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Baseball after World War II had a major change. America, the world, had changed after that horrific war. People understood their mortality and took another look at their values.
Branch Rickey was the team executive of the Brooklyn Dodgers. He loved the game of baseball. At least he used to love the game. He wanted to restore that passion again.
Rickey made the decision to bring an African-American into the game. That would be the first time that the all white All American pastime would experience a break in the unspoken code of the game. He knew that it would take a special player.
He and his executives went through piles of names. They wanted a player who could hit, run and field. This pioneer against the racist limitations of the day could not be soft, too nice or out-of-control with his temper.
They chose Jackie Robinson. His baseball skills were excellent. He had a fire in him that could be the strength he would need to survive the hailstorm of abuse hurled at him from baseball’s constituency.
In a featured dialogue between Robinson and Rickey, Jackie declared, “So you want someone who is strong enough to fight back.”
“No,” Rickey retorted, “I want someone who is strong enough NOT to fight back.”
This is a revealing conversation. It is at the heart of a truth in life that only a few understand. Fighting back is the world’s way. It is not the revealer of truth. Rather, in the hands of what is genuine, what is real fighting back rarely gains ground against prejudice. Instead, it usually loses ground because that reaction feeds biased opinions. It fuels hate and perpetuates bigotry.
When Jackie is being stitched up from a vicious spiking of his leg, he asks Rickey why he chose to break the color barrier in baseball. Branch recounted his school years. An African-American teammate took a lot of abuse for his ethnicity. He had convinced himself that he had done all that he could to make a difference in that situation, but truthfully he had not.
Now, he could make a difference in baseball. He could see that his decision was making a difference. Baseball was his love and now he could love it again.
This was more than about a sport. It was about one of the world’s ugliest blights, racism and bigotry. If you have been a victim of this base practice, watch the movie and be inspired.
photo credit: brucefong cellphone photography
It has been a few days since the celebration of Mother’s Day. Normally, it is a family and fun day filled with partying and joyous expressions of appreciation for Mom. She deserves it. For years under great duress she has stuck by us, warned us, protected us, healed our wounds and cheered us on to greater heights.
In the back of my mind are another group of mothers who were sad because of that special day. It marks the memories of painful moments. Those warm tears return too often and are compounded on Mother’s Day. There is an incessant ache in your heart as if there were a hole there that leaks love, dreams and smiles. Will you let these simple words soak up some of that pain?
Those special moms on my mind are single moms. They became moms because of some man but for one reason or another he is no longer in the picture. I do not know of a good reason or a happy reason for him being gone but he is nevertheless left her to be mom and find some way to fill in for dad.
She works at least two jobs, sometimes three to make ends meet. Somehow she can cook up dinner, help the kids with their school work, referee fights and make a dollar both pay the bills and feed the family. Once the children are tucked into bed, she finds enough energy to tidy up the place, prepare the sack lunches for school the next day, do a load of laundry, brush her own hair and then sob herself to sleep out of sheer exhaustion and sadness.
This solitary life has its downsides during the day. She is terrified that the phone will ring and an emergency with one of her children will call her away from work again. In her spirit is a work ethic that will not let her cheat her colleagues when she cannot pull her own weight.
Church is a different story. People have treated her with distance ever since she found herself alone. Married women give her that look, almost hiding their husbands.
She has heard the cloaked criticisms, “That’s what social agencies are for. They should help her.” Or the veiled harsh spirit, “Our church will help that family some day. I heard that they are starting a used clothes closet and food pantry for just this thing.” All she really needs is a friend, true Christian love of acceptance and a real word of acceptance.
Single moms, I salute you. A very happy Mother’s Day to you. You are amazing!
photo credit: brucefong photography
We enjoy the blessings of life even more when we have contrasting days of bitter pain. Sometimes those hurtful days are caused by people, sometimes by circumstances. Those moments take our breath away. They threaten our will to live.
When those inevitable moments brashly intrude into your life, one indomitable lifeline gives us a reason to keep on living. It is hope. Never give up hope.
Yes, I know. People can be very cruel. Sometimes that even justify their reasons to be hurtful. Do not focus on them. Revenge will never give you lasting satisfaction. It is the very essence of the motive of the bad people who heaped pain in your life. Instead, look beyond and hold on to the hope that is there.
Sometimes it is the hope to be with the people whom you love. Or it may be to return to a place where you enjoy life at its best. Never give up. Hope will give you what you need to persevere. Here is a look at this book that is one its way:
One of my writing projects tracks through the days when life was tough. Here is a description. It is going to be released soon. I hope that it will give you a reason to always hope.
