Personally I believe it to be a non-issue and the complaint completely bogus. Consider: Person A says “Thank you” to Person B. One must assume that Person B had done something for Person A that evoked the comment. Truthfully the so-called kosher response of “You’re welcome” does not make a great deal of sense. You are welcome… to… What, exactly? Let’s recap: Person B does something for Person A, Person A thanks Person B, so Person B is obligated to tell Person A that he or she is welcome. Sorry, I don’t get it. The best I can come up with is that “you’re welcome” is shortened for “You are welcome to request (or expect) me to do the same for you anytime (or at least again).” I guess that’s sort of okay if Person B opened the door for Person A or something, but what if Person B saved Person A from drowning? Is Person A really welcome to try that again? “You’re welcome” has been the common response to a thank-you for decades if not centuries, but it nonetheless seems borderline nonsensical.

Much superior, to me anyway, is the less common but still acceptably formal “My pleasure.” At least that makes straightforward sense. It means basically that the person being thanked was happy to do whatever he or she is being thanked for. Once again, it is more applicable in some cases than others. If I changed a baby’s ripe, messy diaper, and the baby’s mom thanked me, to say it was my PLEASURE would be a lie, pure and simple.

Now, is the phrase “No problem” any better or worse? Actually I see it as slightly superior to the others. In the diaper scenario, it indicates that I was perfectly willing to do it–to say it was NO problem may be an exaggeration but far less of a flagrant lie. In the drowning person scenario, certainly the rescuer went to some–perhaps considerable–trouble, but “no problem” says the result was sufficiently positive to offset the effort. Interestingly, in Spanish the response to “Gracias” is “De nada” which means “It’s nothing.” In other words, “I do not consider it an inconvenience” or put another way, “No problem!”

Occasionally people have used the alternate phrase, “Don’t mention it” in place of you’re welcome. The intent is to say, again, it was a small thing, it was nothing, or “No problem.” However, it has a slightly negative edge that, if taken literally, means I prefer that you not do the very thing you just did–mention it.

So, I’m afraid all the pretentious types who consider any phrasing newer than the 1920′s uncouth will have to stifle themselves on this one. To the rest of you, no need to thank me. But if you do, hey, no problem.

That same advice column once had a reader complain that someone who had offended them said, “I owe you an apology” but then left it at that. The issue was that the offended person felt an apology had not happened until the person stated directly, “I’m sorry” or “I apologize” (or, I suppose, “Please forgive me”). Again, the advice columnist agreed. I, however, do not. In this world of entitlement and victim-mentality it is a rare person who will buck up the courage to volunteer any sort of apologetic expression to someone else, regardless of the offense. To admit, “I owe you an apology” is a pretty big step for most people. To skewer them on a technicality because they didn’t reconstruct the sentence properly is to look for a reason to hold a grudge.

All of which brings to mind a bit of irony I heard once. A distraught person recounting a difficult encounter with someone: “Maybe what I said sounds harsh but, I’m sorry, I’m just not going to apologize.”

Saturday:

NCAAF – MIZZOU 31, Texas Tech 27. MIZZOU WINS a nail-biter and is bowl eligible!
NHL – Sharks 4, Dallas 1. San Jose WINS!

Sunday:

NFL – 49ers 23, Arizona 7. SF WINS (now 9-1)!
NHL – Sharks 4, Colorado 1. San Jose WINS and moves into 1st place!

Monday:

NCAAB – MIZZOU 87, Notre Dame 58. MIZZOU WINS what was supposed to be a close game!

Wonder which team will be the first to break the streak…

Other random sports thoughts:

I hear tell that MIZZOU basketball, which had garnered a pretty solid following during the Mike Anderson era, is having trouble attracting fans. The Frank Haith (a) hiring–since he has no exciting track record–and (b) NCAA investigation made me reluctant to get too excited. Then add that one of their best players–and one of their few big men–Laurence Bowers, is out for the season with an injury, and my interest was tepid. But I watched the game noted above and was mightily impressed! This is a tenacious, quick, scrappy team that, at least against Notre Dame, was fun to watch. How far can a 4-guard team go? Dunno, but they’re interesting and worth a look.

Q: Why aren’t the 49ers–with the second-best record in the NFL–getting any press?
A: The obvious answer would be east-coast media bias which, no doubt, plays a part. But the main issue is the lack of a “name” player. The media always wants an individual they can tout as “you should watch this team because of so-and-so if for no other reason.” Hence, it’s always “watch Eli Manning and the NY Giants take on Ray Lewis and the hard-hitting Ravens,” etc. But the 49ers have no marquee player. Certainly “Alex Smith and the 49ers” would not gain many viewers. And, although they have plenty of quality players who, together, are a formidable team, there are no true superstars. Patrick Willis? O-kay. Frank Gore? Yawn. Novarro Bowman? Who? The only “name” they have is the coach, Jim Harbaugh. Not much of a promo to say, “See the 49ers play Baltimore and watch Harbaugh’s post-game handshake!” So, face it, no matter how well they do, even in the playoffs, this blue-collar team of no-names is never going to garner much press.

Now, I do realize that from the early 1600′s until the early 1970′s the KJV Bible was used by 99.9% of the English-speaking Protestant world. People somewhat understandably associated the use of King James lingo with all things sacred and often felt compelled to use that same mode of speech in any reference to the Lord, including prayers and hymns. This was especially reasonable where scripture was contained in a hymn since it would necessarily be the KJV that was used. The result is that many hymns are laden with “Thee,” “Thou,” “Thy” and “Thine.” Typically King James verbs were also used surrounding those pronouns–for consistency one would assume–giving us “art” instead of “are,” “loveth” instead of “loves,” “hast” (or “hath”) instead of “has,” etc. So, we end up with song lyrics like: “My Jesus I love Thee I know Thou art mine…”

Okay, whatever. What gets weird is that the use of King James parlance is so often random and inexplicable.

As noted, references to the Lord in KJV make sense for the day in which these songs were composed. What I have a harder time understanding is why references to you and me are done that way. For example, the song “Is Thy Heart Right With God,” as the title suggests, refers not to the Lord with KJV but to the listener: “…Dost thou count all things for Jesus but loss?” Why address ME in King James English? Other songs such as “Take Time to be Holy” do the same thing.

Then there are those hymns that can’t make up their minds. Notice how the hymn “His Way with Thee” switches between modern and King James for no apparent reason as it refers to the listener alternately as “YOU” (modern) and “THEE” (KJV):

“…His love can fill YOUR soul, and YOU will see / ’twas best for Him to have His way with THEE.”

Actually the only explanation is a pathetic one. “Thee” was used purely because it rhymed. Now that’s sad.

Even more random are those songs where only one word is KJV. An example is “All the Way My Savior Leads Me” where it says: “…For I know whate’er befall me Jesus doeth all things well…” Notice that at the beginning of the song it does NOT say “All the way my Savior LEADETH me…” but later He “DOETH” rather than He does. Again the unfortunate evident explanation is that the lyricist resorted to KJV in order to maintain the meter of the song–rather than rewriting the lyric (sorry, Fanny Crosby, but that was the cheap way out).

But it gets even more random that that. In the hymn “Count Your Blessings” there is a line in one verse that goes, “…Think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold…” Notice, “Christ HAS”. But in the chorus the lyric is “…see what God HATH done.” Unlike the others, this helps neither rhyme nor meter. The only possible explanation is that the lyricist developed a lisp between writing the verse and the chorus (maybe he lost a tooth or something).

