Marsha was the musician in our little team. In college and seminary, I was taught Scripture. Languages. Constructing a sermon. Organizing a Bible study. Ministering to people at the point of their need. Theology and ministry stuff. In college and seminary, Marsha was taught worship. Music is central to worship. In college and seminary, we always thought music people were a little weird. But that was because our emphasis was different. Usually in a church setting, the person who puts the worship (music) together and the person who preaches and teaches kind of work at cross purposes. They just don’t really understand where the other is going. I had a little music theory class for a semester where they taught us how to read music, which I already knew how to do, but they taught me nothing about how to incorporate worship into the service.

It is different, though, when worship and preaching are actually married. I learned that Marsha had an understanding that I did not have. I would be perfectly content to not have any music. Let’s get right to the good stuff! The Word!! But normal people (and I have never claimed to be normal) have a different view of worship. In the Old Testament, the Book of Psalms was the Jewish hymn book, and the Jews broke into song at the slightest provocation. On their special days of worship, the people would stand outside the Temple and listen as a priest would read from the Scripture, and they would do this as long as the light held. But those times were interspersed with singing, too. Music is intertwined with the Word so tightly that it is a totally normal thing to have music and Scripture together. (Again, I am not normal. But you are.)

It never was, however, just random music. It always coincided with the Scripture and the message. In the back of the hymnal there are several different indexes. There is the index of hymn tunes. Probably the majority of music sung in church, whether contemporary or traditional, started out as either poetry or Scripture. The tunes came later and often tunes would be used that already existed. The person putting the music together can use the tune to enhance the service. There are the indexes of meter and key, which is for the musicians. Then the index of authors and composers and others who have a part in putting together the hymns. If you want to put together a service featuring Fanny Crosby poetry or Philip Bliss’ music or Charles Wesley’s thoughts, this is where you would go. Then, the topical index. If the person selecting the music knows the basic topic of the sermon, say ‘stewardship,’ they can find stewardship in this index and find the songs that pertain to that subject. And then there is the alphabetical index to titles and first lines of a song. This is the index most commonly used by the folks in the pew. As I said at the start of this paragraph, the music is not random. There is a plan and a purpose.

Marsha was great at this stuff. She knew music. I would give her the topics and Scripture for my messages for a period of time and she would spend hours and hours putting it all together. There are those who would say, “That is stupid! Sing what you like to sing!” Which translate into, “That is stupid! Sing what I like!” But that is another blog subject. The point is, though, that if the music and the message and Scripture all point in one direction, the people are more likely to get the idea. At our church in Ohio, I gave my topics and Scripture to our choir leader and praise team leader as well, so every aspect of our music, Scripture and message would mesh. It really is never random.

Of course, now I am doing all this myself. I don’t really care about meter and tune. I just don’t have the time for that and I don’t really understand it, anyway. As I have said before, I am a word guy. The topic of a piece of music is vital to me. All the congregational music pertains to the Scripture and message.

Then there is the Youth song. We currently have 24 Youth songs to choose from. The Youth came up with this list and they are almost all straight praise music. It is the first song we sing and, since they are praise music, it really shouldn’t matter which song we sing. The idea is to put the congregation into a praise mode. But before I put a song into the line-up, I read the words. Some strike me as incredibly powerful. I feel bad for those who do not like the praise music because it doesn’t seem like church music. Always read the words of any song. We have songs in our hymn books that are unScriptual. We don’t sing those songs now, but you probably have in the past and you might enjoy them. If I am picking them out, though, they have to have a message. And the praise music is full of message.

The one from this past Sunday particularly hit me, both during the selecting stage and the singing stage.

Make it count, leave a mark, build a name for yourself
Dream your dreams, chase your heart, above all else
Make a name the world remembers
But all an empty world can sell is empty dreams
I got lost in the light but it was up to me
To make a name the world remembers
But Jesus is the only name to remember

To me, these words at the start are part of the mantra of the world. Do all you can do, be as great as you can be, make a name for yourself, a name that others will remember. But then, there is a change. All of that is an empty goal and an empty void. The only name to remember and that makes a difference is Jesus.

          The chorus is;

And I, I don't want to leave a legacy
I don't care if they remember me
Only Jesus
And I, I've only got one life to live
I'll let every second point to Him
Only Jesus

What is it we teach our kids and grand kids? What is it we try to do for ourselves? We want people to remember us! We want to make a difference! Well, OK. But what is the greater goal?