Abandoned? Betrayed? Fired? Victimized? Disillusioned? Disappointed? No one plans for these painful moments in life. They happen no matter how much we try to live a life that is free from troubles. People are a part of the problem. Sometimes we are tempted to think that life would be great if it were not for people. Yet, life is all about people. We need them and want them. It is just certain ones that we could do without.
Then there are troubles that put a hitch in our step. Circumstances beyond human control crowd into our lives, uninvited intrusions of the painful type. Sometimes it is loss. Other times it is missed opportunity. We watch as good things happen to others. Now, we purse our lips and wonder why we could not be the fortunate ones just once.
One treasure in life that we who have lived through the agonies of life can know better than anyone who has never had difficulty is hope. We can choose to search for the bright side. By sheer determination and unabashed faith we can resist the urge to quit and choose to never give up. Instead, we optimistically keep going and believe. Life will get better. Never give up. Always hope.
Simple living is a blessing. Yet, life does not always allow that lifestyle to exist for very long. Each of our lives is complicated with the lives of other people, circumstances that pressure normal living or troubles that need to be addressed. Thankfully, in between disasters, horrific strains or disappointing people many of us live lives that are quietly uneventful. Those common days captured my curiosity.
I lived each day trying to capture how special it was just to be alive. No day is wasted when we pay attention to how valuable it is . We can touch the life of someone else and give them a bit of a boost. Afterall, we are all on a journey to eternity and we can cheer each other on that pilgrimage.
Here is a look at one of my book projects (coming soon) that observes these common days:
Life has its high points. There are great episodes that become memories forever. Nevertheless, we all have the routine days. Those are the majority days of our existence. Is it possible to be quite frank about those 24 hour periods? Can life be taken as it comes and totaled up to hopeful come up with a sum that is positive?
I have been accused on more than one occasion of being too optimistic. My friends have teased me to take off my rose colored glasses and sulk with them from time to time. Certainly I do not begrudge my friends to have the luxury of griping once in a while. We all grouse about something that is unpleasant or uncomfortable. Yet, I have never seen a good reason to be mostly negative about life.
That choice to deliberately be positive is not being Pollyannaish. Instead, if we are cheerful by choice that decision can influence our day. A good attitude over the same challenging circumstances in life can make our days much more pleasant.
Being real does not mean that we are required to complain. Nor does it mean that we have to confess something about our weaknesses. It is sufficient that circumstances alone will make life “weak-kneed”. While we cannot change those circumstances we can choose our disposition while living through those moments.
These pages are about those days. Some of the situations are funny while others are sad. Some of those are just nothing special at all yet, even as we live those days we can come out of them with a smile and a load of cheer.
I invite you to share these pages of life with me. They are pages from real life. I enjoyed living them. I hope that you will as well.
Seven men, all from different backgrounds gather together to become one in heart. Our ages are different, spanning the decades, some who are in the sweet spot of their careers to others who are well into their retirement years. Yet, we laugh and tease like great friends who shared high school years and decades of loyal friendship.
Our professional backgrounds vary from business to education to theology. Whether it is overseeing a grocery store chain, University education around the world through the internet, running investment businesses around the country, managing the biggest automobile service business in the Midwest or servicing countless professionals during their busy miles of travel these men bring their vast experiences to serve the world in SE Asia. Together we focus our attention on the fabulous work of ministry in the country of Cambodia.
We are all committed to our Mission organization. Those who have gone before us left a legacy in missions that we want to faithfully steward. Carefully, we seek collective wisdom, consistency in our decisions and joy in watching the results.
All of us have been to Cambodia on several trips. We have carefully validated ministries that are doing what they claim and then we help them when we can. Some we help once others we help more often.
In many occasions we seek to discover the most efficient use of resources and the durability of a ministry. Results and accountability are big deals to us. We know that God is watching and ultimately, we are answerable to Him.
On one of our mission trips to Phnom Penh we each knew that there was likely no place on earth that we have ever been so hot and uncomfortably humid. Our entire day called for us to be in a unairconditioned room with forty other locals. The only respite was bottled water, room temperature bottled water.
Someone got a fan running but we had to run it on low because the PA system was not working and these pastors wanted to hear what I had to teach. We were so dehydrated after a week of teaching that I was literally dizzy on our last ride back to the hotel and modern A/C conveniences.
We ate what the locals ate. I am not even sure of everything that I did consume that trip. However, what we did not remember in detail about the food, we will never forget the pastors that we taught and their eagerness to consume the lessons like very hungry men.
photo credit: brucefong cellphone photography
Our stroll through the Texas Hill Country promised endless fields of Blue Bells. Vibrant flashes of Indian Paintbrush was the expected highlight of our first foray into this magical region of our newly adopted state. All of us Flatlanders were looking forward to the newly welcomed undulations of changing elevations.