Some hymn lyrics are pretty odd regardless of King James usage. This one for example from “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”:

“Do thy friends despise, forsake thee? Take it to the Lord in prayer…”

Now, first of all it doesn’t say A friend or SOME friends but strongly implies that it refers to ALL your friends. It is not unheard of for a so-called friend to forsake a person, proving to be no friend at all. But to have ALL your friends forsake you? What situation could cause that? The only thing I can think of is if you did some heinous, repugnant, disgusting thing that sent all your friends scurrying to get away from you–like becoming an Amway representative.

But even that is not the strangest part of the phrase. It asks if all your friends DESPISE you. How on earth could a group of people who despise you be classified as “friends”? Aren’t those who despise you–by definition–your enemies?

Or how about this lyric from “I’ll Fly Away”: “…Like a bird from prison bars has flown, I’ll fly away…” Who keeps birds in prison? Unless they’re referring to the Birdman of Alcatraz or something but in that case HE was the one imprisoned in Alcatraz; the birds could come and go as they liked. Of course, it might be referring to a “JAIL-bird” who has flown from prison–but doesn’t that mean an escapee? Is that what we want to be favorably compared with? In a hymn yet?

Another oddity among hymns is the use of what I call “Yoda-speak.” You may recall that the little green Jedi dude in the “Star Wars” films had a characteristic mode of speech in which he sort of spoke backwards. For example, instead of saying “He is strong with the Force” Yoda phrases it this way: “Strong with the Force is he.” Notice how the following hymns do the same thing.

From “Power in the Blood”: “Would you o’er evil a victory win?” Shouldn’t that be “Would you win a victory over evil?” Unless, of course, you have pointy ears and use a light-saber.

From “You Never Mentioned Him to Me”: “…You helped me not the light to see.” I think us non-Jedi’s would say “…You did not help me see the light” wouldn’t we?

From “Give of Your Best to the Master”: “…You from sin’s ruin to save…” Translation: “…To save you from sin’s ruin…”

Not that contemporary Christian music is immune from odd lyrics. Consider the song “My Glorious”. The chorus of the song has this first line:

“God is bigger than the air I breathe”

That is a truly weird figure of speech. Comparisons of the Lord to “the air I breathe” have been used before but always in reference to absolute necessity, i.e., we need God as desperately as we need air. Referring to air in terms of size is beyond strange. Someone suggested that perhaps the reference was to the whole of earth’s atmosphere–sort of a convoluted way of saying He is “bigger than the sky.” However the addition of the phrase “I breathe” tends to negate that since I don’t inhale the entire atmosphere. I think I read somewhere that a breath is about two quarts of air. Saying that God is bigger than that is faint praise indeed. Truthfully it is either using the wrong attribute of “the air I breathe” or the wrong attribute of God. Whatever, it is pretty much nonsensical. Sort of like saying Superman is “faster than a red, red, rose.” One’s natural reaction is “Eh? How’s that again?”

But that’s not the only issue with the song’s lyrics. Here is a verse:

The world’s shaking with the love of God
Great and glorious, let the whole earth sing
And all you ever do is change the old for new
People we believe that

(Then back to the Chorus: God is bigger than the air I breathe…) The first line of the verse–as does the chorus–refers to God in the third person, that is, talking ABOUT God to the audience. But the third line apparently has abruptly switched to speaking directly to Him (“…all YOU ever do…”). But then the next line is back to addressing the audience, this time in plural (“WE believe”) then immediately back to the singular in the Chorus (“I breathe”). I think the lyricist should have gone to bed earlier and taken a fresh look at this in the morning.

Perhaps more sleep would also have helped in the writing of the David Crowder Band’s “How He Loves.” The opening line or so about how God “loves like a hurricane” makes me scratch my head a bit, but then it gets really weird: “…all of a sudden, I am unaware…” I’m sorry but, by definition, it is impossible to SUDDENLY be UNaware of something. You could suddenly become AWARE of something, but how can one suddenly be unaware—unless one passes out or has a stroke or something. In another verse there is a reference to how “…heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss…” Eh? I’m not sure how, even poetically, heaven can meet earth like a kiss, but an unforeseen kiss? Does that mean it forgets to pucker or close its eyes? I don’t get it but it could be that I’m biased against the song because Crowder’s rendition of it makes my skin crawl.

Christmas songs are certainly not immune from lyrical oddities. Among the more bizarre is “The First Noel.” The tune is tolerable but the lyrics are, well, the only word to use for them is: lame. What earns a set of lyrics the designation of “lame”? For one thing, lyrics are lame when what they say is nonsensical or just plain wrong. For another, they are lame when there are superfluous words thrown in just to rescue the tune or poetic rhythm. And, as previously mentioned, “Yoda-isms” in lyrics (used primarily to force the rhyme scheme to work) make me crazy. An example of a Christmas song that uses one is: “God rest ye merry, gentlemen, / Let nothing you dismay.” Non-Yoda-speak would be, “…Let nothing dismay you” but that wouldn’t rhyme with “…born on Christmas Day” so, again, the songwriter took the cheap way out.

All that said, “The First Noel” is so bad it almost boggles the mind. To set the stage for the discussion, here is the first stanza along with the refrain:

The first Noel the angel did say
Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay;
In fields where they lay tending their sheep,
On a cold winter’s night that was so deep.

Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
Born is the King of Israel.

Now, granted, poems and songs frequently butcher or completely omit relevant punctuation, but this one defies knowing what punctuation is appropriate. In the first line the phrase, “…the angel did say…” just dangles there out in space. The angel did say… what, exactly? One could presume that the next word or phrase would represent what the angel said, but that would be the word “Was” (ostensibly spoken “to certain poor shepherds”). As far as I know nothing in the Christmas story has an angel just saying, “Was.” This is fortunate, because if it did that would be mind-numbingly inane. As if that isn’t bad enough, even the phrasing of it is dorky. Using “the angel did say…” instead of “the angel said” is a case of a superfluous word thrown-in to try to stay on beat. Unfortunately the lyrics and “beat” really never do mesh in this song. What I think the lyric is trying to communicate is just that the angel spoke to some shepherds.

This, then, brings us to the next example of dippy-ness: “On a cold winter’s night….” Now, the evidence is marginal at best that Jesus was born in the winter but there is no hint in scripture that it was cold. Israel is a mild climate but admittedly it could have been cold—the odds are about as good that it wasn’t as that it was. Maybe slightly more toward the “wasn’t” side since had the birth taken place in the cold there’s a strong chance that Luke would have mentioned it—but he didn’t. The crowning touch is the final phrase: “…that was so deep.” Okay, what does that mean? It could be that I’m just not poetically-astute enough, but I have no idea what distinguishes a deep night from a shallow one. As near as I can tell, that phrase is there purely because the lyricist needed something that rhymed with sheep. How dumb.

But as bad as it is, the first, and most commonly known, verse is pure genius compared to some of the other verses. Get a load of this one:

Between an ox stall and an ass,
This Child truly there He was;
For want of clothing they did Him lay
All in a manger, among the hay.

There is so much wrong with this verse I won’t even attempt to critique it. I used to think that “The First Noel” was a French song that simply lost a lot in the translation. Turns out it is not French but Olde English—most think from the 16th century—making it contemporary with Shakespeare. Believe me, brother, this is about as far from Shakespeare as one can get!

Due to its futility, I generally, with rare exceptions, steer clear of political debates or venting my political views. However, although I have yet to see anyone’s views change dramatically from political discussions, I have seen honest, open-minded people moderate their views a bit. So, with that goal in mind, I now present some of my take on things.