          Here is something for you to think about. Everyone dies, of course, and the majority of people, whether cremated or not, are buried. Some are buried at sea, some are scattered and some are put in an urn and put on a shelf or a closet. But most are buried. Of those who are buried, 89% will be visited for 5 years. After that it really falls off. Within a generation it falls to almost 0%. In fact, in Japan in many places, they allow you to bury someone for a period of 5 years and after that they are disinterred and cremated. The point is, once you are dead you are gradually forgotten. It doesn’t matter the ‘name’ you made for yourself. But the name of Jesus does matter.

          I guess I never really thought about it until I read the words of this song, but for me it has always been about Jesus. We had gone to visit a church I had pastored in the city of Warren, Ohio some fifteen years previous. They were so excited we were there. The Board chair excitedly took me to Fellowship Hall and proudly showed me the new display. There were four pictures on the wall. Pastor Davis, Pastor Grope, Pastor Wade and Music Leader Stahl. Sort of their version of the Hall of Fame, I guess. The men who had made a difference. I was immediately saddened. First, I was the only one still living and second, I didn’t want to be on that wall. Jesus made the difference! I know enough about human nature to know that when I leave here it will only be a short while and people will struggle to remember my name. I am fine with that. But I want you all to always remember the Jesus I love.

          Have an awesome week!

          There are sociologists who try an tell us different, but the facts are the facts. Males and females differ in ways other than just the physical. This may enrage some folks, but males see the world one way and females see it in another way. I could devote a series of blogs to my own personal observations over the last four decades, but then I would have everyone angry at me. However, when sociologists try to dim the line of difference between male and female, they are merely denying truth. Give a little boy a stick and he has an imaginary sword or an imaginary gun, give a little girl almost anything she can hold in her arms and she has an imaginary baby. You can say that it is a result of violence in our society or the preconceived notions within families, but is really just the way we are wired.

          Which brings us to a hot summer night in a neighborhood of Indianapolis in 1966. Our whole family was in Indianapolis to visit with some of my mother’s family. She had two sisters who lived there, Nina and Edith, and their husbands, Omar and Lonnie. My mother’s mother lived on Omar and Nina’s property in a mobile home, which she shared with her sister, Kitt. Also, my grandmother had raised three of her granddaughters, one of which, Carol, still lived with at home with Granny and our great aunt Kitt. Nina had three boys, Omar, Jr, Philip and Ronnie. Omar and Phil were grown and Ronnie, though just a teenager, was off serving Uncle Sam. Edith had two sons, Rick and Steve and then there were my two sisters, Cathy and Debbie, and me. Carol was a year or so older than Cathy, so they hung out, Debbie and Rick were just a few months apart, so they hung out, and Steve and I were also just a few months apart, so we hung out. For the first five days or so of our visits, it was always fun. Lots of different things to do, none of which involved a tractor, and places to go. It was different. But after five days it always started to get old. I always started to get anxious to get home.

          It was our last night there. That night we had gone and watched the fireworks, it being the Fourth of July. It was actually the first fireworks I had ever seen. I was ten and we certainly had displays in Ohio, but we never went. My mother always explained that they bothered my father because of the war. That didn’t make sense to me. He had been Navy. In my mind that meant he floated around on a boat the whole war, probably fishing over the side. He would watch war movies on TV, but never Navy movies. My only knowledge of World War II at that time was the war on the ground and in the air. He had told me once he had been in the CBs, but had not explained what that meant. That was all I ever got.

          As a point of information, CB stands for Construction Battalion. The way they spelled it was Sea Bees, which kind of made it cutesy. But there was nothing cute about it during WWII. When the Marines landed on some beach on some jungle island thousands and thousands of miles from home, they were usually met with fanatical defenders who would rather die than give up a foot of ground. The next wave after the Marines usually included the CBs to make fortifications and then airfields and the like. They would drive their equipment off the landing craft under fire and they would often be firing their weapons in return. I now know a lot about the CBs and I understand a lot about my father’s psychological problems he had later in life. Fresh off the farm, fearful of being killed and having to kill other men. Sometimes he would wake up during the night screaming. Until I was around 8 or so my mother would sometimes pull little pieces of metal out of his leg. I never understood.

