Frank Abagnale: "Catch Me If You Can"

Favorite Quotes

"Nothing is so deadening to the divine, as an habitual dealing with the outsides of holy things." - George MacDonald

"O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life." - Francis of Assisi

"Beware of being obsessed with consistency to your own convictions instead of being devoted to God. The important consistency in a saint is not to a principle but to the divine life. It is easier to be an excessive fanatic than it is to be consistently faithful, because God causes an amazing humbling of our religious conceit when we are faithful to Him." ~ Oswald Chambers

“Let God’s promises shine on your problems.” – Corrie ten Boom

“God never said that the journey would be easy, but He did say that the arrival would be worthwhile” – Max Lucado

“If you believe in a God who controls the big things, you have to believe in a God who controls the little things. It is we, of course, to whom things look ‘little’ or ‘big’.” – Elisabeth Elliot

“Relying on God has to start all over everyday, as if nothing has yet been done.” – C. S. Lewis

Top 10 Hot Wheels (My List)

As Christmas time quickly morphs from expectation to reality, I'm reminded of some of my favorite gifts when I was a child. Hot Wheels were a big deal when I was growing up in the 60's and my brother and I spent hours racing and playing with our favorite cars. Here is a list of my Top 10 cars that I have owned:

Prepare To Meet Your God

We've all been driving along, captured by our own thoughts, maybe getting lost in a favorite tune and then suddenly, we see it. The words, "Prepare To Meet Your GOD", plastered on an huge billboard, maybe painted on a overpass, or possibly held up high by a person alongside the road. Whatever platform you view it, the message remains the same.

In America, seeing that we have all become immune to seeing church steeples on every corner, I fear that this particular message has lost its potency. I do believe that one day I will meet my Creator, but my finite mind starts to shut as I start trying to fill in some of the descriptions of that encounter. It's been my experience that I'm not alone in that conclusion. 

Games of My Youth

In my previous blog I shared my memories of our Saturday evening game nights during high school. By the time my friends and I had graduated from high school, we had already moved beyond card games into two radically different genres of gaming, Fantasy and War games.

I don't remember who in our group discovered Dungeons & Dragons but the game itself was pretty new. (Note: Published in 1974 by TSR) One of my friends brought the D&D Players Handbook to one of our Saturday game nights and we were hooked. A game that was totally dependent upon your own imagination? By Monday evening I had already purchased my own Players Handbook and started memorizing the rules of play. (And there were a lot of rules of play . . . )

A Day That Will Live In Infamy

I invite you to watch this short documentary (less than 15 minutes long) about the Oberg Color Film Footage of the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7th, 1941. This footage tells the story of Harold & Eda Oberg, who capture this video during and after the attack on Hickam Army Airfield.

The attack on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor was the most costly attack  on American soil (Killing 2,402 Americans) until the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (Killing 2,977 people). Both of these attacks prompted an unparalleled response by the United States in enacting retribution for these attacks.

You can view the Oberg Documentary at the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b6auSQPvGs

Game Night

By the time I was a junior in high school I had been working for over a year at a grocery store. Working there allowed me to purchase a car, and with that of course, independence. But with that busy work schedule my leisure time was gravely reduced. The first year was all nights and every weekend. After a year however I had risen up the ranks and by the time I was a junior I had my pick of the schedule. This hard bought seniority allowed me the gift of being off most every Saturday.

During my high school and college years I loved to play games. It was a great way to burn off stress, learn strategies, and hang out with friends. In high school my friends and I started off playing card games, always playing at my friend David's house. His Mom loved to have us come over and we quickly were adopted into the family. There was a big table in the Dining Room and we happily settled in for the evening. David's mom would make us food and we would bring some snacks and time would fly by like I had never experienced before. This time became a sacred spot on our schedules. Yes, we would all go through stages where girls would take precedence over game nights, but it always seemed like that was a short diversion. Another interesting perspective is that the girls that stuck around in our lives were always the ones who realized the importance of those Saturday fellowships.