It sounds like a joke – the doctor, who’s also a clown, gets married and spends his honeymoon in Afghanistan – but it’s not.   It’s the subject of a new documentary,  Honeymoon in Kabul. (more…)

Many years ago, my brother Don was playing volleyball with some friends from New Jersey.   Now, my brother is a heavily-built man; he was a football player and heavyweight wrestler in high school, and he looked it.   Despite his build, he was extremely competitive, and was dashing around the volleyball court like a bird, repeatedly spiking the ball into the face of our friends.   They thought that they were good at volleyball, and repeatedly discounted his repeated scoring against them by saying “That shot was a fluke … that was another fluke … more flukes … he’s just fluky, that’s all!”€ With an enormous grin on his face, as Don spiked the winning point, he exclaimed “You have to be  good  to be fluky!” (more…)

God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform …

Earlier this month, my wife & I had written a short clown skit about  blessings, where the gist of it is a clown crying out to God, expressing his needs, and asking God why  he  isn’t ever blessed — while different individuals keep interrupting him to bless him with food and other things, all the while being indifferent to how God is answering his prayers.   Ever have one of those moments where you’re preaching to yourself, and don’t even realize it? (more…)

This morning, I was reading in Matthew chapter 19, and the following leaped out at me:   13. Then little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked those who brought them. 14. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”€ 15. When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there.

It’s a Bible story that we’ve all heard many times, how the disciples thought that Jesus was too busy for the children, and Jesus corrected them.   But what struck me this morning was that it was after He placed his hands on them, He went from there. Jesus was waiting to bless those children before He moved on to the next place.

As clowns, do we realize the job, and privilege, that we have in bringing children to Jesus, so that He can place His hands on them?

Are you a verb or a noun? A challenge

Last night, I returned from the  IM1-UR1 Men’s Conference  where, among other things, the former  Green Bay Packer  Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila (KGB for short) gave an excellent presentation and challenge.   In a nutshell, he told the story of how he was raised Muslim, by his Nigerian father.   Although his Nigerian mother converted to Christianity after they moved here, KGB wasn’t impressed by the Christians he met in his early life. They lived more sinfully than he did, and whenever he asked them a challenging question, such as “Where does the Bible say that Jesus Christ is God?”€ they simply didn’t know.   He described these people as  nouns.

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Is Rush Limbaugh a Clown?

 Recently,  the New York Times  (among a host of other media outlets) has begun painting  Rush Limbaugh  as a clown, in order to discredit him, as well as give President Obama a figurehead Republican to rail against.   Unfortunately, as happens all too frequently lately at the New York Times, they write on a subject that they haven’t done their research on –€” clowns. (more…)