Throughout my life I have been pretty conservative. Most of that stems from the basic conservative philosophy that there is absolute truth and, hence, absolute right and wrong. These things are absolute because they are established by God. The liberal philosophy that right and wrong are relative and situational is, to me, nonsensical. Taken to its logical extreme, it says that anything anyone wants to regard as right is right and the only absolute wrong is not tolerating another person’s philosophy. In a broader sense, it claims that right and wrong are set by (the local) society and are permitted to change from place to place and time to time. Hence, if a particular culture’s mores change to, say, no longer restrict public nudity, the liberal deems that as the new accepted norm—as his/her philosophy would dictate. If right and wrong are set by society and this particular society says this is right, then, for them at least, it is right. No one has grounds to condemn them. This attitude has been exemplified in recent years when the Left condemned missionaries from spreading the gospel in primitive, cannibalistic societies since that would impose Western mores on another society. Though we are appalled by cannibalism, who are we to condemn another society’s behavior?

However, this view is a house of cards. If we apply this philosophy—which, if it is to be the correct and enlightened philosophy we must—to, say, NAZI Germany, we are left unable to condemn their slaughter of 6 million Jews. In their eyes it was more than justifiable; they believed this “ethnic cleansing” served the greater good. Indeed, during postwar trials those who participated in these atrocities claimed they were just following orders. But God’s orders establish a moral absolute against such behavior that countermands any others that corrupt men or governments could give. I’m sorry, but this notion that societies—or even individuals—each get to decide for themselves what is right and wrong and no one else is allowed to judge them is ludicrous and ultimately unworkable.

No, the tenets set by the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12), by Jesus’ commands to love God and love one another (Mark 12:29-31), and by New Testament principles including “consider others better than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3) condemn such things as the holocaust and are the bedrock for a healthy society. Other Biblically-based mandates such as marital commitment and fidelity, respect for law and order, and an unwavering regard for truth are the glue that holds civilization together. (Sidebar: Try to make the case that, in the absence of absolutes and the Authority who establishes them, truth is more virtuous than habitual and flagrant falsehood. If there is no God championing truth, then to lie as often as one wishes is every bit as virtuous as telling the truth, is it not?)

Insofar as the conservative political view supports the belief in moral absolutes, it is the only philosophy that, to me, is worthwhile or that makes sense.

Another fundamental principle that draws me to conservatism is its concept of humanity itself. Two basic liberal concepts are (1) that humans are not special creations (in God’s image) but are merely animals with overly-evolved brains and (2) that humans are fundamentally good—it is only negative environmental (read “parental”) and societal influences that cause evil behavior. And, even evil behavior can be prevented and/or remedied by sufficient and proper education.

Unfortunately there are two serious flaws to point #2, the first of which relates to point #1. To claim that humans are basically “good” implies that there exists an immutable and universal definition of goodness. However, if point #1 is true and we are no different than a pack of hyenas on the African plains, there can be no such thing as good and evil. If the hyenas savage an infant wildebeest there is no tribunal determining whether that was good or bad; might makes right. So, in a godless liberal society, the amoral kidnapper who nabs and murders an infant has every right to ask this of those who condemn his actions as wrong: “Says who?” In that scenario, it is an unanswerable question. Why would the mores of those who condemn the murderer be superior to his? Again, who says kindness is superior to cruelty? (More on that shortly.) To the Christian, goodness equals God-ness. A major purpose of God sending His Son to be “God with us” was to help us grasp not only what is good and evil but why.

The second flaw is that it is demonstrably false that humans left to their own devices are fundamentally good (assuming one can settle on a definition of good). The idea is that it is innate in humans to consider, for example, kindness to be superior to cruelty and that it is one’s culture that ruins that innate benevolence. Yet, there has never been a society on earth—no matter how isolated—whose members have been totally and perpetually kind to each other. And there never will be. Why? Because, while humans do have enough of “the image of God” in them for the majority to recognize that kindness is a virtue and cruelty a vice, we are a fallen race and are unable to consistently behave in accordance with our better natures. Just as some members of society have addictions that drag them into behaviors they themselves at other times deplore, all members of the human race are addicted to—and fall prey to—evil behavior (a.k.a. sin) despite knowing they should not. One only has to observe what occurs whenever a situation creates anarchy. The depths to which humanity sinks at such times is chilling. Christianity acknowledges this human failing and seeks the redemptive power of Christ and the Holy Spirit to help mankind rise above its baser nature.

And as to whether sufficient education can overcome this sin-nature, consider this: I am certain that there cannot be more than a dozen adults and high-schoolers in the entire United States of America who have not heard that promiscuous unprotected sexual activity is catastrophically dangerous. Virtually none are “uneducated” to that fact. Yet 6.2 million new cases of HPV occur each year. Some states are so desperate they are requiring high school girls to get a vaccination against it despite the fact that the vaccine has caused severe side effects and even death in some cases. So much for the omnipotent power of education to control human behavior.

So, I take issue on several levels with Liberal beliefs.

HOWEVER… All that having been said, I am infuriated by Christians who (a) spew venom at liberals and demean their viewpoint, (b) behave as if conservatism is a co-requisite of belonging to Christ, and (c) accept all tenets of conservative dogma as if it were equal to Scripture in validity.

How can I, a conservative, hold such an attitude? Because of the following (which I am sure will not set well with other conservatives).

Liberal philosophy does have some merit. Yes, you read that right. I have long ago lost all respect for the inanity of Rush Limbaugh and his ilk who blame everything from the national debt to a rainy day on liberals and, if necessary, will invent flaws in even an excellent idea if its source is a liberal. One basic, admirable—even godly—tenet of liberalism is to help the less fortunate. This was a common theme of our Lord Jesus—go back and read his parables if you don’t believe me. Is the Protestant Work Ethic based on Scriptural philosophy? Yes, and in a perfect world everyone would earn his or her own way. But as the Bible itself teaches, ours is a far-from-perfect world in which there will always be poor people. Are there lazy freeloaders in society who just work the system for a handout? Without question. But let me tell you what I have seen. A young woman married right out of high school and in no time was pregnant with her first child. Three more children later, and with the youngest in diapers, her husband ran off with another woman leaving this stay-at-home mom, who had never worked and had no skills, without an income. What was she to do? Her ex-husband found a way to conveniently be out of work whenever the authorities questioned him regarding child support. She wanted to take classes to learn a skill but how would she support her kids in the meantime? And who would tend them while she trained or worked? The church she attended was too small and too broke to support her. I’m certainly no Marxist, but like it or not, there are times when the government has to provide a safety net for the needy. I once saw a bumper sticker that said, “Irritate a conservative. Share.” Sadly, too many conservative Christians missed the part of the Book that would have us give to those in need and expect nothing in return. The cause of Christ would be greatly advanced, and the need for government involvement reduced, if His people were more generous to, and less suspicious of those in need. While no one wants to support scam artists, when the need appears legitimate it is a risk worth taking. Scripture says, “Why not rather be defrauded?” (1 Corinthians 6:7.)

