Guiding Light Going Out

Guiding Light, the longest-running scripted program in broadcast history, is going off the CBS network in September, after 72 years.

I'm not a soap opera fan, but the very idea of an soap opera surviving for almost three-quarters of a century astounds me. Since soap operas don't do reruns, five days a week, 52 weeks a year equals 260 epidsodes per year. Multiply that by 72 years and you will discover that they have produced more than 18,000 episodes.

By contrast, C.S.I. aired its 200th episode last night.

In fact, Guiding Light is one of the programs responsible for the term "soap opera" since it was produced by Proctor and Gamble, the detergent company. In days when companies not only sponsored, but owned and produced their own radio programs to promote their products, P&G offered a number of serial dramas first on radio, then later on television. Thus, the birth of the "soap opera."

Nothing in this world lasts forever!

33

The USA Weekend Sunday newspaper supplement carries a feature each week that notes celebrity birthdays during the coming week. By coincidence, pro football quarterback Peyton Manning and actresses Reese Witherspoon and Keri Russell all turn 33 within the next two or three days.

By any reasonable reckoning, age thirty-three is not old. However, there must also be the realization that it isn't exactly young either. Thirty-three was the age where I realized that even if I lived to be 100, I had moved into the middle third of that lifespan. As unpleasant as the thought seemed at the time, I had to deal with the fact that I was getting awfully close to middle age.

It's all a matter of perspective, of course. Currently, from the standpoint of one in his mid-fifties, thirty-three seems ridiculoulsy young. A 33-year old has another thirty, forty, maybe even fifty years of productive living ahead. By no stretch of the imagination could that be considered anything other than the bloom of youth.

Reality insists on intruding, though. Even barring serious injury, Peyton Manning most likely has only 1/3 of his NFL career ahead of him. Most actresses (excluding the indomitable Meryl Streep) see their careers begin to decline once they pass 40. So, Reese and Keri better make the most of the next few years.

The secret is to stay ready . . . make preparations for each coming stage in our lives. Being 33 is different from being 22, but it's also different from being 44, 55, or 66. The person who puts God first always, and lives each stage of life to the fullest is the one who gets the most satisfaction out of each day along the journey from youth to old age.

Comments, anybody?

What I've Learned on Facebook

Facebook has been around for quite a while. It started with college students, but gradually spread upwards through the Generation Xers and Baby Buster generations. Now, it is finally reaching into the big, now kinda old Baby Boomer generation. That includes me, so finally I've gotten caught up in the craze. I've had a basically inactive Facebook account for some time, but last Saturday I logged in and found a bunch of friends requests waiting for me. That got me going on a crusade to see who I could locate among friends, acquaintances, and first cousins of people I used to know in elementary school. My "Friends List" tells me that I have added 72 new friends in the past two weeks. In truth, I have added 72 friends in the last six days . . . and at this moment have a total of 86 friends. Since I do know a few old fogies who have not yet succumbed to the Facebook craze, that gives me hope that I might have even more than 86 real life friends.


However, let me tell you a few things I have learned about Facebook these last six days.

• It's lots of fun to re-establish contact with people I've known from long ago. I've exchanged notes and in some cases used the online chat feature with quite a few old friends, many of whom I haven't seen or heard from in 30+ years.

• There are some fantastic features to Facebook. It's great to be able to see pictures of people you haven't seen in a long time. However, it can also be a little shocking because we don't look exactly like we used to. One lady I remembered from college as a sweet, shapely brunette has now become a not-quite-so-svelte, white-haired grandmother-type (who is still just as sweet, I'm sure). Some of the guys have for some strange reason lost a considerable portion of their hair; others, like myself, still have our hair, but it has gotten quite a bit lighter in color for some puzzling cause. Most of us have grown somewhat broader, although not any taller. Hey, I know that's called aging, but it can still be shocking to be reminded of how we have changed over a few decades. Facebook also offers some fun apps (applications) which can be a fun way to spend some spare time.

• There are some silly, next-to-useless features to Facebook, too. I won't identify any of these by name since one person's "useless" might be somebody else's "greatest thing ever." However, some of the quizzes and games don't exactly float my boat. But to each his own.

• Facebook can take up lots of time. Everybody needs to be a good time manager. That has always been one of my challenges and Facebook doesn't necessarily help my struggle. Probably, the fascination will wear off in time, though, so this may become less of a problem for me.

• Facebook friendships (like those in real life) will require some effort to maintain. Real friendships aren't static things, they are either growing or dying (like most other living things in life). I suspect some of the old friends I've discovered will fade away into obscurity once again because either I won't put forth the effort to keep up with them, or they won't have any interest in staying in touch with me. However, that doesn't mean we don't have good memories of shared experiences in the past or that we do not still think of ourselves as friends.

