Tag: gag cartoon

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Making Lemonade

Bowl of lemons

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.

Cartoon of a boy at a lemonade stand and a girl.

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.

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gag cartoon

Meaning of Life

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?

Cartoon of a guru chiding a mountain climber. The gurus says, "The meaning of life? Haven't you ever heard of a dictionary?"

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?

The True Meaning of Life

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.

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children's ministry cartoons

Cartoon: Old Curriculum

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:

Cartoon of two women with scrolls

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?

Publishers and Old Curriculum

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.

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children cartoons Safety Cartoons School Cartoons webcomic

Safety is the Best Policy

When I first drew this cartoon, I was concerned mainly with safety in children’s ministry. I had no idea a few years later I would be managing at a printing facility. Since then, I have truly learned safety is the best policy.

Cartoon of a boy with a cast and a teacher

Safety at Work

Before then, I didn’t think too much about workplace safety. I had been in office settings. When I visited warehouses and printing facilities, I let the host worry about safety. I see now how foolish that was. For there are hazards even in an office environment.

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Good and Bad Mentoring

Mentoring is quite the buzzword these days. It seems everyone has a mentor and isn’t limited to an office setting. Since it is so pervasive today, we need to discern between good and bad mentoring.

This cartoon shows what happens when it turns into a bad excuse for a gopher role.

Cartoon of an executive and a younger guy. The exec says, "I'd like to mentor you. We can start by you getting me some coffee."
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