food fight

This weekend is the annual Orange International Street Fair.  A Labor Day for sure for years for us, the circle at Orange is closed down, with each street having a different international flavor, Italian, American, French, Mexican, Japanese, and Swedish, this year I am looking forward to eating English, and in fish and chips.  They look so good each year, and I have my cardiologists blessing to do so, so I am going to eat fish, deep fried fish and chips, fries.  I hope my system can handle it.  But seeing all the different foods, the smells, and the music, it is a festive crowd that lasts for three days.  Bring your appetite, don’t count calories, and check in, or check out with your family doctor-let’s eat!

Now I tell people, and with a great deal of authority, that California food is homogenized, dumbed down to be trendy.  Take lobster for instance, Baja style.  It is deep fried, can’t tell if it is straight weight or 10-40, and on one occasion when a product specialist came out to help me in sales, we took him out to eat lobster.  He was used to real lobster, and after starving all day was ready to kill when this shrunken, greasy crayfish was served to him.  Not what he ordered, but it really was.  Mine was not real good either, and I thought I was ready.  A far cry from the lobster shacks of the Northeast, where on our last visit to Mary FNY, we had split a 5 pound lobster dinner fro $45!  Now that’s what I call lobster!  And I bet that is what Lenny was expecting...

The local trendy BBQ place here is OK, but only if you have never had real BBQ, like Arthur Bryant’s in Kansas City, or eaten at Interstate BBQ in Memphis, order the BBQ spaghetti as a side, but my favorite is still The Golden Rule outside of Birmingham.  I can taste the Brunswick stew right now.  Where they are afraid of the lady who cooks the beans retiring, as she is the only one who knows the recipe.  Fish chowder, a great meal in Apalachicola, Florida, fresh out of the Gulf, order the big bowl with the sourdough rolls.  Crab cakes mean the Maryland coast, subs mean New Jersey, cheese steaks Philadelphia, and fried clams means Maine.  With our gourmet meal eaten outside with the ocean only a few feet away.  Make sure you get the Whoopie pie for dessert.  But one night in Somerset, Pennsylvania, I had some of the best Mexican ever.  Let me explain...I was visiting Fr. Al, and we had dinner planned.  I envisioned steaks, cheese steaks, or something with red meat involved.  But he was excited for this new Mexican place, so we went.  I told him I didn’t ride 3000 miles to eat Mexican, if anything to get away from it.  But he insisted, and we went with another couple visiting the chapel.  And the food was incredible, it seems these too brothers from the interior of Mexico were gourmet chefs, and this was anything but the slop Alberto’s passes off for food.  It was incredible, and sopapillas for dessert.  It was incredible, and I used to joke with him, “did you ever hear the one about the biker, the priest, and the couple in the mini van from Cleveland eating Mexican in Somerset?”  And we both laughed, and on another visit passed Theresa’s taste test also.  Expecting the unexpected never tasted so good.  Or a sandwich from Primonti Bros. in Pittsburgh, the directions take you down an alley, and the sandwich is served on hand sliced Italian bread, your choice of meat, I like the #2 steak, with hand cut fires, and Italian cole slaw on between the bread.  Pictures don’t do it justice, and is a must in Pittsburgh, worth the ride.  And so I am looking forward to the Food Festival, hoping the fish meets my expectations, or I just might have to take a ride to Malibu to the Fish House for fish and chips.  I do have this new 2015 Scrambler to put miles on....So what is your favorite meal?  What would be your final meal? 

Maybe a cafeteria of all the above would be mine.  Too many good choices, and too many moods to eat them in.  For a while I thought it might be cream of broccoli soup while in Cardiac Critical Care-it was that good.  Maybe the green chili chicken enchiladas at Monroe’s in Albuquerque.  Maybe a Jimmy’ Hot Dog, the best, secretly prepared since WWII, the Big One.  Maybe a sub from Hershey’s, Jersey Mike’s should take note.  Whatever it is, finish it off with fresh made frozen custard at Ted Drewes in St. Louis, or a piece of icebox chocolate pie at The Golden Rule.  A whoopie pie tastes good any time, and Italian ice on a hot day cannot be beat.  Shoo fly pie in the Poconos, and a sopapilla after a great burrito.  I can taste the fresh honey dripping down my arm-somehow they never taste the same when made at home.  Looks like it’s dinner time, even if it isn’t-let’s eat!