• Re-connecting with old friends can bring on some unpleasant news. It is always possible that we might learn that someone we once felt closeness with has passed on into eternity. That hasn't happened to me yet through Facebook, but inevitably it will at some point. It's also possible to learn about friends' marriages breaking up. Several of the couples who met and married while attending the same college at the same time I did are now divorced. In many cases, those marriages failed because one partner or the other committed infidelity. It is always a sad thing to learn about that kind of sin and the consequences it has in the lives of people whom you care about. It has also brought some sadness to me this past week to learn of three or four people who were once faithful members of the Lord's church, but who have made spiritual changes which (at least according to my understanding) have taken them in the wrong direction away from the Lord's will. On the other hand, knowing this gives me the opportunity to pray for them, and I would not have known of that need had I not renewed some connections on Facebook.

Who knows where this is all going? Inevitably, Facebook has to lose some of its "cool" factor because so many of us not-so-youngs are getting involved with it. Several of my new Facebook friends are sons and daughters of my contemporaries, whose own parents have not yet jumped on this bandwagon. I last knew some of these twenty- and thirty-somethings when they were children in churches where I used to preach. So, maybe, our joint participation in something like Facebook helps bridge some generations -- and thus surely is a good thing.

Rating the Presidents

C-SPAN has presented a compilation of a group of historians' ranking of our 42 former presidents. This updates a list C-SPAN offered in 2000.

The top ten are:
1) Lincoln
2) Washington
3) FDR
4) TR
5) Truman
6) JFK
7) Jefferson
8) Eisenhower
9) Wilson
10) Reagan

Rated the worst of all the presidents: James Buchanan, who was president just before Lincoln.

Other recent presidents are LBJ (11), Clinton (15), George HW Bush (18), Ford (22), Carter (25), Nixon (27), and George W Bush (36).

My comments:

Most over-rated: Kennedy -- perhaps historians who have a living memory of Camelot will have to die out before JFK's 1000 days in power can be objectively evaluated. JFK belongs in the top 20 of all presidents, but nearer the bottom of that range than the top.

Also over-rated: Clinton -- up to 15th from 21st in the 2000 survey. 21st is about right. Also Grant up to 23rd from 33rd in the 2000 survey. The earlier ranking was charitable; the huge jump in the latest survey is unexplainable. In reality, U. S. Grant was a bottom five president.

Slightly over-rated in the top 10: Truman, Eisenhower, Wilson -- no quibbles with Truman and Wilson being in the top 10 but not quite as high as they are. The General is 6-8 spots too high.

Underrated: Reagan (ought to compete with TR and TJ for the middle spaces in the top 10); Andrew Jackson (ranked 13th; a stronger case can be made for Old Hickory being in the Top 10 than Kennedy, Eisenhower, and possibly Wilson); Andrew Johnson (the historians ought to have gone back and read JFK's Profiles in Courage before ranking AJ next-to-worst; he deserves better than that. If being impeached by a hostile Congress doesn't count against Clinton, then it should not be a black mark against A. Johnson either); Lyndon Johnson (if not for the Vietnam War, he might be a Top 5 President because of his social and civil rights programs, but Vietnam destroyed his presidency).

It is early for any real historical analysis of the Bush 43 presidency. In time, his ranking might improve, but he most likely will always be considered in the bottom half of the presidents.

Obviously, there is some subjectivity involved in anyone's ratings of presidents. That is true for me as well as for the historians who participated in the C-SPAN survey. In some cases, the subjective judgment is obvious. In other cases, it is much more subtle.

My personal top ten:

1. Lincoln
2. Washington
3. FDR
4. Jefferson
5. Reagan
6. TR
7. Andrew Jackson
8. Truman
9. LBJ
10.Wilson

Link to C-SPAN material: http://www.c-span.org/PresidentialSurvey/Overall-Ranking.aspx

Blogging the Inauguration

As most everyone familiar with his skill as an orator would have expected, President Barack Obama gave an inspiring, uplifting speech where he recalled the greatness of America past and challenged the nation to reclaim that greatness.

This writer did not vote for the new president and admits a degree of trepidation about what the Obama administration holds for our country. However, he is the President of all Americans and every citizen should hope and pray that he will live up to the brightest expectations of his ardent army of supporters. In a time of troubles, all of us should be working together for our common good. May the Lord bless our new President with wisdom and judgment to carry us forward in the direction we need to go.

