I, along with a host of other Southgate Avenue children, found ways to pass the after-school hours by playing games like Red Rover and Hide & Seek. In the summertime we would buddy up to those on the block who had a pool. We were absolutely free to roam the neighborhood if it was light outside. Mom would kick us out of the house to play in the afternoon sun until the collective smell of onions, garlic, fried meats and cooking oil wafted through the neighborhood exhaust vents, and someone from each clan would scream at the top of their lungs, “Dinner’s ready!”

After the feast we would run back out to re-join the neighborhood activity, sometimes with the last bite of dinner still in our mouths when we caught up with our friends. We would run and play so hard, all the while sweat pouring off our shaved heads. We would itch from sliding on the grass and the occasional run-in with a nasty ant bed. Nevertheless, nothing could stop us until the sun began to set and we would wind-down our activity, based on how much light was left. Then in an instant, the street lights would come on and beckon us toward our individual homes.

Bath time was a challenge for my mother and her 3 boys. More water ended up on the floor than in the tub, and a soap ring appeared each time. Mom had to scrub everything the next day knowing all would be destroyed again that night. We battled our arms and legs into clean pajamas with the smell of Safeguard replacing the pungent odors of sweat and soil. Then we’d settle in with our favorite evening TV shows and beg to stay up one more hour. Before we knew it, our sleepy heads were ready to hit the pillow. It was time to slip into our clothes-line-fresh beds and lay there listening to crickets as we fell off to sleep. Nothing was more secure, safe or satisfying: knowing that mom and dad were standing guard from the other room…all was well.

Tonight, as a dog barks in a distant yard, and a fall breeze gently rustles the bushes around my house, I am thankful for my parents. I pray that my kids have the same memories of security and warmth that I knew while growing up on Southgate Avenue.

Last night our pastor made a bold statement while addressing 1500+ men who gathered together to eat, worship God, and focus on our men’s initiative for 2011. It was clear and there was no uncertainty with the points he wanted to make. The visual that brought the first point home was probably not unusual to many churches, especially during a Christmas pageant. But it was certainly a first for our church in the new sanctuary which opened earlier this year.

People, especially men, are prone to tuning-out when a lot of information is coming at them like X-wing fighters in a battle scene from Star Wars. Sgt. Friday from Dragnet summed it up best by saying, “Just the facts, ma’am.” Last night’s men’s gathering began with a huge barbecue feast that made focusing on the message more difficult. It took a lot of distorted guitars with ear-cracking drums to wake the guys from their chicken and pork-induced coma before Allen took the stage.

I am a proponent of the “rule of three” when it comes to speaking and writing. It is somewhat inherent in humans to better retain information, with increased comprehension, by using a three point outline. My dad, a great writer and a former Toastmaster, taught me this simple, yet effective form of communication: tell the audience what your going to say, say it in three simple points and, in conclusion, remind them what you just told them. Some might contend that this approach is too simplistic, but if you want to get your point across–it works!

The first of the three points that Pastor Allen introduced last night involved bringing a live, 1-ton bull out on stage (a point is always more effectively communicated with a visual!). “No more bull, guys!” was his statement. The second point was: we gotta move- you can’t stand still and progress in God. The third point: it takes an over-comer to continue on the journey as a Christ-follower. We all got the message and look forward to implementing it into our lives in the coming year.

Brilliant! The power of the “rule of three” was evidenced last night. Buster the bull also left evidence of his visit back stage, by the way.

As happens each Tuesday, new CDs, DVD’s and books arrive on store shelves to await the anxious hands of perspective buyers. This week, former president George W. Bush’s memoir, Decision Points, was among those fresh releases. I was able to get my hands on a sample portion of the book through my Kindle, via Amazon.com. In it, Mr. Bush takes a rather clear, simply-stated approach in his writing. The straight-to-the-point honesty of some of the anecdotes he offers point to his desire to “set the record straight”–at least in his viewpoint.

I think that it’s important to step away from a given situation to enable a clear assessment. In the case of an object, I am forced to stretch it as far away from my eyes as possible to see the small details clearly. It also helps that I have my reading glasses handy. Viewing history can be very similar. In order to judge a particular era, person or social movement, it is helpful to be distanced from it. It takes as little as a generation to properly make accurate judgments, maybe even several generations. It is unfair to judge a president during the time he is in office, although it is clear when someone makes a mistake in the immediate. As a Christian, I have a strong set of values which influence my point of view about an issue. But to actually judge his decisions and motivations, one must pull back and look at a bigger panorama. In my humble opinion, I think 20 years is the least amount of time it takes to stamp a judgment on history.

Remember, Abraham Lincoln was despised throughout his tenure as president by many, including some within his own cabinet. Time has changed that perspective. Many now say that Lincoln was our greatest president. Reagan was championed in political speeches of some Democrats during this past mid-term election cycle. Time heals wounds. Time brings clarity and sometime reverses what once was a positive to be seen as negative–take the Mad Men, male-chauvinistic, cigarette-smoking culture of the 60’s, for instance. Even enemies can appreciate a well fought battle when time separates one from the passions of the moment.