Now without benefit of Tripadvisor.com, Jesus knew of some pretty good foods to eat.  He ate fish and bread, and fed 5000.  Was that fried or grilled?  He ate figs and beans and onions, wonder what his recipe was?  Were the cookies as good as Fig Newtons?  He ate various breads, leavened at unleavened, corn bread, and various desserts.  No record of ice cream.  He ate pigeon and dove, imagine it must have been finger lickin’ good.  And even goat, lamb, mutton, and oxen are mentioned as edible in the scriptures.  These guys knew how to eat!  And somehow they were healthy, and without all the sanitary laws we have today.  Made from scratch, home cookin’, which knowing Jesus’ home was heaven, must have been pretty incredible.  But what they Jews knew, as did Jesus, was the special time that eating a meal represented.  It was special occasion, intimate, and much could be learned about a person by eating with them.  Which is why Jesus picked communion, with the bread and juice to remember him by.  It wasn’t camel races, fish fires, or even eating fresh honey.  It was a simple bread, unleavened, and wine, unfermented.  Simple like he was, sharing a simple message of salvation, so that simple folks like me could get it.  A special meal that allows us to get to know him better, to be reminded of who and what he is, and did.  A time to reflect on good times, and look forward to good time ahead.  A time of eating with your hands, passing around the bowl when done, of fresh bread and spices, eaten with your friends.  Jesus tells us to “do this in remembrance of me,”  and that you are “my friends if you keep my commandments.”  Dinner with Jesus...your friend.  Maybe we should remember him more, or ask for more than a simple blessing with the food.  Remember wherever 2 or 3 are gathered, he is among you.  Think of that next time someone cuts in front of you and your Double Double.  You are out eating with Jesus.  And when with him, you never leave hungry.

Leave the food fight along with the foolish food battles away from the church.  Eat with Jesus, don’t gorge or over eat, and be ready for breakfast the next day.  I can taste the linguica with eggs and potatoes at the Black Bear Diner.  Which takes on a new flavor of its own when I know that Jesus is with me.  Be thankful, be generous, and do this in remembrance of him.  Some of the best times are spent around the table with family and friends.  Jesus knows that, invite some friends over tonight, enjoy a meal with Jesus.  Rich in fellowship and calories.  Say did you hear the one about the biker, the priest, and the couple form Cleveland in the mini van?  Good friends, good food, good memories.  All done in remembrance of him.  With a doggie bag to go.  If it works for 5000, imagine the meal he has just for you?

love with compassion,

Mike

matthew25biker.blogspot.com

riding alone in a group of one

Make no mistake about it, I did for years, but now I avoid group rides, which I refer to as crowd rides.  Over the years, I have been on many from coast to coast, town to town, and even just across town for dinner.  And certain things have always stood out.  Their idea of safety was riding slow, and a good ride was when all made it home.  Not a bad thing, but being limited to 50 mph on an 80 mph stretch of road because one girl’s Sportster vibrates above 50, first time her fault, no second time to be mine.  Courtesy means waiting the extra 35 minutes to leave because Mrs. Hairdo has to do her hair.  The same hair that will be under a helmet all day.  She also is the last one to be ready at fuel stops, spending more time in the ladies room than her husband filling his tank.  And he is no better, after being told to arrive with a full tank of gas, he doesn’t and we all have to stop early.  Which takes 45 minutes, a non-necessary stop when we could be riding.  So two things become evident, you only go as far as the smallest tank, and only ride as fast as the slowest rider.  At least they are consistent.  And all this is after having a rider’s meeting first, which they miss because they are late.  I have spent days where I spent more time waiting than riding.  And I have found that nothing impresses others in cars than taking up a lane at 55mph on the freeway.  Even more embarrassing was a ride over the Ortega, where sometimes I drop to 60, and even with traffic takes 30-40 minutes, and one time turned into a two hour affair.  Seems the Gold Wing rider leading couldn’t hear his music above 50, nothing like being passed by other riders who shake their head at you.  Funny how these same riders talk about the freedom they enjoy while hindering others.  So over the years, I have only found few that I will ride with.  We don’t wait for each other, we know our destination, and when one hits the curves faster, will make it up later in the straights.  No talk of too fast or too slow, we have learned and tell others “ride your own ride,” which often falls on deaf ears.  So for me a group ride is me and Theresa.  And we enjoy the ride....

