Here we go again. Some congressmen are pushing President Obama to hurry up with immigration reform, and one of their key initiatives is the implementation of “biometric national identification cards.” Senators Charles Schumer (D-New York) and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) just postponed a meeting with the President for the second time. It is likely that they are simply reacting to sharp criticism from advocates.

But mark this down: this congress will push the issue of immigration reform, and they will include a demand for biometric national ID cards. Biometric ID cards will necessarily contain virtually all of your personal information – banking, health, insurance, and more – and will require your bodily engagement to be effective, i.e., either your thumbprint or handprint, or eye scan. And of course there are those who believe the card is the first step to an implanted chip similar to those used now on pets, and approved by the FDA in 2004 for human implants.  Read more... (525 words, estimated 2:06 mins reading time)

I was disappointed watching the Academy Awards 2010. Not at the hosts. I thought Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were funny! I thought they teamed up to provide a welcome “show within the show.”

And no, I wasn’t disappointed at the winners. I thought Bridges was due, and I thought Sandra Bullock was actually humble in her acceptance. And I thought the movie she won for was a wonderful example of how Hollywood can once in a while come through with something mainstream Americans can warm up to.

No, my disappointment was more about something that didn’t happen rather than something that happened. For the last few years I’ve watched certain Hollywood celebs use their Oscars night to either bash former president Bush, or to make an impassioned plea to “bring our soldiers home!” Their compassion was convincing as they spoke of our young men and women dying “over there.” In particular, I watched Sean Penn on some Youtubes demanding that Bush be impeached because he had put our young people in an improper war, and demanding that democrats, when they were in control, bring our troops home.  Read more... (507 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

She never saw the truck coming, didn’t have time to brace for impact. In an instant she was blasted across the console of our brand new Toyota Celica, her head knocking out the passenger side window. The truck had run a red light and broadsided her. Witnesses rushed to her side and helped her. In minutes an ambulance took her to Baylor Hospital.

I was working several miles away when the company phone rang. A coworker offered me a ride to the hospital. When I arrived an hour after the accident, doctors were still digging out glass from her head and ear. She was a bloody mess. But there was a worse problem: she was seven months pregnant with our first child!
After a couple of hours waiting, one of the doctors came out and summoned me for a private meeting. “Your wife is extremely shaken,” he said, “but she should recover okay. Our real concern now is for the baby. We can’t find a heartbeat.”  Read more... (742 words, 1 image, estimated 2:58 mins reading time)

My oldest daughter was about 6 years old, playing on the floor with a church friend of the same age. My youngest, Ashley, was three. She was excluded from their game. Chutes and Ladders was too complicated for her, they thought. But she could count, and proved it to them, so they let her in.
After a few plays they called to me. “Daddy, you want to play with us?” I guessed the door had been opened to outsiders, so I left my book on the dining table and headed to the contest.

My youngest was being bratty. Every time she would climb a ladder, she’d chant in a sing-song, “Na na nuh na na, I’m gonna win.” The others rolled their eyes.
Chutes and Ladders is a tricky game. In just a few spins, the little taunter hit a couple of slides and fell back, and Daddy hit a couple of ladders. And just like that, I won the game.  Read more... (626 words, 1 image, estimated 2:30 mins reading time)

My father was a simple man who offered simple solutions to problems. When I was a teenager and trying to be a good Christian, I would ask his help with some problem, and more often than not his advice would simply be: “Why don’t you just pray about it?”

That would be it. Just pray. I saw that as a cop-out, an unwillingness to hammer out the details of a resolution. As a result, I probably over-reacted the opposite direction. I tried to resolve all conflicts. I tried to figure out the complex issues, and talk for hours. In the long run, prayer became a “last resort” for me. If all else fails, then I’ll pray about it. But for my dad, prayer had always been a “first resort.”

I wish I had learned from him a little earlier.

Along the way I’ve accidentally discovered the power of prayer.  Read more... (603 words, estimated 2:25 mins reading time)

Dave and I lost touch with each other after I left my first pastorate. He worked at the same engineering company I worked for. He had been a nice man, not always agreeing with my religious side of “coffee break discussions,” but never was rude like some were.
When I moved away, I lost ties to my former friends. So when my phone rang 20 years later and a husky voice on the other end asked, “Are you the Danny Carpenter that used to work in Dallas?” I was blown away. It was Dave.
It turns out Dave had converted after I moved away. Married, had a kid, and was now, 20 years later, a Sunday School teacher. And on Sunday his pastor had challenged members to remember the person or people who had impacted them for Christ, and find them to say “Thank you.” So Dave was calling me to thank me. Twenty years ago, he said, I made a lasting impression on him. It was a humbling moment.
After we hung up, I began to reflect on my own mentors. Men who had shaped my life. There were two men who made a huge impact on me. One was the principal of my 7th and 8th grade years. Harold Lichtenwald, principal of Sidney Lanier, took me under his wing and helped me. Saved me. One of the greatest men I’ve ever known.
The other was Fred Gregory, my high school drafting teacher. One of a kind. Cared about his students’ futures, not their grades. He showed me that character was more important than skill. And he helped me long after high school.
I decided to look them up. Mr. Gregory was easy. He still lived in the same house in Mesquite. I phoned him, and wrote a column about him in the local newspaper. My way of saying thanks.
Mr. Lichtenwald was a little harder to find. When I did, he was dying in a nursing home in Dallas. Parkinson’s, diabetes, and something else. But I walked in his room unannounced, and he asked, “Are you looking for someone?”
“You,” I said. “I’m a voice from your past.”
He smiled. “How far back?”
“Sidney Lanier,” I said, knowing he’d never guess. But to my surprise, he teared up and said, “Danny Carpenter.” I couldn’t believe it. He cried a while, and then, embarrassed, told me he couldn’t move his arms, and he could really use help with his running nose and eyes. It was my privilege.
I loved those two men. And I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they loved me, too. Mr. Lichtenwald passed away a year after I found him. Mr. Gregory just passed away a day after this past Christmas.
I am glad I found them. I’m glad I thanked them before they slipped away.
Who do you need to find? Find ‘em. And thank them.
You’ll be glad you did.  Read more... (498 words, estimated 1:60 mins reading time)