Promises were underdelivered. I could see the beginnings of the Blue Bells. However, it would be a day in the future when their color exploded on the landscape.
The Paintbrush was not yet developed either. On this beautiful weekend, the sun shone on green fields like a canvas ready for the Creator to display His remarkable display. Maybe I can make a return trip soon.
This trip was not a total loss. Sporadically, a cactus was offering the only show in town. New growth and an eruption of color made my camera feel like snapping. Proportions and shapes were amazing.
Admittedly, I did laugh. The new growth from the cactus almost looked like someone had glued brussel sprouts on the pans. In an odd sort of way,it seemed right for the plant to have such peculiar appendages.
Colors beside green were very subdued. Nevertheless, the shades of green were reminders that this was the dominant color of a plant what was a factory for oxygen. We can be grateful for this special cycle of life.
Old growth from this aged plant were lower to the ground. The color was deeper. Wounds from some kind of damage had scabbed over. Time had made this ancient life find a territory and it would continue here for time beyond the onlooking humans.
Someone might wrongly assume that this plant was tired in its age. The prolific new growth would dispel that assumption. Rather, all of us slow moving silver-haired humans would instead smile. Hope would gather slowly in our veins and we would breath deeply. We have an inspiration from the high dessert of Texas.
Thank you, Mr. Cactus. You gave us all a reason to keep popping our sprouts and presenting our newness with each new season. Keep our tired old scars down on the lowside. Let us instead, stand up tall and show off the freshness in our lives for every new day.
photo credit: brucefong cellphone photography
Life is rough. We all have regrettable moments, scars from unpleasant encounters and nightmares of distant horrible episodes. Nevertheless, grace changes the focus.
There are no magic pills that wipe out the past from our memories. History has a way of solidifying facts permanently recorded some where in the recesses of our minds. That reality, however, does not have to be our focus in life. That is the option that grace gives to us.
Instead, just as the Apostle urges the Corinthians at the end of his second epistle to them, they can concentrate on a life that rejoices. It does not matter where we have been, what we have been through or what stresses we are facing rather what is amazing about life is that we can choose cheer over gloom because of what Christ has done for us.
The final appeal for believers is for an optimistic outlook. This encouraging disposition despite their fragmentation as a church and their divisions as a group of local believers hope never dies. Grace gives each of them a chance to change the direction of their fellowship.
This Scripture calls for believers to be restored. That is it is a call to be complete. Each believer in Christ is on a building project for life, to become mature or complete in their faith.
There are times when we do not have the blessing of others around us to bolster us up. Instead, we are alone. Even then with the Holy Spirit it is enough to admonish ourselves, choose to be positive or select a perspective that makes us press on. Sometimes encouragement is simply a personal choice.
Then, together with other believers we can enter the amazing world of unity. Sharing the depth of peace with God and His love a strength emerges that will shake the world. Let that communion be sweet, meaningful and stunning. Find strength in the larger to which all of us who serve Him are a part, members with each other by His amazing grace.
It is all about grace. Our humanness, our sin has gotten the way. It has disrupted and destroyed so much.
Life does not end with our failings. Rather, the grace of God has changed it all. He changed the inevitable ending.
Love is the new way of real life. This course is selfless. It is never about ego or title. God is at the center and it is there where He belongs.
2 Cor. 13.11-14
My departure time for work was hours away. I gathered my gumption and headed off on my bicycle to hunt for alligators. My only weapon was my I-phone camera.
I have heard stories of these reptiles making visits in our neighborhood. One family was startled when a five foot gator used their doggy door and relaxed on their kitchen floor. I was glad that we don’t have a pet entrance. My neighbor laughed and assured me that we would have to live a lot closer to the waterways to experience a story like that.
Still, I wondered where these creatures lived when they weren’t invading the domiciles of us average Homo sapiens. 
That’s the curiosity that got my trip on two wheels humming. Maybe the morning sun would bring these beasts out into the open and I could witness one living in neighborhood pond.
South Peek is a pleasant road for an easy ride. Two and a half miles into my ride I spied my turn-off up ahead. A pedestrian walkway was zebra striped on the asphalt with bright yellow pedestrian signs accompanied with flashing lights. I turned on to the pathway that was part of the Buffalo Bayou Trail.
It wasn’t long until I turned again. Within a hundred yards from S. Peek Rd a sign on the Trail pointed to an Observation Deck. I followed the pathway to a wooden deck built over a pond.
Before a I went further I looked carefully all around the deck. Nothing seemed suspicious. I rolled my bike on the platform and saw the warning sign.
