The following is what I sang to myself on the morning of my 62nd birthday this past September 28. I sang it and kept adding verses and expanding it, and it grew into this… Pay no attention to punctuation. This is poetry. Man in the Mirror at 62 You don’t look good at all you’ve…
Author: Gene
The Gardener’s Limerick (Lament)
Look! It’s a limerick but not as light as most and with a biblical reference.
Texas Rangers win the World Series and I keep thinking of Little Granddad
Congratulations to the 2023 World Series champion Texas Rangers. And to us, their longsuffering fans. The 1972 Rangers, a transistor radio, Little Granddad, and me It is the Summer of ’72. I have finally hit double-digits in age. Our family of four is crammed into the cramped quarters of an old wood-framed, pier-and-beam house that…
A Radical Dinner Invitation: A Communion Sermon
This sermon is delivered here as it was presented at Chapel Creek Church of Fort Worth in 2019. On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where do you want us to prepare the Passover meal for you?”“As you go into the city,” he told them, “you will…
“Can use Ju Jitsu”: remembering Mom on her 80th birthday
She was born Freda Jo Henager, on October 27, 1943, 80 years ago today. She was the first of five children for William Austin and Nova Dean Henager, and she was the first and last love of my father, William David Strother. She was only 17 when she married David. I was born barely more…
Wise men are not always great: lessons from The Gambler
Wise men are not always great.
I walk around singing. A lot. At home. At work. Getting dressed. Going to bed. I don’t know why there always seems to be a song in my head nor why I must afflict others with it by singing it aloud.
This morning for no particular reason, I woke with Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” on my brain.
I miss the coffee can-do generation
I was raised under the influence of a couple of generations of Americans who never wasted an empty Folger’s coffee can, a King Edward’s cigar box, or a worn-out suitcase.
That Other Place – a tale of grace
This is a tale of grace. It is Sunday morning, and I am driving to a speaking engagement. That is not an unusual thing. Well, it is a little unusual these days but in the totality of my life, it is not. Hundreds of times, I have done that very thing early on a Sunday…
I had a dream! The story my brain told itself
I had a dream… I could remember I had a dream. It was not the noble kind like that of the great Martin Luther King, but it was a dream, and I had it. When I woke, I retraced the steps in my dream because, unlike most of my dreams, I recalled this one in…
I hate Mr. Wonderful!
I hate Mr. Wonderful. I do not hate Kevin O’Leary. Why would I? How could I? I don’t know him. I have only watched him on Shark Tank and followed him on LinkedIn. I hate Mr. Wonderful, the arrogant, self-absorbed, shock-value-laden persona O’Leary fronts. I cannot believe he is actually that person in person. It…