          Anyway, back to that muggy July 4^th of 1966. I was tired of my cousins. Nothing against them, just wanted to be home. Of course, I was tired of my sisters, but that was pretty standard. All the kids were in the basement of Omar and Nina’s home, so I wandered up to the main part of the house. My mother and her sisters and my grandmother and her sister, Kitt, were at the table talking women things. One aunt said, “Where are the men?” My mother replied, “Oh, they’re out back sitting around and smoking and probably talking about how terrible it is to be married to us.” They all laughed but I stopped dead still there on the steps. Oh, now, that would be fun! Get the dirt on my mother and aunts! I wanted to hear that! So, I went the rest of the ways up the steps and slipped out the side door. Sure enough, in the darkness I could see the ends of three glowing cigarettes and I could hear the low murmur of men’s voices. It was getting close to midnight and I knew that if I walked up my father would send me back in and tell me to go to bed, so I took a circular route. When I got well behind them, I dropped onto the ground and bellied crawled to where I could hear my father and uncles.

          I had been next to my father during the fireworks. He had jumped at the explosions, sometimes moaning deep in his throat. I hadn’t understood that, but I also noticed that Omar and Lonnie were not enjoying their selves, either. In fact, all three men had looked like they wanted to bolt. It just didn’t make sense to me at that moment. But once I started to listen, I realized they were not talking about their wives. I was listening to three warriors talking about the darkest time in their lives.

          These were three Kentucky boys who grew up in the same area. Farm boys. Maybe a couple of fist fights growing up, but certainly not killers. War changed that. My father was a Sea Bee. He lost his best friend to a mortar round. It was that round that blew metal into his leg that took years to work out. It also blew bone and other fragments of his friend into his leg. Omar had landed on the Normandy beaches two days after D-Day. Bloated bodies were still floating in the surf and had to be pushed aside as they came in. Then they fought their way to Berlin. Lonnie was a tank commander in Korea. My father and Omar both made crude little jokes about guys who fought in tanks, but they were gentle jokes. Lonnie told about the retreat from North Korea after their invasion failed and the tank running out of fuel and having to be abandoned. He and his crew had to walk with the foot soldiers in that brutal winter. There were no more jokes.

          I listened for another half hour, then the men got up and headed into the house. The little gathering was breaking up. I sat in one of the chairs. War had always been like an adventure to me. An exciting adventure. As I sat there now, though, I had a feeling of confusion. Were all those guys I had watched in movies and read about as scared as my father and uncles? Had they all wished to be home again? Had all those heroes really just been regular guys? And then the thought came. Were my father and uncle’s heroes?

          They are gone now. Lonnie died fairly young from a heart attack. Edith never remarried. My father and Omar died at about the same time as each other, though Omar passed first. Age had taken its toll on both of them. The America they had fought for was a different place when the three died. None of them were happy about it. But they raised their families. My father and Omar got to see the century turn. Life had good moments and bad moments.

          Looking back, I now think of them all as heroes. Certainly, much greater heroes than the guys who did heroic things on screen or in the pages of books. Three men who answered the call to arms of their country. Three men who left their mommas behind and went to war. Three men who came home irrevocably changed. Just regular guys. Guys who never wanted to talk about it except with other men who had ‘been there.’ They would have laughed at being called heroes. But they were. And so are all of you men and women who are reading this who put on that ill fitting uniform. Whether it was war time or peace, you were ready. You were scared, you were thinking of home, you were not happy. But were ready. Thank you for your service. We remember your greatness.

          I do try to avoid politics in this blog. Political concerns are temporary. Politics change. And there are those who lock onto a particular political party for their entire life time, even if the party in question changes completely. These are people you have to feel sorry for because they have no vision in them. Personally, I feel that matters of the Spirit are far more important. What I look for first in a candidate is their personal belief and how they live their lives. Politics just are not important to me if they are actively following Christ; although, if they are actively following Christ their politics will fall into line.

          But there are times when politics and Spiritual things cross paths. The recent wave of state’s laws that forbid an abortion if the infant’s heart beat is detectable is one of those things.

          The Bible tells us in Exodus 13 that what opens the womb belongs to God. It is sacred. Killing the infant and then extracting it from the womb kind of spits in God’s face. This comes on the heals of some states allowing for partial birth, or even complete birth, abortion. People on both sides are getting more and more angry. We will soon be seeing abortion as a major political issue.

