"It don't cost nothin' to be nice"

This email is making the rounds.  Somehow the Golden Rule -- treating others the way you'd like to be treated -- has a way of enriching the lives of those who participate.  

At a Touchdown Club meeting many years before his death, Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant told the following story:

I had just been named the new head coach at Alabama and was off in my old car down in South Alabama recruiting a prospect who was supposed to have been a pretty good player and I was havin' trouble finding the place. Getting hungry I spied an old cinder block building with a small sign out front that simply said "Restaurant."

I pull up, go in and every head in the place turns to stare at me. Seems I'm the only white fella in the place. But the food smelled good so I skip a table and go up to a cement bar and sit. A big ole man in a tee shirt and cap comes over and says, "What do you need?" I told him I needed lunch and what did they have today? He says, "You probably won't like it here, today we're having chitlins, collared greens and black eyed peas with cornbread. I'll bet you don't even know what chitlins (small intestines of hogs prepared as food in the deep South) are, do you?" 

I looked him square in the eye and said, "I'm from Arkansas , I've probably eaten a mile of them. Sounds like I'm in the right place." They all smiled as he left to serve me up a big plate. When he comes back he says, "You ain't from around here then?"

I explain I'm the new football coach up in Tuscaloosa at the University and I'm here to find whatever that boy's name was and he says, yeah I've heard of him, he's supposed to be pretty good. And he gives me directions to the school so I can meet him and his coach.

As I'm paying up to leave, I remember my manners and leave a tip, not too big to be flashy, but a good one and he told me lunch was on him, but I told him for a lunch that good, I felt I should pay.

The big man asked me if I had a photograph or something he could hang up to show I'd been there. I was so new that I didn't have any yet. It really wasn't that big a thing back then to be asked for, but I took a napkin and wrote his name and address on it and told him I'd get him one.

I met the kid I was lookin' for later that afternoon and I don't remember his name, but do remember I didn't think much of him when I met him. I had wasted a day, or so I thought.

When I got back to Tuscaloosa late that night, I took that napkin from my shirt pocket and put it under my keys so I wouldn't forget it. Back then I was excited that anybody would want a picture of me. The next day we found a picture and I wrote on it, "Thanks for the best lunch I've ever had."

Now let's go a whole buncha years down the road Now we have black players at Alabama and I'm back down in that part of the country scouting an offensive lineman we sure needed Y'all remember, (and I forget the name, but it's not important to the story), well anyway, he's got two friends going to Auburn and he tells me he's got his heart set on Auburn too, so I leave empty handed and go on see some others while I'm down there.

Two days later, I'm in my office in Tuscaloosa and the phone rings and it's this kid who just turned me down, and he says, "Coach, do you still want me at Alabama ?" And I said, "Yes I sure do." And he says OK, he'll come. And I say, "Well son, what changed your mind?" And he said, "When my grandpa found out I had a chance to play for you and said no, he pitched a fit and told me I wasn't going nowhere but Alabama, and wasn't playing for nobody but you. He thinks a lot of you and has ever since y'all met." 

Well, I didn't know his granddad from Adam's housecat so I asked him who his granddaddy was and he said, "You probably don't remember him, but you ate in his restaurant your first year at Alabama, and you sent him a picture that he's had hung in that place ever since. That picture's his pride and joy and he still tells everybody about the day that Bear Bryant came in and had chitlins with him."

Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant

Resurrection dance - in Budapest, Hungary

Dancing the resurrection in Budapest - a vibrant and moving celebration!  Click here.

I'm not sure this fits the definition of flash mob.  We don't know from the video whether they assembled suddenly.  But these folks are a joyous, choreographed mob of all ages, however they appeared.

Especially poignant when you realize this couldn't have happened under communism.

To my way of thinking, they have it right -- "Let's celebrate eternal life!"

Doing the right thing

Something special happened in April.  It was a conference championship game.  Sara hit her first ever home run!  The ball flew over the fence.  And then her knee gave out at first base.  

The rules said her teammates could not touch her.  What to do?  Click here to see the heartwarming unexpected. 

In Your presence

"In Your presence is fullness of joy!"  The Psalmist has discovered a close relationship to God is a very happy state.

It depends on your concept of God, of course.  If we accept Jesus' God of Love and goodness, that presence give peace as well as vibrancy and joy. 

I discovered that this evening when my grandsons were wound up after dinner.  They were laughing and rough-housing in the living room while I cleaned up in the kitchen.  I sighed.  This could go on for hours -- if past experience set any precedence.  

On the other hand, I pray before I come to spend after-school time with these boys.  Today my prayers were to see more of everyone's Christly nature, that harmony and cooperation that is so natural to all of us.  

Two amazing things happened.  The first was that after school they both got right to their homework without the usual moaning and groaning.

The second was that suddenly, in the middle of the after-dinner rough-housing, there was silence.  The younger boy sat down at the computer and engaged himself in a football game.  The older boy, with a reading assignment, sat down on the couch with his book.   I had brought some paperwork and marveled, as one hour passed another, at the deep peacefulness of the evening.