Conservatism is not always right. I think it would be fair to say, for example, that racism—something that no Christian should have any part in—is primarily a bastion of conservative extremists. And then there’s this whole thing about guns. I have to admit that I simply don’t get it. I have no idea if registration of firearms will provide any kind of deterrent to violent crime or not, but I don’t understand the rabid opposition to it, especially among Christian conservatives. Debates about the particulars of the Second Amendment aside, the underlying fear seems to be that if weapons are registered this will enable the government to confiscate them. Okay, that would be unfortunate I guess, but our cars are registered and no one worries about the government confiscating them. The next part of the argument is that sportsmen should be able to keep their hunting rifles. Okay, no one is saying you can’t. But there is still more to it; if the government wanted to register fishing poles there would be complaint about the nuisance but not the kind of furor as exists in the gun lobby. I doubt there would even be a fishing pole lobby. As near as I can tell, the conservative position on guns is that we want them unregistered in case the government ever decides to create some kind of police state and burst into our homes to do God-knows-what. My issues with that are: (1) If something like that should ever happen where troops and tanks come rolling into our neighborhoods, they’re going to do whatever they have in mind regardless of whether or not you own a 30-30 or a 12-gauge, and (2) What exactly does the Christian gun-owner have in mind? Sniping soldiers from his rooftop in cold blood? Somehow that doesn’t gel with the term “Christlike.”

Jesus was not a conservative. Don’t misunderstand; He wasn’t a liberal either. Truthfully, if Jesus’ earthly ministry were in modern-day America I feel pretty sure He would be disgusted with all of our political parties. Hence, I have considerable doubt as to which party he would be most identified with. But I know for absolute certainty which party His enemies, the Pharisees, would belong to. And, as a conservative, that brings me up short. Jesus drove the Pharisees nuts because he associated with and befriended the rabble and dregs of society. While He did not applaud or even “tolerate” their sin—instead he forgave it (Luke 7:36-50) and encouraged them to turn from it (John 8:1-11)—He loved these lost souls and gave them hope. Which side of the political spectrum does that sound most like?

One of conservatism’s principal complaints is liberalism’s apparent belief that government should and can solve all of society’s problems. Yet, hypocritically, I hear conservative Christians all the time who seem fixated that if only we had conservatives in control of the government life would be grand. That is seriously flawed thinking from at least two standpoints: (1) For Christians to put their faith in government—no matter who is running it—rather than in God is tantamount to denying Christ, and (2) The notion that having all of government under the control of one party solves everything is demonstrably false—it’s happened in the past and the world did not suddenly become the Garden of Eden. Now, don’t get me wrong, I believe that, as American citizens, Christians have every right to participate in government, vote, campaign for candidates, and even run for office if desired. I also hope that the party and candidates that best help families thrive and people to live peaceful, God-fearing lives wins. But all of this must always be tempered with the knowledge that the Christian’s primary reliance is upon—and allegiance is to—the Lord Jesus, not candidates or parties.

The notion that unless one is a conservative he/she cannot be a Christian (or, at least, one’s Christianity is suspect) is beyond idiotic. I realize that conservative Christians consider support for the unborn as a litmus test of one’s faith. I personally am appalled at the wanton slaughter of unborn babies and contribute to pro-life charities. However, conservative Christians have the notion that one either opposes all abortion or else he/she is demonically in favor of flagrant and pitiless murder AND cannot be sincere about serving Christ. Although it would difficult to explain any Christian supporting partial-birth and viable-baby abortions, it is not a given that being a Christian automatically means one considers life as beginning at conception. The proof-text of the Christian pro-life position is Psalm 139:13-16 in which David talks about how God “…knit me together in my mother’s womb” and that God’s “…eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written…before one of them came to be.” Hence the conclusion that one’s life exists even while the body is yet unformed and that God is directly engaged in the creation of each human from conception. However, it could be argued that this text is largely poetic rather than literal—that it is making the point that God had plans for David from before he was born. This could be similar to Psalm 18:16 where David says that God “…reached down from on high and took hold of me; He drew me out of deep waters.” Unless there is some unrecorded miraculous incident in David’s life, nothing like this ever literally happened. This was David’s poetic way of saying God rescued him. It could be argued that the Psalm 139 passage is similarly poetic language, or even that it pertained specifically to David but not to everyone. That is, that because David was to play a major role in God’s redemptive plan, God was involved in his pre-birth existence in an extraordinary way. If one declines to accept Psalm 139 as equating conception with life, one can argue from a legal standpoint that, since life terminates when heart and brain activity cease, life begins when both these activities commence—somewhere around 20 weeks or so, I think. Mind you, I’m not saying this is what I believe; only that I can see how a sincere Christian could in all good conscience conclude that early-term abortion is not murder or otherwise sinful. Personally, I disapprove of any abortion except when necessary to save the mother’s life, but I refuse to require this belief as a prerequisite to one’s salvation. For the most part, I think that a flaming liberal who surrendered his/her heart to Christ would eventually moderate some views just from exposure to God’s call for holiness. But I would by no means expect that person to switch to conservatism. Indeed, for any church body to become too politically conservative is probably a dangerous thing leading to it becoming ingrown, exclusive, and legalistic.

Which brings me to my final point. Christianity is a balancing act between obedience on the one (conservative) hand and grace on the other (liberal) hand. To the far extreme of the first awaits the curse of legalism. Legalism says that we all must act and think alike in adherence to some detailed list of rules. Where Scripture does not seem to provide a rule, we will manipulate it to do so. Where we cannot sufficiently manipulate it to do so, we will create our own rules and requirements that we’re “sure” will meet with God’s approval. In the end, as Jesus condemned, our “teachings are but rules taught by men.” At the other extreme is “cheap grace” wherein anything goes because everything is forgiven. The parts of Scripture that demand something of us—particularly a change in our personal conduct—are simply ignored. No one speaks against sin—why bother, it’s all forgiven anyhow, right? And no one admonishes anyone to live godly—that’s being judgmental, isn’t it? The net effect is that there are no moral absolutes, no right and wrong, there are only things that don’t need to be forgiven and things that are forgiven. In the end we simply play God for a patsy, a rich Daddy who day after day sends His high-priced Lawyer to bail His spoiled, unappreciative child out of another mess. We ignore Scripture’s warning that “God is not mocked” and its plea “shall we go on sinning that grace may abound? God forbid!”

To sum up, while I am a conservative I find it unthinkable that any Christian should ever make any church visitor feel that he or she is unwelcome based on political views or affiliation. And I’m not just referring to overt statements to that effect, but also derogatory side comments about specific politicians, parties, or positions. Should a preacher be able to preach against outrageous societal behaviors—including those that are politically-charged? Yes. Some things have to be said, even if they run counter to someone’s political slant. But never, never, never should the implication be that God will not accept a person unless he or she adheres to a particular political viewpoint.