As I have agreed with most of Mr. Bush’s policies, I have also disagreed with many, including his lax stand on border security. In his book, he makes a case for several policy decisions including the bank bailouts of the last months of his presidency. I do know that Bush is a decent, God-fearing man who overcame many obstacles to reach the high office he was elected twice to fill. His legacy will find it’s true place in history, maybe not after reading the book, or hearing him personally set the record straight on talk shows over these next few months. His legacy will be better judged from an arm’s length away, focused through the lens of wisdom and truth.

Character is what we do when no one is watching, as the saying goes. At 34 Edison Pena is a man whom the world now knows as miner No. 12, or “The Running Miner.” Edison, along with 32 fellow coal miners, was trapped a half-mile below the earth’s surface in Copiapo, Chile for 69 days. His story of survival, hope, determination, and triumph was punctuated this weekend as he ran the New York Marathon. The interesting thing was that it was in the dark, dank recesses of that looming and potential grave where Edison made a pact with himself to not simply wait for a rescue but to become a better man in the process.

In a report from the NY Daily News Pena said,

“I ran to forget that I was trapped…I ran in the dark. It was tremendous for me.” He paused for a moment. “I went to the depths, the lowest of the low, but I kept running. If you show God you can fight, He will listen much more than if you give up. God doesn’t like us to give up.”

In his captivity he would train by dragging a wooden pallet behind him – cargo that not only added resistance, but helped him deal with all of the emotion that was building up as days stretched into weeks and then months. Pena would tie a telephone cord around his waist, hook it to the pallet, and off he’d go, with a flashlight in hand and no idea if he’d ever see daylight, or his family again.

“I became two people: the weak person who wanted simply to give up, and the person who chose to be strong – to run and to survive,” he said. “Eventually, I chose to live.”

Pena is a devout Christian and humble man who wants to please God and not put anyone out. He didn’t even want to ask New York Road Runners for shoes; when he learned that marathon sponsor, Asics, would be happy to provide him with some, he could hardly believe it. He finished the marathon on Sunday in 5-hours, 40 minutes, enduring severe knee pain that Pena said has plagued him since the days he was trapped in the mine. At one point during the race he said he thought about dropping out due to the pain. But after he applied ice packs to the knee, he was able to finish the race.

I am humbled this morning and encouraged. God will shine a glimmer of light into a sea of darkness to bring hope to a weary soul. Even as we wait for God’s deliverance, maybe there is a purpose to be fulfilled. We often search for meaning in the trials we face, sometimes coming up empty handed. Like Edison Pena, we can turn our most harrowing difficulties into a brand-new and exciting journey. Who knows what is waiting on the surface of the mine.

“The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary,” writes Donald Kendall, former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer PepsiCo. Success in life is usually hewn out of a proverbial rock and requires sweat, persistence, faith, tenacity and pride. The unfortunate reality is that many times some lazy loser is waiting on the sidelines to haul it all away, or at least take credit for your hard work. The truth is, we may never see the full fruit of our efforts, but hope and pray that our loved ones will benefit from our toil. If life’s ultimate goal is retirement, and then to sit around waiting for our heart to stop beating, I would rather be out there rocking until they peel the guitar away from my cold, dead hands.

Work has such a nasty connotation in our free-loading society. There is an attitude of entitlement that is pervasive in our culture. Several of the government programs meant to help the poor have only hindered folks from getting off of their rear ends and actually becoming a producer rather than a taker in society. I was raised in a hard-working, blue-collar household where you went to work after high school. There was none of this sitting around crap in my home. I left home to play music and, after 6 years of doing so, realized that my future was limited if I didn’t have a college education. So, at 25 years of age, and newly married, I re-started my freshman year (first attempt was in 1978, right out of high school) to begin a new 4-year journey as a professional student. Don’t get me wrong–I had two part-time jobs as well to provide income for my new family.

Author, Julia Cameron writes, “What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful, and the work we do feels like play to us.” This statement, in my opinion, doesn’t equate “money comes to us” as wealth, necessarily. The wonderful thing about America is that we have options. Marco Rubio, the newly elected senator from Florida, in his acceptance speech said of his late father,

“No matter where I go, whatever title I may achieve, I will always be the son of exiles and will always be the heir of two generations of unfulfilled dreams…He [my father] grew up largely in a society where what you were going to be when you grew up was decided for you. This is like almost every other place in the world. Think about what that means. That means that before you are even born, how far you’re going to get to go in life is decided for you by who your parents are or are not. He was fortunate enough to make it here to America where he was never able to capture his own dreams of his own youth. Instead, he made it the mission of his life to ensure that his children would have every opportunity he did not, that every door that was closed for him would be open for them, that the day would never come for them that came for him: The day when he realized that his own dreams would not be possible, and so now life was about opening the pathways for his children. This story I know well, and it verifies to me the greatness of our country. Because tonight, with your vote, you have elected his son to the United States Senate.”

My goal in work is to finish what God has given my hands to do on earth with skill and excellence, to bring Him glory, to provide for my wife and family, and ultimately to leave this world a better place than the one into which I was born.