          It has always been a Biblical issue. My own personal stand on it is that life begins at conception. Not even at the fetal heartbeat, but conception. I am against abortion at any time and for any reason. Some will say that my attitude is that of a typical man. My life is not turned upside down, my body is not affected, I am not the one being stuck with a child. While it is true that my body was not affected by pregnancy (although I wish I had something to blame this mess on), my life was turned upside down and I never thought about being ‘stuck’ with a baby. I was the one who got up during the night, I cleaned up my share of spit up, I changed diapers. But I also walked into the house to squeals of delight and little hands reaching for me to pick him up, I got to look into little eyes staring up at me and growing heavy as he had his final bottle and then the pleasure of a child falling asleep in your arms, I felt the joy of those first steps. All through the growing up years I dealt with the negatives, but I also took joy in all of it, negatives and positives. How could someone even think of abortion?

          However, this blog is not about abortion. It is about something else, something that gets to the heart of feelings that give rise to abortion.

          Alyssa Milano is an actress. I vaguely remember her as the cute little girl in the show “Who’s the Boss.” Actually, I have never seen her in anything else, but I understand she has made a career for herself. She is also one of those Hollywood types who believes that her opinion actually carries weight in the real world. She believes people listen to her. She vehemently opposed the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, saying that the American people did not want someone like him on the bench. When he cleared confirmation, she went ballistic, saying there would be dire consequences. The citizenship did not rise up with pitchforks and torches, however. In fact, most people were quite content with the new judge. In spite of this, Ms Milano still feels her opinions are listened too.

          With the new anti-abortion heartbeat laws, Ms Milano has come up with a novel way to bring the Republican lawmakers who are responsible for such laws to toe the line. She is calling on women around the country to go on a sex strike to force the rescinding of these new laws. This, she believes, will liberate woman nationwide from the cruel oversight of men.

          There are problems with this idea. First, there are many women nationwide who feel abortion is murder. There are many people who simply disagree with abortion. Secondly, Ms Milano feels that these laws all come from men. Many women also serve on the legislatures of those states. Third, Ms Milano apparently feels that men in this country are so motivated by sex that a sex strike will work. And fourth, Ms Milano believes that there are enough women in the country who do not think she is a nut who will follow her advice. And, she is overlooking the obvious; if the strike goes on indefinitely, there will be fewer abortions anyway. The medical profession has determined that sex and conception and birth are somehow all related, something Ms Milano has apparently not been informed on.

          As could be expected, a great many people, liberals and conservatives alike, are reacting to this strike call with disbelief, as though they are waiting for the punch line to the joke. A few days ago, Ms Milano reacted to criticism. She told an interviewer that she was pro-life. She said no one wants an abortion, but sometimes there is no choice. This also raised a few eyebrows. In my experience, I have known quite a few women who desperately wanted an abortion. They didn’t want to have a baby, they were going to go to college, they didn’t like the guy involved in the pregnancy, they didn’t want to quit smoking of quit their particular drug of choice. In fact, I, personally, have never known a woman or girl who was pregnant and needed an abortion because it would affect her health or who was raped or a victim of incest. I know those women exist, but I have never met one. I know women in that position who have wrestled with the possibility of having an abortion, but none went through with it. And I say that knowing that my experience is greater than most. Where there have been abortions, they were very much wanted.

          There is a psychological thing called ‘projection.’ It is the notion that if I feel a certain way, then everyone must feel that way. It seems to affect women more than men, but men fall to it, as well. The person literally pushes their own desires and wants onto someone else, as though they share those thoughts. Marsha and I sat in a church congregation one Sunday morning when the pastor of that church said that pornography was the hardest struggle for all men. Marsha and I looked at each other and said at the same time, “WHAT?”  (loud enough to get people to turn and glare at us) I thought about it and realized that it was his problem and he assumed it was every man’s. This is apparently what Ms Milano is suffering from. She believes that if women will just withhold sex, they can control the male population and she believes it is a universal understanding.

          To me, thinking that everyone thinks like you think, is pure arrogance. We see it a lot, though, both in conservative and liberal thought. This causes people to get angry at others, as though they have neglected to follow the only real school of thought. When you get angry with someone you turn them away and you can never get them back.

          We are all different. We all think differently. It is easy, even natural, for me to see the Bible as completely true, completely God’s word. I wasn’t brought up that way, but I have had a personal encounter with Christ that changed me. For other people, it is easy, even natural, to not believe the Bible in its entirety. They have never had my experience. But if I get angry at them, I will never see them come to Christ.

          So, being one who believes the Word of God completely, let me give you a challenge. Instead of getting angry at these people for their beliefs, let’s pray for them. It might be politics, it might be off the wall opinions, it might be unGodly beliefs. Doesn’t matter. Prayer is more powerful than all.

         Blessings.