Anyway, on with the story. On Sunday we once again headed to the NJ Transit station and parked. After giving it some thought I realized that we didn’t have to put a tag or receipt in the windshield. Since we recorded our parking slot number when buying the ticket, they would know we had paid by checking the machine. I volunteered to pay for it this time and just as it was printing my receipt a woman with a pronounced New York accent said, “Oh, are those the new ticket machines?” I told her yes and that I was just waiting for my receipt. “Well, don’t pay,” she said. “You don’t have to pay on weekends.” Thus, Rick and I had ponied-up eight bucks for nothing. I don’t think it would have been too much to ask for them to have a sign or something telling a person that. We rode the train in to Penn Station and, for once, flawlessly found the correct subway to take us to where Rick had seen on the internet was a church that, presumably, did Communion. We wandered the streets for a bit looking for the address but eventually did so in plenty of time for their 11 a.m. service start-up time. They were meeting in what was called a Masonic hall but it looked like a theater. While we waited in the lobby I looked at their “What we believe” statement on the internet and saw a reference to a “special prayer language” the Spirit bestowed on Christians—which suggested a charismatic church. I’ve never been at a tongues-speaking church service and was a bit intimidated but there we were. We sat as far back as possible in this large auditorium where less than 50 people were seated, all of whom were significantly younger than us. Oddly, a tall, lean black woman in full police gear patrolled the aisles a couple of times which didn’t put us at ease. A middle-aged woman (a rare exception) with a delightful British accent then stopped and greeted us warmly asking where we were from. The worship band started up and we sang a few songs, none of which we knew but all of which were good, scriptural, and easy to learn but took a good 20 minutes. There was prayer and then a greeting time during which a number of people welcomed us cordially. Next the preacher—also British and husband to the woman we’d met earlier—got up and recounted various meetings and events of the past week. He went on at length and then invited a woman who had spoken at a women’s event to recap some of her material. He then reminded people of other upcoming events and they took up the offering. When I looked at my watch, it was nearly noon and, as far as I could tell, the service really hadn’t started yet. I was on the aisle and my traveling companions whispered that this could likely go on another hour, hinting that we might want to think about slipping out. Since the preacher had made a passing reference to Communion I decided to hold out a bit longer. The worship band played some more and then the preacher began his message. It was a good one regarding every Christian’s call from God and punctuated with British-isms like his “mum and dad” and him looking under his car’s “bonnet.” As we neared the two-hour mark he wound down but I saw no evidence of Communion. I also was bursting to go to the restroom. He then announced he was going to pray and I signaled my companions and we zipped out the back. After answering nature’s call the Police Woman, who I think was actually building security, informed Becki in a heavy Jamaican accent that the service had two more hours to go. Now I know why there were no people our age there. Their bladders would not allow it.

Next we had lunch at the logical equivalent of a Chipotle restaurant and then headed to the Empire State Building. We went through several roped-in Disneyland-type lines and another airport-style shakedown before getting to the elevators. They took us to the 80th floor ten at a time, with Becki looking paler each floor. We got off at 80 only to discover more rope lines to get to the 86th floor where the observation deck was. Fortunately, the observation area is indoors with windows and exit doors if you want to go out to the observation deck itself. Becki stayed indoors while Glenda, Rick, and I went out to take pictures. The deck has a concrete wall around it about chest high on me topped by a chain-link fence but with large openings forming each link, large enough to stick her new mini-camera through. I’m not much of a photographer but I managed to get some pretty good ones including some where I reached through the opening and pointed it straight at the ground. Becki later told me that as she watched me from inside she was sure I was going to drop the camera and kill someone. But then, she also swore she felt the building sway in the wind but though it was breezy I’m certain that was her imagination running amok a bit.

We came back down and Glenda wanted to be able to purchase something on Broadway. So we went into a tiny hat-and-scarf shop where she and Becki found some scarves they liked. The price, the store clerk said, was $8 each or four for $20. Or, she said, if they bought six the total price would be $18. Let that soak in a minute. Stranger still, the girls ended up buying five for $18 but couldn’t figure out who actually bought the fifth one. At this point we walked to a tour bus pickup point for the “uptown” tour intending to see Central Park. The weather, which up to then had been very nice in New York, turned cloudy, cool and windy. In fact as I zipped-up my Mizzou sweatshirt my In-N-Out Burger cap blew off but a guy 8 rows back on the bus caught it and passed it back up to me. We only spent a few minutes at Central Park and then realized that 6:30, the start of our Broadway show, The Lion King was approaching. Rick expertly navigated us to the subway except when we came out we found ourselves not at Times Square but in Madison Square Garden. Confused but undaunted we made our way to Times Square where we needed to (a) eat and (b) go to the restroom (of course). Rick asked a cop about where to find the latter and was told to go to the Hard Rock Café. We did and decided to eat there while we were at it. We explained to our waitress that we needed to make the 6:30 showing of Lion King and she made sure we did so. The food was good but more than most of us could finish. True to her word she had us on our way with plenty of time to spare. The play was at the Minskoff Theater on 45th Street a half block from Broadway. (Educational note: Of the roughly 30 shows “On Broadway,” as opposed to the less prestigious off-Broadway shows, only 4 are actually on Broadway Street itself. See, now you can fascinate your friends with your sophisticated knowledge of things New York.) The theater was beautiful and we rode three escalators to get to our mezzanine seats. A large window allowed us to look down on Times Square at dusk—a pretty amazing sight. Our seats were up high but gave us a magnificent view. I had heard so many raves about the play that I was fully expecting that it would not live up to the hype. I was mistaken. It was absolutely spectacular from the instant the curtain went up. I’ve never heard an audience applaud a play within the first minute like that before. Even Rick, who dislikes musicals, cheered and clapped and dubbed it “very impressive.” It’s too hard to explain; just suffice it to say that if you ever have a chance to see it you absolutely must do so.

When the play ended we headed confidently to the subway like old New York veterans. So much so that while we waited on the platform an older woman approached me and asked if this train would get her to such-and-such street. I pointed the M on my sweatshirt and said, “See this? It stands for Missouri!” (Or, as Glenda put it, I could have said it stands for “Morons.”) However we told her that we believed she was headed the right way. She and her husband were from Texas. We felt proud that we could help out a poor confused tourist. We arrived at Penn Station, certain that we were home free. We headed past a mob of waiting, milling people to Track 10 just as we had done the night before expecting that (as Becki’s NJ Transit schedule she had picked up in the Edison station indicated) a train would be along at 9:57. Instead, we found ourselves alone on a platform without a clue as to why. That is when the conversation I opened Part 1 of this narrative with took place. Rick had headed off to see what we had done wrong. As time went by it finally dawned on me that those hieroglyphics on those monitors might actually have meant something. I started up the stairs to have a quick look when suddenly all those milling passengers started down, leaving me a salmon swimming upstream. Meanwhile I got a cell phone call to join the others back down at the platform and we took an elevator up. “Track 4!” said Rick, “but I’m not sure we can make it.” We headed down the stairs to the Track 4 platform just in time to see our train leave. The next one, according to Becki, was at 10:14. Back up the stairs we went (note: all this stair stuff was very difficult for Glenda) and suddenly I found the Rosetta Stone to the monitors. First, all these tracks were NJ Transit; none were Amtrak, that was a completely different area. Second, the monitors were telling us where each trains terminus was. For us, that was Trenton. Track 9 had a 10:14 train for Trenton. When we looked at the destination list displaying next to the Track 9 door, sure enough Edison was on it. We headed down, boarded the train (which, ironically, had been sitting there throughout our lonely vigil across the platform at Track 10), and headed “home.” For once we got back to the hotel without mishap, and collapsed in bed exhausted but happy.

On our trip back to the Philadelphia airport we went to the Museum of Art where Rocky (the boxer, not the squirrel) ran up the steps. This, of course took several U-turns and when we finally got there, since it took $10 just to park and none of us was planning on running up them, we were satisfied just to drive by. Before dropping the rental off Rick wanted to top off the tank but we got in the wrong lane and circled the rental car area several times before finally getting gas and dropping it off. We got in the airport in plenty of time only to discover the flight was delayed by a couple of hours. But this flight was much smoother and Becki was far less white-knuckled. After landing and getting our luggage Rick assured us that we needed to cross the street and go down a ramp to get to the off-airport parking shuttle. That turned out not to be the case so we, for one last time, did another U-turn and got to the shuttle.

