Wandering Elder

So, let me ask you a question.  What is your primary language? Let me ask you another question.  Why  is that your primary language? The answer is probably because it is the language to which you have grown most accustomed.  It is the language with which you are most familiar, and likely the language you have heard since early childhood if not birth. It makes sense.  The familiarity we have with the language is second nature.  We are so used to it that we can immediately pick up on accents, other languages (even if we don't understand them) and we certainly pick up when people use idioms that are slightly different from ours.  Again, this makes sense. So, let me ask you yet another question.  What is the Bible to you? I will not assume your answer the way I did before.  But what I would say is that if  you answered "The Word of God" or "Holy" or something along those lines, I would ask in response: Why  is this your answe...

In 2008,in his special It's Bad For Ya,  George Carlin said this about Lance Armstrong (who would admit to doping in 2012): "I'd like to begin by saying f*** Lance Armstrong.  F*** him and his balls and his bicycles and his steroids and his yellow shirts and the dumb, empty expression on his face.  I'm tired of that asshole." He then goes on to make a profound statement in these his opening minutes of his routine:  "I'm tired of being told who to admire in this country.  Aren't you sick of being told who your heroes ought to be?  You know?  Being told who you ought to be looking up to?  I'll choose my own heroes, thank you very much." Carlin, the Great Outsider, is one of those people who I have found to challenge my thinking over and over again while making me laugh (sometimes uncomfortably).  I wouldn't go so far to call him a hero of mine (though he kind of is), but I have found that his point is well taken and a hard one to cons...

With the case of Mollie Tibbetts, the young woman who disappeared in Iowa, on people's minds, I find that I keep turning my gaze to the mailer from Harbor Freight. Bear with me. Harbor Freight, the California based hardware store, sends out pretty regular mailers.  They advertise their specials, contain the 20% off one item super-coupon, and also the small, free items you can obtain with the purchase of something else.  Pretty fun place to shop. At the bottom of the mailers, at least in the Chattanooga area, there are pictures of missing people.  Never the same ones.  And each time I get one in the mail or in the paper, I find that I am drawn to the faces at the bottom.  Because beside each face is information about when and where they were last seen. Some have been missing for over twenty years.  Some were just infants when they disappeared.  Some were children.  Some were in college.  What do they all have in common?...