          A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a young man whom I have known for a long time. Our conversation was pleasant until I asked the question that I ask occasionally when we talk. “So, you going to church anywhere?” Most of my former Youth go to church somewhere, but this young man hasn’t gone anywhere in years. So, I prod him occasionally. Usually there is this excuse or that excuse, but this time he surprised me.

          “Church makes me angry.” I immediately became defensive. After all, I had been his pastor for a long time. “What is it about church that makes you angry?” A moment of silence, then, “I don’t want to talk about it right now.” My immediate impulse would have been to raise my voice and demand that we talk about it right now. But my mind, I believe under God’s influence, stopped me. Not every battle needs to be won right at this very moment.  

          He probably hasn’t thought about it since, but it has never been far from my mind. What is it about church that makes him angry?

          It could be lots of things. People who claim to love the Lord but are often critical about things while doing nothing to make things better. Those who seem to thrive on gossip. People who always walked the walk and then walked away and joined the walk of Satan. Those who rip and tear. Those who complain constantly. And then there are the stories the news media loves to put out there. Priests and pastors (it is not just Catholics) who molest children. Church leaders who steal from their churches. Religious leaders who will say anything to bring in money. People who, in the name of Jesus, support one political stance or the other. Oh, there are a lot of things in the church that makes people angry. It is not enough to say, ‘Well, everyone is just human.’ It is true, we are human. Most people have no trouble understanding a momentary lapse, like a flare of anger. But people have a real hard time understanding ongoing moral failures. None of the things listed above have the excuse of ‘the heat of the moment.’ These are Spiritual failures that the people involved in just shrug off and say, ‘I am just human.’

          So, this young man is made angry by church. What is church? It is a gathering of people. The word in the New Testament that we translate as ‘church’ is the Greek word ‘ekklesia’ and it means a gathering or an assembly of people. Anywhere you have people, you will have short comings. Some of us understand that and we don’t look for perfection in our gathering. But the great majority of people out there see the imperfections and feel they do not want to belong to such as that. Part of our problem is that we seem to insist on living like the world rather than living as His children, and people clearly see that hypocrisy. So, what do we do about it?

          To say we need to start living as Christians need to live is kind of pointless. Most people assume they are living as Christians need to live. Maybe we need to look at that first and foremost.

          1 John 1:5-10 says this---5 This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

          If you take a candle and light it in a dark room and place it near a wall and then shine a bright flashlight on it, you will see the shadow of the candle holder and the candle, but you will not see the shadow of the fire. You might see the shadow of the smoke, but not the flame. There is no darkness in the flame. Now do this tonight after dark. Go to an outside door and open it. Has it ever been so dark that the dark comes into a lit room? No. The light goes out into the darkness. And, as the light goes out into the darkness, it does not lessen in the light in the room. JESUS IS THE LIGHT! At the very best, we can be the candle holder or the candle. At the very worst, we can be the darkness outside.

          If we are believers in Christ, we need to put aside the things that obscure the Light from people like that young man who is angry at church. We need to step up.         It could be lots of things. People who claim to love the Lord but are often critical about things while doing nothing to make things better. Don’t be so critical about the church or about the people. You are not perfect, either, and you need to work on yourself. Don’t involve yourself in walking with Satan. We talk about ‘falling into sin.’ I believe people walk into sin with their eyes wide open. King David was where he should not have been, he looked over and saw Bathsheba bathing and kept looking and he sent and took her and sinned. And, he was so arrogant that he didn’t see he was walking with Satan until he was told. Quit gossiping. Quit being immersed in things that are not of God. And, for heaven sakes, quit excusing your behavior by saying, ‘Well, I am just human.’ Of course you are human, but we are told to walk with the Lord.

          Why is this young man angry at church? I look at myself first of all. Did I let him down? I don’t know. I don’t see how, but still. But I do know what I am going to do about it. I am going to make it a matter of prayer and I am going to be the best example of the Light I can be. I cannot be the Light, but I can reflect it.

          Blessings.

Stephanie is a woman in her 40s who now lives in Pennsylvania. As a youngster, because of bad issues at home, she lived with us for a period of time. All that is another story. While she was with us, she discovered that I have this irrational fear of heights. About fifteen years ago she was excitedly telling me about Bridge Day at the New River Gorge Bridge in West Virginia. For those who do not know, the New River Gorge Bridge stretches 3,030 feet from end to end and the roadway is 876 feet above the New River. You may have heard of it recently because part of it collapsed. Good to know. It is being repaired. Bridge Day is a yearly festival that happens on the bridge. Stephanie told me that she was going to go to Bridge Day and bungee jump off the bridge. Actually, they ceased the bungee jumping in 1993, but I didn’t know that. They do allow that whole thing where people put on gliding suits and fly off the bridge. But she told me she was going to bungee just to see my reaction. It must have been pretty good, because she dissolved into laughter. But she also told me that whether it was bungee jumping or jumping out of an airplane with a parachute, she only ever really feels alive as she falls through the air.