Every now and then there was a rustle from the living room.  Finally I peaked around the corner and couldn't help smiling!

It's a good idea while reading to change your position from time to time.

Lives corrected - is rehabilitation possible?

Is rehabilitation possible?  I believe so.

I’ve had the privilege of knowing several inspiring friends whose lives have been transformed.  Their commitment to Christ is humbling.  Among them, an unwed mom who gave up her newborn for adoption decades ago; they celebrated a mutually joyous reunion when he, in his thirties, sought to find her.  By that time her life had taken on a commitment to marriage and family, and she radiated a wise and tender spirituality.

 Tucson sunset - as beautiful as a life corrected?

A newer friend spent 7 years on death row for a crime she didn’t commit.   Since her release she has devoted her hours and days tirelessly to helping women and children in her Englewood community rebuild their lives.

My newest friend did prison time too, for drug and alcohol abuse.  Her reaching out to God came during a period of escape, when God told her to turn herself in so he could use her without her having to worry about getting caught.  Her total commitment to God came, back in prison, as she finished her sentence.  She asked God, “How am I going to keep my sanity for the next 18 months?”  He said, “Write me a letter every day.” 

And she did (write daily letters - of gratitude mostly, and some petitions).  And she did (keep her sanity).  As a side note, she credits her love for Jesus for the fact that she suffered no withdrawal symptoms from the drug and alcohol abuse.  Since her release she's been co-pastor of a church that is dedicated to meeting the needs of a poor Chicago community.

Just as a glorious sunrise promises a fresh and brilliant day, so the bright colors of a declining sun close a day with gratitude.  

Mary Baker Eddy (founder of Christian Science) writes this thoughtful definition,  “A radiant sunset, beautiful as blessings when they take their flight, dilates and kindles into rest.  Thus will a life corrected illumine its own atmosphere with spiritual glow and understanding.”

The sun as a metaphor

Tucson sunrise

A couple of weeks ago, I watched a glorious sunrise in Arizona. 

Mary Baker Eddy writes of the sun as a metaphor for God.   "If we say that the sun stands for God, then all his rays collectively stand for Christ, and each separate ray for men and women."  

I like to think about our shining out from God, like rays from the sun.  One ray doesn't interfere with another.  Each has its own assignment.  Yet each is important to lighting the whole day.  If the rays could be turned off, one by one, there would be almost imperceptible, but increasingly less light, till there was no light.  It would be a sad sun that had no rays.

Each of us is unique, important to God's good purpose for today.  Each of us has an assignment only we can fulfill.  None of us can interfere with anyone else's shining.  God, as infinite light, shines through us.  What we do with our moments and our lives makes God known.  We are Her shining.

And She, in turn, shines Her approval on us.

"God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us."  (Ps. 67:1)

The climb and the ant

This story came in a recent email.  The moral is a useful one.  We don't always understand the path before us.  But if what we're doing is an answer to a prayer to be of service, we can trust God to adjust our course to Her good purpose, and go about Her work cheerfully.


Brenda was almost halfway to the top of the tremendous granite cliff. She was standing on a ledge where she was taking a breather during this, her first rock climb. As she rested there, the safety rope snapped against her eye and knocked out her contact lens. 

'Great', she thought. 'Here I am on a rock ledge, hundreds of feet from the bottom and hundreds of feet to the top of this cliff, and now my sight is blurry.' She looked and looked, hoping that somehow it had landed on the ledge. But it just wasn't there. 



She felt the panic rising in her, so she began praying. She prayed for calm, and she prayed that she might find her contact lens. When she got to the top, a friend examined her eye and her clothing for the lens, but it was not to be found. Although she was calm now that she was at the top, she was saddened because she could not clearly see across the range of mountains. She thought of the bible verse 'The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth.' 



She thought, 'Lord, You can see all these mountains. You know every stone and leaf, and You know exactly where my contact lens is. Please help me.' 




Later, when they had hiked down the trail to the bottom of the cliff they met another party of climbers just starting up. One of them shouted out, 'Hey, you guys! Anybody lose a contact lens?' 

Well, that would be startling enough, but you know why the climber saw it? An ant was moving slowly across a twig on the face of the rock, carrying it!


The story doesn't end there. Brenda's father is a cartoonist. When she told him the incredible story of the ant, the prayer, and the contact lens, he drew a cartoon of an ant lugging that contact lens with the caption below. 


Hurry home

The Prodigal Son, one of the most loved parables told by Jesus, is a classic. Who cannot relate?

In Jesus' story, a kid takes off prematurely with his inheritance, wastes it all, finds himself homeless and without friends. He realizes that his father's servants are better off than he is. Swallowing his pride he decides to go back home and ask his dad for a job as a servant.

The old man has been anxiously watching the road for months, hoping the boy would eventually return. When he does, the father instantly forgives the son's foolishness, and reinstates him as a valued family member.

The father (in the parable the father would be The Father, God, infinite good) doesn't judge, he just loves. That's the nature of true fatherhood.

Here is Jason Michael Carroll's modern version.