A somber reflection on a TV reporter’s death

Breaking news!
Shattered dreams!
Shards that ripped apart news teams.
Anchors mired in the deep
of dark and murky grief.

A reporter
and a cameraman.
A troubled colleague (gun in hand)
robbed them both of years to come
while viewers watched in shock.

Lord, have mercy!
Violence reigns!
Different cities. Different names.
Rampant shootings steal our faith
and kill our hopes for peace.

Breaking news!
Shattered dreams!
Newsmen are the news (it seems).
Headlines haunt us by the hour.
Oh, for some good news!

Contemplating the cultural shift in our nation

I graduated high school in the spring of ’70.
I have great mem’ries of those times back then.
The Jesus People Movement
helped our nation heal from war
and wounds that stole our soul in Vietnam.

But then before I knew it
culture lost its grasp on truth.
We legalized what we’d considered sin.
Abortion, marijuana, same-sex marriage and the right
to freely choose just when our life should end.

We pledged allegiance to our flag
acknowledging God’s name
and even said we trust Him on our money.
But soon it became obvious
to reference God was wrong.
Our culture’s change of mind was hardly funny.

The moral code by which we’d lived
was broken and exposed.
Authoritative truth was deemed absurd.
What’s right and wrong is relative.
No absolutes exist.
This pagan process undermined God’s Word.

It hurts my heart to realize
the seismic shift afoot.
Our holy ground’s been shaken to the core.
We’ve lost our sacred center.
We are spiritually adrift.
We’re on the brink of yet another war.

It’s a holy war that’s waiting
between Evangelicals
and progressives who decry what we declare.
To embrace what we have cherished
as the hallmark of our faith
will result in consequences once thought rare.

A tribute to Frank Gifford

On Sunday night
I learned
that a man
who made 
Monday nights
come alive for me
had died.

From the press boxes
of the great football stadiums of America
he entered into our homes
every week for decades.
We thought of him like a friend!

Let me be frank!…
Gifford was a good guy!
A good husband!
A good father!
A good athlete!
A good broadcaster!
A good and decent guy!
Good, not perfect!
Flawed, but forgiven!
Accepted by God!
Loved by his family.
Honored by his peers
and mourned by friends (like me)
whom he’d never met.

Peace to his memory!

The horse race toward the White House has begun

It’s a horse race among elephants.
They’re lining up to run.
It won’t be fast or pretty as we’ll see.
Those lumbering contenders
who will jockey for the lead
will find the track too narrow to run free. 

The Dumbo ride at Disneyland
seems less a circus act
than all these elephants within the gate.
The Grand Old Party carny ride
must make Ms. Clinton smile.
This is the part of politics I hate.

I really wish the means by which
we choose each party’s choice
was not the beauty pageant that it is.
The 18 months before we vote
is such an ugly grind,
the champagne toast (once poured) won’t have much fizz.