I’ve been in church life since I was an infant. My grandfather was a pastor and my parents were heavily involved. So I used my church experience over the years to come up with this different kind of shepherd cartoon.
Leadership can be tough when nobody wants to be a follower. It’s even harder when everyone in the group is about aggressive as a sheep, yet refuse to be led. I’ve seen a few pastors face this situation. You have to beware of sheep with fangs!
Some health issues are self-inflicted. Such is the case with this canine remedy cartoon. This poor dog needs to stop chasing cats!
There are some dogs that are adept at chasing cats. Then there are others that really should find another hobby! We had a dog that wasn’t cut out for cat-chasing since she was not bigger than most of her targets. I have learned to beware of dogs and fools!
If life hands us lemons, we can get good at making lemonade. And if you start a lemonade stand, provide good customer service, right? That said, I have seen great customer service representatives take a trying situation and make the best of it. That can be tough when circumstances out of their control bring angry customers into their lives.
Are you tired of making the best of a situation? I suppose we can try what Stephen Lyons suggested in the Chicago Tribune and suck on some misery. But beware of taking satire as gospel truth! One thing he makes clear in his commentary is if we think things are bad now, we could always find ways to make things worse. Conversely, the opposite must be true: we can always find ways to improve our situation.
The last couple of years have been challenging, haven’t they? World events have caused us to pause and wonder what is the point of it all. What is the meaning of life?
Sometimes, life’s deepest questions have the most obvious answers. Maybe it isn’t the answer you’re looking for, but it’s there just the same.
The meaning of life has bugged people for years. A dictionary I picked up says life is, “The property of plants and animals that distinguishes them from inorganic matter.” That helps a lot!
Dictionary.com has four definitions. The fourth one made me pause and think.
4. a corresponding state, existence, or principle of existence conceived of as belonging to the soul: eternal life.
There is something about humans that makes us long for something more than the short span of life we have on this planet. at the very least, we want our lives to mean something after we are gone. We hope that people remember us when we are gone.
Except for one, my great-grandparents were gone by the time I was born. I have hazy memories of one of my great-grandmothers. The rest have lived only in the stories my mother and father told me.
My children know even less of their great-great-grandparents. They were fortunate to know five of their great-grandparents before they passed away. Each generation knows precious little of the one that went before.
We like to believe our descendants would know us a hundred years from now. But will they? What is the meaning of it all? As I get older, Ecclesiastes has a stronger message to me than what I would like. Is it all just meaningless? Do any of us have a true legacy?
What are we here for? Who will remember us when we are gone? What is our why while we are here on earth? Collecting money and things is meaningless. Going places is meaningless to anyone else unless we help someone along the way.
I’ve discovered life has meaning when you love unselfishly and serve unashamedly. Selfishness just saps the life right out of a person! An act of kindness goes a long way to building a legacy.
Editor’s Note: I originally published this blog on October 6, 2015. I revamped and updated it for timeliness and comprehensiveness.
Change can be hard in churches and in children’s ministry. I remember one church that had some old curriculum dating back ten years or more. One of the teachers was comfortable with it and had no desire to update or refresh the lessons.
This led to the following cartoon idea:
Truths are timeless. But cultural references can get stale quickly. If you have a curriculum that references pet rocks, mimeographs, or George Beverly Shea, your lessons probably need to be updated.
That isn’t to say new is always better. Many churches are on tight budgets. Plus, lessons of the past can have a solid track record that the new curriculum can’t compete with. If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it, right?
That said, I sympathize with publishing houses. After all, It is very difficult to keep a business going when past lessons work just fine. Is it the teacher’s problem that a publishing house needs to keep the lights on? No, but we lose something special when we lose a publisher due to economics.
I’ve been on the side of the teacher’s desk and the publisher’s. I’ve come to realize we need each other. Without innovation coming from publishers, we begin to lose our effectiveness to reach new generations. And without affordable options, teachers have to find ways to cut costs without losing their ability to reach kids.
In other words, Kids haven’t changed over the years, but culture sure has! What may have grabbed a child’s attention in the 1970s won’t do so now. Technology has grown and our attention spans have shrunk. We need to keep teaching timeless truths but do so in a dialect that speaks to today’s culture.
I drew this cartoon for Kidzmatter Magazine.
Editor’s Note: I originally published this blog on October 6, 2015. I revamped and updated it for timeliness and comprehensiveness.