See, I do not understand that thinking. As a kid we used to jump from the barn rafters into the hay below. But it never was exhilarating. It was terrifying. Period. I didn’t want to be the sissy, though. My sisters jumped, my best friend’s sister jumped, my best friend’s brother jumped, my best friend jumped. So, I jumped. They were having great fun. Not so much me.

Ferris Wheels. Sheer terror. Roller Coasters. Not me. There is a ride now called the Slingshot. Kind of self explanatory. I am not riding that baby. It is all perfectly safe. I don’t care. Once we were at Niagara Falls on the Canadian side. Down river from the Falls there are the cable cars that go over the Niagara River Gorge. From the Canadian side to the US side and back. The wind down the Gorge is extreme because of the pressure from the Falls, so the cable cars will sway. Our son was maybe 10 years old and he wanted to go across the Gorge, but he would only go if I went. Not wanting to be the coward, I agreed. Halfway over he got up with Marsha and they were walking around, looking over the side. I was still seated trying to crush the steel hand rail with my bare hands. On the other hand, I love to ride the Maid of the Mist, which is a boat that fights the current and goes right to the base of the Falls. That is probably more dangerous than the cable cars, but you are not in the air. Makes all the difference.

It is odd, but I have flown in small planes and jet planes and even a helicopter. Never seemed to bother me. But the thrill rides…..irrational.

Or is it?

The Associated Press ran this article on May 2, 2019.

The GaleForce coaster was undergoing a routine safety check when the dummies plummeted into a hotel next door.

The operators of a New Jersey shore amusement park say a roller coaster there is safe after a pair of water-filled test dummies fell off during a recent test ride.

The GaleForce coaster at Playland's Castaway Cove in Ocean City was undergoing a routine safety check April 20 when the dummies plummeted into a hotel next door, damaging the building's shingles and plywood.

Park officials say the dummies had undetected leaks that made them lose their mass and shape, causing them to fall. They say that wouldn't happen to humans and that nothing on the ride failed during the test, including the lap bar that secures riders.

Officials say the coaster has run problem-free since the mishap and is tested daily for about two hours.

          OK. Two things jump out at me. First the dummies were ejected and slammed into the roof of the nearby hotel hard to damage the roof. I looked this place up on Google Earth, which can give you views from space to treetop level. There is a hotel quite close to the ride, but it is three stories tall. Those dummies were hurtled a long way to land on the roof and they had some speed. The second thing I see is that the park claimed that the dummies had undetected leaks and humans wouldn’t leak. Well, I would, but never mind that. If a sack of water in the shape of a human is leaking, wouldn’t you see that when you strapped it in? And how do they know the dummies were leaking? I would assume that impacting the roof at high speed would cause a sack of water to pop some leaks. Are they saying the leaks were detected after impact? Of course they leaked after impact! Imagine being a guest in that hotel and you hear a huge bang on the roof, you rush to the window and see a human shaped form sliding off the roof past your window, trailing fluid. I bet they checked out without the park experience. However, for those of you who are interested, they test the ride for two hours a day. Maybe you could hire out as a tester. Humans are, in reality, mostly water that is incased in a sack of skin.

          Could it be, just maybe, that my fear is not totally irrational?

          We all have a fear or two. But as Christians, we should have no Spiritual fear. We put our faith in Christ and trust Him to take care of it. The Fanny Crosby song really does cover it.

1.     Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe on His gentle breast;
There by His love o’ershaded,
Sweetly my soul shall rest.
Hark! ’tis the voice of angels
Borne in a song to me,
Over the fields of glory,
Over the jasper sea.

2.     Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe from corroding care,
Safe from the world’s temptations;
Sin cannot harm me there.
Free from the blight of sorrow,
Free from my doubts and fears;
Only a few more trials,
Only a few more tears!

3.     Jesus, my heart’s dear Refuge,
Jesus has died for me;
Firm on the Rock of Ages
Ever my trust shall be.
Here let me wait with patience,
Wait till the night is o’er;
Wait till I see the morning
Break on the golden shore.

Be Safe!