take my own advice, and vote. They’d count the ballots, winners would be declared, and the newly elected would go home and pack…

No way, pal. The leaders may be packing, but the losers are doing interviews trying to explain why the voters veered the other direction. Talk about spin! “We lost because we didn’t tell them how well we were doing?” The last two years has been a 24/7 campaign speech…

One of the best stories of the election of 2010 is in today’s Newsweek; it features Tim Scott, the newly elected congressman from South Carolina’s First Congressional District. Tim Scott’s bullet points:

We should be used to it; they are the signs of the season. Football – at all levels – fills the weekends. We gain an hour’s sleep next Saturday night… and then we’ll curse the darkness on the way home from work. Strange creatures came around, looking for a handout while we asked ourselves, “Who do they think they are?” They don’t scare us, because we knew they were coming.

Trick-or-treaters on Halloween? Nope; I’m talking about candidates, getting ready for Election Day! The “what do you want to be when you grow up?” question has turned ugly. Mothers won’t admit that their baby grew up to be in Congress…

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Paul owed Barnabas a lot. When Paul was freshly-converted, he walked into the church in Jerusalem… and no one trusted him. He had led the official Jewish effort to eliminate the followers of Jesus, and the question of his sincerity was uppermost in everyone’s mind. Barnabas – the “Son of Encouragement” – took Paul under his arm and believed in him.

Years later, Barnabas brought Paul the untested to Antioch and made him his protégé, as they led the first church established outside Israel. Then, God supernaturally called them out of that established setting to begin their faith expansion into the Gentile communities of the Roman Empire. That first missionary journey ended well… and their partnership continued as they participated in the Council at Jerusalem (Acts 15) that would establish the protocols by which non-Jews would be welcomed into the faith community…