President Obama tried to be coy when he admonished Christians by asking which Christianity we should choose: “James Dobson’s Christianity; or Al Sharpton’s?” You mean they’re different? Maybe a better comparison would have been: “James Dobson’s, or Jeremiah Wright’s?”
But the truth is, if they’re both following Christ, and lifting Him up as Lord Almighty, then the chances are they’re both in the “body of Christ.” And the “body” has many members: eyes, ears, noses, feet… you get the picture. What part of the body is your church?
If you practice the analogy given in I Corinthians 12, you’ll have to learn to accept people of differing denominations. Our faith is still in the Lord Jesus. Be we have different functions in His body.
The apostle Paul pictures a body’s members arguing with themselves. The ear “looks” at the eye (since it has no eye, I don’t know how) and it says, “I must not be in the body, ’cause I’m not like the eye.” I don’t know how it spoke, since it has no mouth. But Paul must have been having fun trying to point out the damage done when Christian churches downplay other churches, or outright condemn them, because of denominational doctrinal differences.
Truthfully, most denominations developed doctrines of exclusivism. Such singular doctrines were essential, in the minds of the founding fathers, to preserve the uniqueness. And today, although many modern pastors may quibble privately at their own denomination’s staunch preservation of its “preservation doctrines,” they won’t do so publically.
Paul was clear about the reason we need to accept each other, even though we are dramatically different. Christ prayed that all who “believe” in Him “may be as one” (John 17:20-22). And when Paul wrote his clever piece in I Corinthians 12 about the “body” being comprised of many completely different parts, he declared that there should be “no schism in the body” (vs25).
So whether your church is the eye, or the ear, or the nose… or maybe the knee… the point is that you should simply be gald to be who you are, and not look disdainfully at other churches that you don’t understand or agree with. If they worship the Lord Jesus Christ, and they’ve received the revelation that He is Lord, they are His. And so are you. So rejoice and be happy in your faith. And let the “eye” do the same.  Read more... (417 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

I have noticed that a number of radio or television ministers are speaking about America’s need for a revival.  Sometimes it is a genuine call from ministers who are agonizing over the demise of godliness in America, and sometimes it is simply a “get on the bandwagon” response to what’s current.

At any rate, the troubling thing about the call to Revival is that it is so “corporate.”  It is not directed at us individually, but at America generally.  And that’s the rub, so to speak.

As long as we sit silently by, lending our “Amen!” to a stirring sermon, then hurrying to dinner, and hurrying home to grab the remote and watch our nightly nonsense, and then spending six days away from church, and from our devotional sense of God, then revival will not come to America.  Read more... (336 words, estimated 1:21 mins reading time)

I enjoy watching the bowl games at this time of year.  Young men on their way up in the world of football.  They’re playing to win a game, but they also know the eyes of scouts are on them.  The pros are watching.  Their future could be hanging on a great performance.

This football season was the first for my young grandson.  It was fun to watch him, to wonder if he’ll play in high school, or in college.  It was fun to watch his transformation, suddenly wanting to “muscle up,” and becoming much more conscious of “team.”

But I think the most joy this football season has brought me has been watching my grandson’s mother (my daughter) go through her own transformation.  This was the woman who a year ago might have said, “Ewww, don’t touch that bug, it’s nasty.”  Or, “Look how dirty you are.  Get in there and clean up, young man.”  She certainly said, “You be nice!”  Read more... (446 words, 1 image, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

At about five this morning, the day after Christmas, one of the best men I’ve ever known slipped away. He was my high school drafting teacher, a principled man who loved his students more than any teacher I’ve ever seen. He had a good Christmas, surrounded by his grandkids and great-grandkids, his lovely wife Evelyn, and his son Chris, who shared him patiently with all his students. And then this morning he quietly left.

Several years ago his wife invited me to emcee his 80th birthday party. Dave Tanner, an outstanding entertainer out of Dallas performed, several students spoke, and I did my thing, and told a few stories of Mister Gregory. I never felt right calling him Fred, although I tried it a time or two.  Read more... (616 words, estimated 2:28 mins reading time)