Officials have posted a warning. Feeding or enticing the alligators was a Class “C” Misdemeanor. It could be punishable by a fine up to $500. Naturally, I comply to the laws that govern our land.
I was not interested in breaking the law. Instead, I simply wanted to see an alligator in our neighborhood. Carefully and quietly I peered into the waters surrounding the deck. Nothing.
I walked over to the other side and again scanned the waters and the edges but there were no reptiles to be seen. On a log, however, there was a large terrapin. He was sunning himself and holding perfectly still but he was obvious.
No alligators but the sign still is rather exciting to have in the neighborhood. It certainly captures my attention. Maybe some day it will come true.
photo credit: brucefong cellphone photography
Every student at Dallas Seminary loved their required class with Dr. Howard Hendricks, affectionately called “Prof”. It was there that our lives in ministry would be marked with a lifetime of skills for independent Bible Study. So many of our lives begin the day with Observation, Interpretation and Application.
As a Senior at DTS, I set my sights on an elective class taught by Prof. It was a class on Discipleship. However, the class had a very limited enrollment but the challenging prerequisite was a personal word of approval from Prof himself.
Getting approval from the Prof was going to be tricky. He was always surrounded by students, colleagues and getting an appointment with his office staff would never be in time for the enrollment deadline. My plan was to intercept him at the end of chapel in the hallway where the faculty filed out of the service.
I occupied a seat in chapel near the front, next to the door leading into the faculty hallway. During the closing prayer I slipped out of chapel, exited through that door and waited. Faculty members streamed out of their loft and I tried to be inconspicuous.
Prof’s laugh and voice broke the din of noise. He was in conversation with his colleagues, I followed. There was never a break in Prof’s stride as I followed like a hungry puppy looking for crumbs to pick up.
In a break in his conversation, I called out, “Hi Prof!” He never slowed, cocked his head toward me, “Yeah, Fong, what’s up?” Startled that he knew my name I tripped over my own tongue, stammering out my request, “May I have permission to enroll in your Discipleship class?” ”You got it, Man! See you in class.” I floated out of the chapel.
Years of ministry followed seminary. Then, I was honored to step into the position of President of a seminary. I invited Prof to be my inaugural speaker. He accepted to be a part of that very special day in my life. It was amazing.
Once during the busyness of leading a ministry of God my phone rang. ”Hey, Bruce, this is Prof calling. Don’t need anything, just called to tell you that I love you.” Click I can still hear him speaking those words from that phone call today.
The next time I see Prof will be in heaven. He graduated into the presence of His Savior today. What a blessing to be a part of the amazing legacy that he has left behind. I loved that man.
photo credit: brucefong cellphone photography
Bicyclists know that the first 20 mile ride is the portal into the world of distance riding. Road bikes eat up miles like asphalt is going out of style. These are the pedal power pumpers with light weight bikes, sleek clothes, stream line helmets, padded gloves, slick sun shades and matching shoes.
They move with ease through automobile traffic. Deftly, they dodge cars, trucks and buses en route to their chosen destination. Their power strokes from their spinning legs look like a windmill.
In my season of life I am not in their league. But, it is a great activity. I have been told that bikers look at the rite of passage on road riding and universally accept this 20 mile ride as a first step.
Before I left our home I made all of the fine adjustments on my mount. I wiped my Fuji down so that it looked good. Hey, if my workout was going to be historic, I might as well look good while doing it.
Then, I pumped up both tires to the optimum 110 psi. Brakes were in good order. In my seat pack, I had spare inner 
tubes, tire changing tools and a patch kit.
It was a 3.2 mile ride to the trail head of the walk and bike path located in the George H. Bush Park. Once I entered the park, I felt the relaxation sweep over me. There was no traffic to threaten my safety.
Now, the only surroundings were trees, shrubbery and acres of grass. Deafening sounds of vehicles were gone and the songs of birds, whistling of the wind and the simple sound of my tires rolling across the asphalt trail were the peaceful reverberations of the morning. I was going to enjoy this ride.
Woods engulfed me as the trail wound through a collection of trees. Ahead the terrain turned into marshlands. A boardwalk had been built and elevated all travelers above the wet grounds below.
A stream muddy from the runoff from yesterday’s rains turned this slow body of water into chocolate milk. Resting in the middle was a large Blue Heron, stealthily hunting for its breakfast. Egrets were trying to copy this master of bill fishing.
Miles melted behind me. I was only guessing how far I had ridden. Then, a map on a board measured distances in the park. Quickly, I added up distances and realized that I could actually complete a 20 mile ride. I did. It was great. I have passed through the portal of long riders.
photo credit: brucefong cellphone photography
