Making Life Work

By: Hugh Buchanan

    It was on a stiflingly hot day in July that Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain found himself on a wooded hillside in Southern Pennsylvania. Positioned there by his superior officer with 300 men, the remnant of the 20th Maine Regiment, his task was to defend Little Round Top, a small hill that protected the left flank of the Army of the Potomac. To lose this ground would mean the loss of the battle, loss of the army, the loss of the war, the loss of the Union. It was the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War.

    He took stock of his assets and liabilities. The 20th Maine held the superior position. Chamberlain’s men were experienced war veterans and were committed to their cause. On the other hand,...

By: Ronald L. Dart

    Do you suppose God would ever call a man to be a lawyer? Or perhaps, a Governor? No, I am not about to tell a lawyer joke, or talk about Arnold Schwarznegger, who is commonly called the governator.

    There is a funny thing about Christian thinking when it comes to a divine calling. We tend to think of God’s calling solely having to do with church work, or ministry. But is that the right view of the matter? There are two men in the Bible who cause me to think otherwise. They weren’t called to be lawyers, but they were nonetheless called to a surprising vocation. Let me tell you their stories:

    Once upon a time, there was a man named Jacob who had 12 sons. The last was born of the wife that Jacob loved. He was...

By: Ronald L. Dart

 

    What do you do when you have already done all you can? You are in trouble and there is no way out. You are sick and the doctors have done all they can. You are persecuted and there is no relief. You have made every effort, tried every option, and still see no way out. The matter is out of your hands. What do you do now?

By: Lenny Cacchio

    It saddened me when I saw him.  His once vibrant athletic frame was now a shadow of its former self, racked by the crude chemotherapy of the day.   I remember most how terribly thin and pale he looked, and how much hair he had lost.  But he grinned when he saw me and asked, "Did you play much ball this summer, Leonard?"  "Yep," I said.   "Every chance I got."

    He was Nick Ioveno, my high school baseball coach.  Legend had it that he once played professional baseball and made it all the way to the New York Mets.   In his first game someone hit him a groundball that went right between his legs.  So much for his career in The Show.

    What I knew about him was crude at best: he was the toughest son of a gun I ever...

By: Lenny Cacchio

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. -- Matthew 11:29 NIV

    I’m a boy from the city, so for many years I misunderstood these words of Jesus.  I once thought that Jesus was painting a picture of me with my neck in the yoke with Jesus walking behind me, reins and maybe whip in hand, "encouraging" me onward.  

    That’s quite a picture of Jesus and how he supposedly operates.  I never focused on the implicit bad theology of me doing the heavy work and Jesus compelling me forward like a slave master in my life of toil and travail.

    One afternoon I was strolling around the square in the city of Liberty, Missouri.  Many of the...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Warning!  This week’s essay could be rightly construed as bad theology.  God does NOT send bad weather for the express purpose of teaching me a lesson.  As I write this, I am hunkered down in the Buffalo-Niagara Falls International Airport, sidelined by an April Nor’Easter that is delaying the onset of spring.  It has shut down airports, cancelled flights from Maine to South Carolina, and has stranded thousands of people like me.  But my slight inconvenience pales against the destruction to life and property that the storm has wrought against the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic coasts.

    Nevertheless, such events are sometimes schoolteachers of life lessons.  I have been frustrated with unavoidable travel delays and will...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.  (James 1:27 NIV)



    Some months ago I wrote an article for this column entitled The Gift of George Bailey.  It was a reference to one of my favorite films, Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life.  Capra succeeds in reminding each one of us that we all have a part in God's plan whether we see it or not.  The seemingly small things we do daily can have a larger impact than we can imagine, and the world would be a lesser place if we had never been born.

    That story of encouragement is a good one to recall from time to time, for...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    Another harrowing week on the job leaves me drained, and I know that I am not unique.  The strain of our on-the-run culture is robbing us of our freedom and the quality in our lives.  A recent article in the Kansas City Star poignantly pointed out that our information age has linked us to our offices 24/7 not only from home but from virtually anywhere in the world.  Our cell phones and laptops make it next to impossible to escape the yoke of our employment’s reach.     The age of just-in-time inventory, instant messages, and overnight delivery are symptoms of a culture that demands what it wants and demands it now.  The luxury of taking one’s time is no longer afforded us, let alone a full escape from the pressures of...

By: Lenny Cacchio

It can seem like a boring, pointless section of Scripture, this Nehemiah Chapter 3, but it’s there for a reason.  It contains name after name of those who built the walls of the city of Jerusalem, describing each one’s section of the wall and what they did. Reading this passage might at first seem like a treatment for insomnia, but read it closely, and it is clear that in writing it, Nehemiah had a purpose.  Evidently, he wanted to record for posterity the names of those who sacrificed for the good of the city.  Saying thank you is always in order, and especially so when an important undertaking is accomplished.  And make no mistake.  Building the walls of a city was incredibly important.  In those days the walls provided protection...

By: Lenny Cacchio

Pray for the gift of George Bailey.     As I write this, I am two weeks removed from leaving an employer of 24 years for an opportunity elsewhere. The announcement of my departure went out, and then came the phone calls and cards and face to face meetings.   Only then did I understand the gift of George Bailey.     George Bailey was the Jimmy Stewart character in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life.  Stewart played the frustrated building and loan manager who wished he had never been born, until he was given a glimpse of what his corner of the world would have been without him.      I worked with some clients for more than two decades.  During that time I walked with them through valleys and over mountaintops.  I saw...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Instant access to information on the internet is certainly one of the blessings of our age.  In a fraction of the time that it once took, we can read about the geography of Madagascar, research the veracity of the latest urban legends, check the value of our investments, look for employment opportunities, listen to the President’s latest speech and the opposing party’s reaction, and learn about the latest alternative energy sources.  We can buy a best-seller, download music, research the trade-in value of our cars, chat with a stranger in Finland, argue politics with someone in New York, buy tickets to Las Vegas, and ask advice on anything from homeopathic medicine to the deciphering of logarithms.      All of this we can do...