I tease Rick but in truth he was the bastion of sanity during the entire trip. As I recounted the trip to some co-workers they asked if all these mishaps had led to anger and bickering. Ha, they don’t know us at all. What they led to was hilarity and laughter, time after time. For all the craziness it was a wonderful, memorable trip with some very special people. God bless you both, my dear brother and sister. You are awesome friends!

Rick had heard somewhere that one could take a subway into New York City from nearby locations in New Jersey but if that is true we never found it. One thing we were sure of is that we did not want to drive in New York. Now that we’ve been there that was truly one of the most intelligent decisions of the whole trip. The hotel clerk told Rick he could go two stoplights down, turn right and take a commuter train into NYC (this was on Saturday). Despite Matilda’s protests Rick followed the clerk’s directions and we wandered around in a residential area for a while before realizing that he should have said three stoplights down. Anyway we parked at the New Jersey Transit station in a numbered place. A sign saying “Pay for Parking” pointed to a machine that had Rick put in our space number and $4. The question was, did we need to put a receipt or something in our car window since we were warned that unpaid parkers would be towed? Inside the station the person running the little snack kiosk, when Rick asked that question, curtly replied that she had no answers. Period. We shrugged and set about buying tickets for the trip into NYC. Penn Station, New York City, was the final stop, so we had the right train. But unlike some low-cost subway ride, the fare was $12.50. Each. One-way. If you do the math that means $50 per couple round trip. Oh well, this was a once in a lifetime event, so we bought the tickets. A train arrived promptly and the ride in was quite comfortable. In about 50 minutes we arrived at Penn Station beneath the streets of New York City.

At this juncture I need to make a confession. I had not done any preparation for getting around in New York; all I knew I wanted to do was see the Statue of Liberty and go up into the Empire State Building. I sort of despaired at having any hope of divining the mysteries of the subway system so I left figuring that out completely to Rick. Now that I’ve experienced it, I realize that if I’d taken a little time to become somewhat familiar with it in advance I could have helped him out. Rick knew he wanted to get to Times Square where we could pick up a tour bus. He asked the station agent and she told him we could take the red 1, 2, or 3 subway to 42nd Street (yes, as in “…Tell all the gang at 42nd street that I will soon be there…”). Penn Station has tracks for NJ Transit (which we had ridden in on), Amtrak, and the NY Subway. We, with some difficulty, found our way to a subway platform marked with a red 1 to await the next train. Buying a ticket was not much different than buying one for a BART train in the Bay Area and we were told we could by one 4-ride ticket and pass it from person-to-person as we went through the turnstiles. That was fine except the fourth person, Glenda, could not get the ticket to work. For a moment it looked like she was going to have to buy another ticket when it finally let her through.

I must note that TV had given me a misguided impression of the NY subway. I expected a filthy, reeking, graffiti-riddled hell-hole littered with winos and bag-ladies and expected the trains to be ancient and rickety. Except that the platforms were obviously pretty old, it was none of that and the trains were clean and well-maintained. A red 1 train arrived and we climbed aboard. Penn Station is actually at 34th Street. We watched the stations as they passed: 28th Street, 23rd Street, 18th Street. At this point in unison we all looked at each other and said, “Weren’t we supposed to be headed to 42nd Street?” We decided we better get off at the next station which was, I believe, 14th Street. Fortunately there was a stair-bridge thingy that let us cross to the platform on the other side without having to re-ticket. We boarded another train and retraced our steps past Penn Station and, at last, to 42nd Street/Times Square. We wandered for a bit not knowing which subway exit would take us where then decided just to go for it and walked out onto Times Square which was everything you’ve seen on TV: Huge Jumbo-tron advertisements, scrolling news headlines, and mobs of people. The New Years ball was still in place where it had dropped-to last January (somehow I had thought it would have been removed till New Years—interestingly it is much smaller than I had thought). I had also assumed that Times Square was a confluence of streets that get blocked off during new years but it actually is a sort of grassless park with little tables and chairs where people can just sit or bring their food from one of the myriad eating establishments that surround it. A tour guide would later tell us that native New Yorkers don’t frequent Times Square—it’s for tourists. We were approached by one of the tour bus hawkers and Rick asked where to get tickets. “Over there at Planet Hollywood” was the response. He headed off while I sat with the girls at one of the little tables and marveled at the enormity of it all. An older woman spotted Becki taking pictures and asked if she’d like her to take one of the three of us. Becki immediately said no rather curtly—a surprise coming from my sweet, gentle spouse. When the woman left, Becki explained that it was a bit too odd that someone would so purposefully volunteer to take our picture so she was concerned that the woman wanted to just steal the camera. I congratulated Becki on her quick thinking—that didn’t even occur to me, but she was pretty sharp to think of it. Rick returned with tickets for two bus tours, the Statue of Liberty, and the Empire State Building. Before boarding a bus we decided that we needed a potty break and some lunch. (Note: Throughout this narrative, just assume that anytime there is the slightest change from one thing to the next that someone in the group had to find and use a restroom first—me as often as not.) Being in the heart of New York City we certainly weren’t going to eat at McDonald’s (although there is one right there on Times Square) but had to find something New Yorkie. We spotted the Roxy Deli café near where we would board the bus and decided that fit the bill. Sandwiches were mostly in the $15 range—yes, that’s for one sandwich although each one had a pound of meat on it. We decided to share even though per the menu that was $3 extra. Becki and I ordered a hot pastrami on rye, the most New York Deli thing I could imagine. We were told the $3 would be waived if we ordered a side dish so we got a huge plate of excellent fries for $6. Not sure the economics of that worked out. But the sandwich was awesome. Becki wasn’t sure she even liked pastrami, and rye is not her favorite, but she is still raving about that sandwich till yet.

We boarded the tour bus and the guide was a woman who informed us that she loved being in parades and had been in one as the “Kentucky Fried Mermaid.” Google it and you’ll see her. There was a Korean parade going on so traffic was slow and the KFC-M had to do a lot of ad-libbing. She was a bit annoying such that at one point when she went to help some new passengers an entire family got off the bus complaining that they couldn’t take her anymore. Being on a tour bus (we sat in the open in seats on the roof of the bus) allowed us to act as touristy as we wanted (“Gawwwww-leeeee! Lookit the size o’ them buildin’s!”).

We got off at Ground Zero but truthfully most of it is just a huge construction site (see the plans here). There was a museum on one of the perimeter streets but we still were wanting to get to the Statue of Liberty. We got back on another tour bus with a less annoying guide and made our way to where the tour boats take you to Liberty Island. Here we once again went through an airport-style shakedown (except we could leave our shoes on) then boarded the boat. We disembarked at the island and walked around the statue but one has to get separate tickets well in advance to go up onto the actual pedestal and to go up into the crown they were selling tickets to do so in December. Still it was very cool but with the walking and jostling through crowds us oldsters were starting to wear out. The next stop for the boat was Ellis Island which has a museum but we opted to stay on the boat till it got back to Manhattan. We then got on another bus and finished our “downtown” tour ending up near the 50th Street subway station.

