Chats – Page 3 – Cool River Pub

Eyes of the Heart

To reject any human is like despising a gold chalice because it holds cheap wine. Most people are doing the best they can. But they pick up bad stuff – insults, injuries, false measurements, destructive ideologies – as they pass through life. All of that gathers like foul water sloshing around in the bottom of his or her personality. Do you think it may be possible that God can pour it out and clean them up in His own way and time? Is it possible that my only role is to bless and encourage?

February 14, 2018 16 Comments

The Day Love Arrived

Christmas 1954 marked ten years since my dad’s ship, the USS Princeton, was destroyed in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. That horrific explosion caused sea and sky to trade places. In the vortex of fire and water and hot metal falling from the sky, Dad ended up in a life

December 12, 2017 27 Comments

Warriors in the Rain

My dad was one of the survivors when a Japanese bomb sank the American aircraft carrier Princeton on Oct. 24, 1944. Naturally, he came home with very specific ideas about the Japanese. And, just as naturally, those ideas took root in the soil of our family. Twenty-seven years later, my

October 24, 2017 24 Comments

Going Home

Every society falls along the line between order and chaos. And we all know the names of the command centers along that line: patrol car, court, jail, prison, hospital, morgue, and mortuary. Those who work in those command centers know that those places inevitably squeeze out one word: “home.”

October 5, 2017 8 Comments

Up There

What did the recent solar eclipse mean? Was it a message to America? I don’t know. Maybe it was, like a rainbow, simply a reminder of what has always been, is, and always will be true.

August 30, 2017 11 Comments

Boundaries

After firing too many personal questions at me, the hospital’s admitting rep barked, “Do you have an Advanced Medical Directive?” When I nodded, she snapped, “We’re gonna need that.” Having lived my life in God’s loving embrace, I believe I will, when the time comes, walk through the doorway to

July 11, 2017 17 Comments

God According to God

Gerald Schroeder, the author of God According to God (HarperOne, 2009) holds a Ph.D. in physics and earth sciences from MIT. He is also an Orthodox Jewish theologian (and lives and teaches in Jerusalem). Furthermore, Schroeder clearly understands time, space, and matter as finite concepts floating in the sea of

May 18, 2017 1 Comment

Who Cares?

Well into her 90s, Mary Chinn, my mother, continued to walk a mile a day, clean her kitchen floor on her hands and knees, and take care of all housework in the Kansas home she and Dad built a half century ago. A few weeks ago Mom, now 94, fell

April 13, 2017 18 Comments

Touring Heaven

Imagine that you, a cop or teacher, could tour an active volcano. You would not experience its boiling and beautiful wonder as a geologist, but rather from your untrained perspective. And, in fact, your lack of education and expertise may enrich the whole experience. That is the basic premise of

April 4, 2017 2 Comments

The Shack: A Shovel In The Heart

The new movie, The Shack, based on the hit novel of the same name, tells the gripping story of great pain and shocking loss. But right there is where The Shack steps beyond another retelling of the human suffering story. It does so by revealing loss as a doorway to

March 10, 2017 5 Comments

PUB CHATS

Cool River Pub is a safe place, a community. Those who gather here are invited to share the honest expression of ideas, impulses, and inspirations. And, the house rules invite (and enforce) good humor, respect, and generosity of spirit.