"The summer morn is bright and fresh,
the birds are darting by
As if they loved to breast the breeze
that sweeps the cool clear sky."
William C. Bryant

God felt that spring was a tough act to follow so He gave us June. Perhaps Oscar Hammerstein II said it best, “June is bustin’ out all over.” Welcome to the June newsletter.

SIMPLER TIMES

When I was a kid, March madness meant making a kite and getting the biggest ball of string our nickels would buy and facing that brisk wind to raise our masterpieces to the sky.

We made kites from old newspapers and used old rags for a tail for stability. You could tie a couple balls of string together and get that kite a couple hundred feet in the sky. Sometimes the wind would be so strong that the string would cut into your hand and eventually the string would break and your kite would sail away.

One time, a kite of mine broke loose and the janitor at our school found it on the roof of the school more than a half mile away. Now that’s what I call fun.

Ask a kid today about kites and they won’t know or care what you’re talking about. If they do know, the parents will have to shell out for the most elaborate one money can buy and when they find out it doesn’t “do anything” they will get bored and walk away after a few minutes.

When summer came, we could be great entrepreneurs at a lemonade stand one day and famous baseball players the next.

If it was too hot out, the shade of a tree became our sanctuary where we made great plans; “Whata you wanna do?” “I don’t know. Whata you wanna do?” In the cool of the night, that same tree would serve as the goal in a hearty game of hide and seek.

No! There were no video games, cell phones and no ipods. There were no gangs, drugs, alcohol or sex. We stayed “kids” as long as we could.

We said the pledge of allegiance in school as we held our hands over our hearts and we embraced the line, “one nation under God”. There were flags in the classrooms and a big one on the flagpole outside.

We had a janitor at our school who served in WWII. He was a kind old man we fondly called, Sarge. Sometimes, Sarge would show one of us kids how to raise the flag or fold it at the end of the day. A “Well done” or “outstanding” from Sarge made us stand taller.

The day JFK died, Sarge prayed openly and saluted the flag, flying at half mast and he was the first grown man I saw not afraid to shed a tear. He was passing on civility and honor to us kids.

Time has eroded civility, honor and simpler times. Our quest for more stuff has eroded God from our lives. Words like God, duty, honor and family have been replaced with, greed, “me first” drugs, abortion and gay marriage.

Kids are ushered in a cocoon called a minivan where they watch DVD’s with headphones so they don’t have to interact with boring, “stupid” adults. If their cell phones don’t do the right tricks and have the proper bells and whistles, Mom and Dad will just have to get a better one for them.

There is no mention of God in school or at home so prison is the first time they see a Bible. The flag is replaced with gang graffiti and a simple concept called love is now underage sex and abortion. Children have become as disposable as marriage.

Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
Lamentations 3:40

It’s never too late to turn to the Lord. Yearning for simpler times doesn’t make us simple minded or weak. It simply means it’s time to get back to basics. It’s time to admit that God not only exists but by His grace and love, we can provide simpler times for our children

"Of all the wonders of nature, a tree in summer is perhaps the most remarkable; with the possible exception of a moose singing "Embraceable You" in spats."
Woody Allen