We once again bought subway tickets so we could get back to Penn Station and once again Glenda’s took several tries before it worked. We knew we needed to get on a red 1 train but when we got to the platform I saw that it ended at “South Ferry” right back where we had just come from. “Don’t we need to be on the opposite platform headed the other way?” I asked Rick. He agreed so I asked a young woman waiting for a train if there was any way to get to the other side headed the other way. She said, “No, but you can get on and go to 42nd Street where there’s a crossover.” We thanked her and did that very thing, lamenting that we had once again had to do a U-turn in the New York subway. We started riding and got back to the 50th Street station, then the 59th Street station when, again in unison, we all realized that to get to 34th Street (Penn Station) we had been right the first time. We got off again, this time needing only to walk to the other side of the middle platform and boarded a train headed the other way. A New Yorker sitting on the train with his girlfriend listening to our confusion asked if he could help. He confirmed that we were now headed the right way. When they exited at 42nd Street he told us that Penn Station was the next stop. Still way too confused, I wondered aloud if we didn’t need to go back past 28th Street and so on. Another New Yorker wearing a set of iPod headphones reassured me that Penn Station was indeed the next stop. He was correct. Despite dire warnings not to look like tourists and never to speak or make eye contact with New Yorkers, here we had met three very kind and helpful New Yorkers within a few minutes.

We entered Penn Station and by now it was about 8:30 p.m. and we were hungry. There are places to eat under there so we opted for New York pizza-by-the-slice. They were huge and while I am a Chicago-style deep dish fan, the thin crust on this was light and airy and not the tasteless cracker stuff like one gets at so many pizza places around here. Maybe I was just hungry but I enjoyed it a lot. We went up to a waiting area with lots of doors and with people milling around. There were monitors with some sort of information on them but I could make no sense of them; they could have been hieroglyphics for all I could tell. I mistakenly thought this was for Amtrak people so I didn’t pay much attention to them in any case. Rick asked a cop how to get to New Jersey and was told we could catch the NJ Transit to Edison on Track 10. We went through some doors and down an escalator and within a few minutes our train arrived. Some 50 minutes later we got back in our rental car and after several U-turns and “All Turns” adventures ended-up back at our hotel, exhausted. I went to sleep wondering what adventures—and how many more U-Turns—awaited us on Sunday.

But that was near the end of our journey. Let me go back to the beginning. For their 35th wedding anniversary, Rick (Becki’s brother) and Glenda decided to go to Philadelphia and New York City and invited Becki and I along. The trip started well as we got to the St. Louis airport in plenty of time to go through the madness of TSA security screening. Just a quick side note: I not only understand that people need to be screened before they fly, I actually endorse it. I feel much more comfortable knowing that at least some effort has been made to avoid my flight being involved in some terrorist activity. However, I imagine that for every person who has even a remote possibility of doing something dastardly, there are probably 10 million who simply want to travel to their destination safely and peacefully. Hence, I believe that airports should do everything they can to make the whole necessary security screening thing as hassle-free as possible. St. Louis airport apparently missed the memo. It’s bad enough that one has to practically undress (belts, shoes, jackets, hats, etc.) but in St. Louis, once you’re through, there is not even the convenience of a set of seats to sit down and re-collect oneself. So I found myself groveling on the open floor trying to get my shoes back on. I could go on but I’ll let that suffice.

Becki doesn’t like heights. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing can come of the story I am going to relate. When we first met 40+ years ago heights were something she neither relished nor avoided. I am told that as most people reach their mid-30s they begin to experience trepidation about heights and that is certainly true of me. Where I used to casually walk around on rooftops helping my dad install TV antennas years ago, nowadays putting the Christmas lights along the eaves each year finds me inching along on my belly trying to install them by Braille so I won’t have to look over the edge. But Becki’s dislike of heights has begun to approach the phobia stage and it includes everything from standing on a ladder to flying in an airplane. That said, she deserves a medal for being such an awesome little trooper throughout the trip. Since I have arachnophobia myself I truly appreciate her bravery.

The flight was packed and, as happens so often, a small man (shorter than me, even, I think) was trying to put a huge carry-on that apparently contained an anvil and three bowling balls into a too-small space in the overhead bin above Becki’s head. He got overbalanced and several passengers had to catch him in the aisle. Mercifully he managed to get the bag stowed on the third try without conking Becki on the head. The flight started fine with the pilot bragging about the beautiful clear evening, but the weather reports we had seen said it was raining in Philadelphia. Halfway through the flight we reached the bad weather and the plane turned into a roller coaster, much to Becki’s dismay. The fingernail prints in my arm are starting to recede now, so I think I’ll be okay.

The hotel in Philly was fine and we started out early the next morning in a drizzle on the Philadelphia phase of our adventure. We ate at a Denny’s and were reminded why we no longer have one in Jeff. Our waitress went out of her way to ignore us throughout the meal but the food was okay so off we went. We first visited the Liberty Bell which had a team of some half-dozen security screeners inspecting bags and having us open our jackets. I had seen the bell once before many years ago but the others hadn’t and the girls both said they had expected it to be larger. To which I had to add, “Not quite what it’s cracked-up to be, eh?” Next we took a tour of Independence Hall by a middle-aged male tour guide with a long pony tail who spoke loudly enough to be heard in Pittsburgh. Since I like history I found it quite interesting and can relate to how the colonists resented being taxed when they had no representation in Parliament. Of course, as one wag has put it, if they thought taxation without representation was bad, they should see how it is with it!

For lunch we, of course, had to eat an authentic Philly cheese steak sandwich. After about a ten-block walk we found a cheese steak place with free fries and ate there. In so doing Glenda was able to find (and have preserved pictorially on Facebook) the “perfect French fry.” I’m not totally clear on what qualifies a fry as perfect but they were quite good. When we finished, Rick and I walked back to where the car was parked so we could pick up the girls. On our way we spotted three people, two guys and one obviously a girl, walking down the street in Spiderman costumes. And, no, I have no explanation.

One of the main reasons for the trip was that the Sight and Sound Theater in Strasburg, PA (this is the original; the one in Branson came along later) was doing a play based on the life of Joseph. No, not the Andrew Lloyd Webber version, although I like it very much, this was an original musical. We needed to be at the theater by 6:30 p.m. and would be staying in King of Prussia, PA (next to Valley Forge). We shopped (if you can call what I do shopping) at a huge mall there and the only one to buy anything was Rick (chef items). At 5 p.m. we needed to get dinner so we could head to Strasburg. Glenda spotted a fondue restaurant called The Melting Pot and thought it would be fun. Though none of us had eaten at a fondue restaurant, we all agreed and went in. (Note: When the four of us are together, whenever anyone can come up with an idea of what to do next it is immediately considered a good idea insofar as it is better than having no idea which is true of the other three.) Mind you, we’re all wearing jeans, and Rick and I are in baseball caps. Our first clue was when the hostess looked surprised and asked cautiously if we had reservations. Her next question was, “Where are you from?” After we told her another woman, presumably her boss, said sort of under her breath, “Um, let’s seat them at table 41.” We were led to a back area and handed menus. The first item was: Four Course Fondue for Two – $86.00. After we gulped, a lovely, friendly, helpful young waitress came and said, “So I hear you’re from Missouri.” Apparently the Hayseed Alert had already circulated throughout the establishment. We admitted that we had never eaten at a fondue restaurant before. “Have you eaten at a hibachi restaurant?” she asked. For some reason an image of those tiny Japanese charcoal grills came into my mind and Rick and I both said, “No.” Then, in classic hillbilly-hick style I said, “We do have a Japanese Steakhouse, though.” The waitress, sweet as she was, said nothing but just shook her head slightly and suppressed a grin. (Note: Ironically, we had eaten at the new Japanese steakhouse for lunch the day we left, and the menu had referred to the items we had ordered that day cooked in front of us as “from the hibachi grill.”) We told her we only had maybe 45 minutes before we had to get going so she went on to explain how things worked. Normally one orders not only cheese fondue but steak, shrimp, chicken or other items that are cooked at the table to accompany it. But in the interests of time, she suggested two cheese fondues with various breads, veggies, and even apples to dip into it. One was spinach and artichoke in Swiss and the other was a Mexican cheddar. She suggested also salads for us. She prepared the fondues at our table and we dug-in. It was delightful but when she came back by to see how we were doing Rick asked what about our salads. She politely notified us that they come afterward and somewhere back in the kitchen another Nerd-alert siren probably went off. The salads were great (I had no idea how good glazed pine nuts were) and she asked if we’d like chocolate-peanut-butter fondue for dessert. Glenda’s a chocoholic so it took no effort at all to decide we’d go for it; our waitress assured us she could get us on our way quickly. It really was excellent, with strawberries, bananas, cheesecake, marshmallows, brownies, and mini-krispy-treats to dip with. Though our waitress had done her best to help us feel at ease, I can’t help but wonder how hard everyone laughed when we left.