Without meaning to dampen in any way the spirit of the day, we should note that things can only get better than the beginning of the inaugural ceremony. Several minutes behind schedule, the new president did not take the oath of office until several minutes after noon, eastern standard time. The 20th amendment states that presidential and vice-presidential terms end at noon on January 20th. Section 1 of Article II of the Constitution states that a new president must take the oath of office before he shall "enter on the Execution of his Office." Since Vice-President Biden had already been sworn into office, presumably he was actually the acting president for those few minutes when we listened to the musical performance. It doesn't matter in retrospect, but had some great emergency taken place, it could have made for some awkward moments (or worse) as they stood around trying to figure out who the president actually was.

Then the bungling of the presidential oath was embarrassing. I haven't heard a replay and don't know for sure if the Chief Justice or the new President is responsible for the mistake.

Finally, President Obama made a historical faux pas when he claimed to be the 44th person to take the presidential oath of office. Somebody ought to have caught that Grover Cleveland is counted as both the 22nd and 24th presidents since he served non-consecutive terms. In reality, Barack Obama is the 43rd man to be president even though he will be called the 44th president.

None of these things is significant. But as the old saying goes, the devil is in the details. The Obama administration did not get off to a good start in taking care of details.

Thoughts on a White Christmas

I am 55 years old and today was the first time in my life I have seen a White Christmas at my house. I say it that way because on Christmas 2007 (my first in the Northwest), we drove partway up to Mount Baker because we knew it was snowing on the mountain. We got far enough to see snow coming down and beautiful snow-covered scenery. In many ways, it was more exciting than this year because, quite frankly, we have had more than our fill of snow over the last 12 days. A week ago today, I measured 13" of snow in our yard and the church parking lot next door. Since then, it has snowed more, but the accumulated snow has also melted a considerable amount when the temperature got a couple of degrees above freezing. I'm going to guess that the total snowfall here on the east side of Burlington amounted to at least 20" -- which is a lot of snow for this Southern boy.

Most of these posts have some kind of spiritual application and this will be no different. Before moving to Washington, I lived 16 years on the Gulf Coast in Northwest Florida. Snow was not totally unknown there, but it was rare. So much so that a random snowflake flurrying down (which might happen once every 2-3 years) got everybody all excited. The one time in 16 years that we had any accumulation at all (about 2-3" which was all melted by mid-morning), we actually had church members calling us in the wee hours of the morning telling us to get up and look at the snow because it might be gone by daybreak. For those people, snow was something to be anticipated with excitement and rejoiced over on the rare occasions when it actually happened.

Snow, though, is one of those things best enjoyed in small measures. Undisturbed blankets of white snow with the white stuff clumping the the branches of spruce and fir trees makes for a beautiful, living Christmas card. But once it has been driven through and trod over by heavy snow boots, it begins to look somewhat less enchanting. After a few days, everywhere you go, you're met with the sight of dirty piles of the stuff piled up along the streets where snowplows have cleared it out of the roadways. We can be excused for thinking, "Enough, already!" Please, let's get on with our normal damp, drizzly 38 degree Northwest weather.

Perhaps the bountiful blessings bestowed upon us by the Lord might be a little like that. We appreciate those blessings and are grateful for them -- at first. Then, in time, we simply take them for granted. Then, as things go on, we get tired of them and want Him to give us something new and different. Think about the Israelites in the wilderness. They needed food so God gave them manna every day (except the Sabbath). They didn't have to work for it; all they needed do was go out and collect it and their hunger was satisfied. It wasn't too long before they started missing the variety of foods that made up their diets in Egypt. They actually wanted to go back. For some reason, they remembered the food they now craved, but seemed to forget all about the slavery and mistreatment they experienced in Egypt. It's practically impossible for present-day reality to compete with the way our memories recall the 'good ole days,' even when those past times were not very good at all.

Let's try to be grateful for every good and perfect gift from the Father of lights. Whether it is the beauty and excitement of falling snow, or manna to fill our stomachs, or the riches of God's spiritual blessings, let us acknowledge that God loves us and cares for our needs without fail. Let that never be an insignificant thing in our thinking!

Sign that the Econony Is Not as Bad as We Think

Actress Scarlett Johansson had a cold when she appeared on the Tonight Show earlier this week. Jay Leno had her sneeze into a tissue, then he put the used tissue in a baggie, had her autograph the bag, then announced that the "prize" would be listed on E-bay, with the proceeds going to charity. As I write, the bid for Ms. Johansson's used tissue is more than $3,200.

I'd like to think that some wealthy people are simply using this as an excuse to make a donation to her designated charity. Otherwise, it really makes you wonder, doesn't it?

On my list of things I'd like Santa to bring, a pre-owned tissue is way down the list, no matter whose bodily fluids are decorating it. Perhaps this is just further proof that even in a bad economy, there are still numbers of people with more money than sense.