I did not do it!

A man comes home from work and drives into the driveway. He is shocked to find the garage door open with the same laundry in front of the washer and dryer as it was left that morning.

The kid's bikes are laying in the front yard and the front door is wide open. The man begins to panic. He runs through the front door and finds the TV blaring and the kids in the backyard playing; still in their pajamas.

The living room is filled with toys; the dining room table is covered in peanut butter and chocolate and the dog has spilled the garbage all over the kitchen.

The man starts to scream for his wife! "HONEY, Where are you?" He runs upstairs and finds her in bed reading a book; still in her bathrobe.

He almost screams "Are you okay? What is wrong?" She looks at him with a big smile and says "You know how every day you come home and you ask me what I did today? Well, Today I didn't do it."

To the men: Whether your wife works inside the home or outside the home; marriage is a joint venture to be shared.

Ephesians 5:21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

The Rev. Joe Wright opened a Kansas legislative session with a controversial prayer.

C.S. Lewis writes this in "The Screwtape Letters":

"For humans must not be allowed to notice that all great moralists are sent by the Enemy not to inform men but to remind them, to restate the primeval moral platitudes against our continual concealment of them."

The following prayer was a reminder:

When Minister Joe Wright was asked to open the new session of the Kansas Senate, everyone was expecting the usual generalities, but this is what they heard:
"Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask Your forgiveness and to seek Your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We confess that.

We have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word and called it Pluralism.

We have worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism.

We have endorsed perversion and called it alternative lifestyle.

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.

We have killed our unborn and called it choice.

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem.

We have abused power and called it politics.

We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.

We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, Oh, God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent to direct us to the center of Your will, to open ask it in the name of Your Son, the living Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen"

The response was immediate. A number of legislators walked out during the prayer in protest. In 6 short weeks, Central Christian Church, where Rev. Wright is pastor, logged more than 5,000 phone calls with only 47 of those calls responding negatively. The church is now receiving international requests for copies of this prayer from India, Africa, and Korea.

Commentator Paul Harvey aired this prayer on "The Rest of the Story" on the radio and received a larger response to this program than any other he has ever aired.

With the Lord's help, may this prayer sweep over our nation and wholeheartedly become our desire so that we again can be called one nation under God.

Be careful little eyes

I was talking with my son's friend yesterday while I was watching the Seahawks win. (For the way they played the first quarter, I am surprised. And if they play that way next time, they will probably get creamed.)

As I was saying, I was commenting on the commercial during the game advertising "American Idol" and I said how worthless. "Z" asked "Why do you say worthless?"

I have come to view TV as a wasteland. "American Idol", Extreme Makeover,Home Edition" and most other programs pander to your emotions. They feed you the "feel good syndrome" and at the same time allow people to be slammed verbally. If a TV program does not give you accurate, needful and uplifting information it has little value. If a tv program does not motivate you to action, then it is of little use.

To paraphrase C.S. Lewis in the Screwtape letters: If you feel pity for people on tv (ie EMHE) but do not visit your 80 year old next door neighbor, then you have failed to practice compassion in correct way.

Our primary concern is to reach out to those close to us with compassion: our family, neighbors and church family and be filled with those relationships than fill ourselves up with compassion from TV for people that we will never meet.

Baseball and Football by George Carlin

Baseball is different from any other sport, very different. For instance, in most sports you score points or goals; in baseball you score runs.

In most sports the ball, or object, is put in play by the offensive team; in baseball the defensive team puts the ball in play, and only the defense is allowed to touch the ball. In fact, in baseball if an offensive player touches the ball intentionally, he's out; sometimes unintentionally, he's out.

Also: in football,basketball, soccer, volleyball, and all sports played with a ball, you score with the ball and in baseball the ball prevents you from scoring.

In most sports the team is run by a coach; in baseball the team is run by a manager. And only in baseball does the manager or coach wear the same clothing the players do. If you'd ever seen John Madden in his Oakland Raiders uniform,you'd know the reason for this custom.

Now, I've mentioned football. Baseball & football are the two most popular spectator sports in this country. And as such, it seems they ought to be able to tell us something about ourselves and our values.

I enjoy comparing baseball and football:

Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.
Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.

Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park. The baseball park!
Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.

Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.
Football begins in the fall, when everything is dying.

In football you wear a helmet.
In baseball you wear a cap.

Football is concerned with downs - what down is it?
Baseball is concerned with ups - who's up?

In football you receive a penalty.
In baseball you make an error.

In football the specialist comes in to kick.
In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.

Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness.Baseball has the sacrifice.

Football is played in any kind of weather: rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog...
In baseball, if it rains, we don't go out to play.

Baseball has the seventh inning stretch.
Football has the two minute warning.

Baseball has no time limit: we don't know when it's gonna end - might have extra innings.
Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we've got to go to sudden death.

In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there's kind of a picnic feeling; emotions may run high or low, but there's not too much unpleasantness.
In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you're capable of taking the life of a fellow human being.

And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:
In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.
In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! - I hope I'll be safe at home!