We had taken our GPS with us who, having an Australian female voice we have dubbed Matilda, proved pretty valuable at various times. For whatever reason, she took us a rather circuitous route to the theater. When we were less than a mile from it we were still out in the middle of Amish farm country with no lights to be seen. Then suddenly, there was the theater and a long line of traffic. As is true of Noah at Branson, the theater and the play were spectacular. Rick had done an excellent job getting us tickets in an ideal location. I recall that Noah took considerably more liberties with the story than I was completely comfortable with (although I enjoyed it). They had a disclaimer at the beginning of Joseph that some of it was fictionalized but I actually thought the disclaimer unnecessary; it followed the Biblical narrative quite closely. Pleased with how well the trip had gone so far, we headed back to the hotel for a night’s sleep before our next adventure: New York City.

San Jose Sharks Playoffs – They improved on last year’s NHL playoff fiasco by beating Colorado and advancing to the second round. When they play up to their capabilities they can be quite good… It’s been commented-on ad nauseum, but no one would have believed that they could have accomplished this while going all six games with a grand total of one goal being scored by their top line. Heatley can be excused because he was injured in an early game, missed one entirely and was obviously only about 60% for the remainder. Hopefully he can recover before the next round. Thornton actually gave a good effort in other aspects of the game; scoring is not his strong suit anyway, but assists are. So for him to have only three points in six games is definitely eyebrow-raising. Then there’s Marleau. Yes, he did get the lone goal for that threesome, but, of the three, he has played the poorest—and without the excuse of an injury. He both misunderstands and at the same time defies a basic law of physics: A solid object cannot pass through another solid object. When he has the puck and spots a teammate on the other side of the ice, he passes the puck toward his teammate despite there being three sets of opponents’ legs, skates, and sticks directly in the path of the puck. Apparently thinking the puck will somehow magically dematerialize, slide through these obstacles, then rematerialize near his teammate, he repeatedly throws the puck directly to the opponents. This, naturally, leads to innumerable odd-man rushes for the opposition. However, perhaps he believes in this solid-passing-through-solid notion because of what pucks do to his stick. Fully half his attempts to guide, pass, or shoot the puck sees the puck remain right where it is, as if it passes right through his stick. Patrick, do us all a favor and see if you can try playing in this universe with its laws of physics rather than that alternate one you’ve been occupying up to now in the playoffs. Please?… Last season I decided that Joe Pavelski was my favorite player. This season—and certainly these playoffs—have cemented that notion… And Coach McLellan, thanks for having the good sense to keep Brad Staubitz on the healthy scratch list. What is purportedly gained by his “enforcer” role is more than lost in his poor judgment regarding when to be a goon and his exceptionally lacking hockey skills. Both could result in disaster against playoff-quality opponents.

San Francisco 49ers Draft – Other than a questionable trade-up two positions to get a player almost certain to still be there (and other high-quality alternatives if he wasn’t), this was a good draft. It has been pointed-out that these are all Singletary-type tough, physical players, though some are questionable in terms of character. It will be awesome if Coach Singletary can instill his personal focus, intensity, and Christian-based behavioral ethics into this group and enable them to excel. This is a case where I would love to witness a successful program, not just because I’m a 49er fan, but as proof that a man of purpose and Christian integrity can permeate his entire team with those same qualities. Though during his coaching tenure Singletary is neither shy nor overtly outspoken about his faith publicly, what a great testimony it would be to show that dedication to Christ can translate to dedication in all one’s endeavors. More than that, to show that such a philosophy of life can turn a whole team into both winners and men of integrity. Good luck, Coach. Here’s hoping that the 49ers are the (positive) talk of the NFL this coming season.

San Francisco Giants – In the past few years my interest in baseball has waned, partly because of all the ridiculous drug scandals, among the most notorious of which involves the Giants’ last hitting star, Barry Bonds. The other reason is that, since his departure, the Giants have been frustratingly inept and made-up primarily of ancient castoffs and retreads. They now have had an infusion of youth and have a dynamite young pitching staff including Tim Lincecum, back-to-back Cy Young award winner. They still don’t have quite enough offense to be a truly great team but they have managed to revive my interest a bit. Taking two of three from the Cardinals including keeping Albert Pujols contained was fairly impressive. As the old bromide goes, good pitching beats good hitting. But as the 2-0 loss in the third game of the series shows, even with good pitching you can’t win games if you can’t manage to score. Still, as long as they don’t take a major nosedive they should keep things interesting enough to bridge the long gap between the end of the NHL playoffs and the start of football.

You see, back in the spring of 1968 I became smitten, as they used to say, by a gorgeous little blue-eyed blond named Rebecca (Becki). She was two years behind me in high school and she was also a preacher’s daughter. She was Richard Yoder’s daughter. Now, sometimes preachers’ kids become notoriously rebellious, but not so with Becki. She was a devoted daughter and a devoted Christian. Me? I was an atheist. As we started “dating” (as much as her dad would allow) Becki never demanded that I convert to Christ or even attend church. However, I did attend because that’s where she was so often.

I wasn’t there to listen, I was there to pass notes and spend time with her. But eventually things started to happen. One was that I began to observe the love within her family and to realize that it was the influence of their–especially the parents’–belief in Christ that made it what every family should be. I also realized that part of what made me love Becki was Jesus in her. I also began to actually pay attention to those sermons her dad kept preaching. After some months had passed I began to realize that what this man was saying made sense. In fact, it made sense of the world, of life itself. Eventually I realized that the gospel of Jesus was true. It had to be; it was the only logical, coherent, rational explanation for what life is all about.

On Sunday, January 5, 1969, Richard Yoder called me over to his study and asked me if I was ready to act upon what I’d been hearing. That evening he baptized me into Christ. On July 7, 1973 he became my father-in-law as I married that wonderful little gal that I’m thrilled to say remains my wife after 36+ years. Richard, along with Becki’s mom, Mary, continued to be wonderful Christian influences, wonderful in-laws, and wonderful grandparents to our sons Paul and Scott.

Richard Yoder was not famous or even a gifted speaker. But he was dearly loved by a great number of people and exuded Jesus in all of his life. While he may not have legions of converts to show for his faithful service, his influence for Christ was deep and far-reaching nonetheless.

And among those he did help bring into the Kingdom of God, there’s me. Richard Yoder was more than my father-in-law, Richard Yoder was my father in the faith. For that I am literally eternally grateful. He passed the baton of salvation to me. My prayer is that I will successfully pass it on as well.

On December 18, 2009, at 90 years of age Richard Yoder went to be with the Lord he had served so faithfully. Thanks, Dad. I shudder to think where I might be had it not been for you.

- Your loving son in the faith, Don.