But one group ride stands out as different.  My first Torches Across America in 2005 had a group of 28 of us riding from Oceanside to Ground Zero in New York City.  With a destination every night, we knew where we would be, and a time to be there by for the ceremonies.  We were on our Triumph Sprint ST, and rode with Gold Wings, various Harleys, cruisers, and bikes of all sizes.  But we had two brothers, Don and Link, who took charge, on their Gold Wings, and we had a great ride.  Very few problems, and we had fun.  I would ride anywhere with these two, despite the fact Don was pulling a trailer and leading.  We met every night, discussed the route, figured a speed based on it, and planned stops by the one with the smallest tank.  We rode 75 on 65 mph freeways, and I led on back roads.  No complaint of too fast or too slow, we all knew what to expect, and we all got along.  We communicated with each other, and enjoyed the ride.  There were times when I went faster, and Don would keep up, and times we slowed down, and I would keep up.  Our group within the group started small, we never lost one, and others joined us after hearing of how much fun we had.  They fought and argued, took too long to fill up, and always arrived late.  We arrived refreshed, early, and were able to set up before they got there and started complaining.  And we couldn’t wait until the next day!  And one thing became our standard each morning, we gathered to pray before we left.  And when we would forget, it was always one of the harder ones who reminded us.  The prayer time, short as it was, brought us together.  We learned to ride together, eat together, and pray together in a diverse group where maybe only a few were Christians.  We were learning about riding in a group of one, where God was the one, and we were just along for the ride.  How do you start your ride?  It has a direct impact on how you may finish it.

But perhaps the highlight of the ride, was the last 80 miles riding into Ground Zero with 3200 other bikes.  And we were chosen to ride up front, we had come the farthest.  And the ride went off without hitch, except for one wrong turn, and we had to wait 45 minutes for the Holland Tunnel to close so we could ride through together.  But we all made it, and had grown closer.   We had formed a trust, a bond with each other, and when entering a restaurant, when the first wve hit the head, the others knew what to order us to drink.  We had become familiar with each other, came to know and respect each other, and we had become one from many.  Prayer will do that to.  Pastor Chuck used to say “you can’t trust someone you don’t know, so get to know God.”  Spending time with him, getting to know him, you come to know what to expect, and you find yourself wanting to please him.  You may alter your speed, or even the road you are on, because you know he directs your path, and you want to follow it.  Taking roads you might have missed otherwise, eating meals that others miss because they are afraid to try something different, and never getting to enjoy the company of being with God.  Riding in a group of one-just you and God, no matter how many are in the group.  It is that personal.  And prayer will take you there, and keep you there.  It can be done publicly, like we did every morning, or silently like when riding.  Prayer very simply is communicating with God, talking and listening, just like any conversation.  And the special ones are when we listen more than talk, for Jesus knows what we need, we just don’t know his answer.  And so listening to and for God to answer is an overlooked, but most important part of prayer.  And as you get to know God better, you know his voice, you trust his judgment, and enjoy the ride of life more.  Sometimes you go faster than the road calls for, sometimes slower, but we find ourselves not hurrying, just as Jesus never hurried, and was never late.  He is the ultimate road captain, where is he on your ride?

It is not too late to change the road you’re on, Jesus is right there with you.  Dead end, he knows the way out.  Lost, he is the way.  Confused, he takes the time to comfort you.  Burdened, he’ll carry you through.  And like all long distance riders know, consistency is the key, and we know we can depend on him, for he never changes.  We know what to expect...and then he surprises us with even more.  But it all comes down to prayer!

Have you been listening?  God has been, and has the answer you are looking for.  Take some time, now is OK, and be quiet, listen for God.  Quit talking, riding is a great place to do this, and hear as God comforts you and gives you a peace you never knew existed.  A relationship forms based on trust, and you see love as more than an emotion, but as a person, Jesus Christ.  We can control our tongue, but not our ears.  Can you hear me now?  The ride you are on will be ample proof of how well you listen.  And we are watching and listening too....take that ride alone in that group of Jesus today.  No one knows more about the freedom of the open road like Jesus, let him show you today.  Where you ride in the group is up to you.  Stop dreaming, start riding today.  In Christ.  Start music, God bless the USA by Lee Greenwood. 

love with compassion,

Mike

matthew25biker.blogspot.com

just answer the question

Is man smarter than animals?  I wonder sometimes, like when my friend Joe got his new Vizsla years ago, he named him Ralph.  Now we had never heard of any dog named Ralph, but when asked why Ralph, he simply told us “when I got him as a puppy, I asked him his name, and he said “rowf!”  And so he was self proclaimed Ralph.  Good thing he didn’t say “woof” or start to whine.  Another dog story tells us of the man who claimed his dog knew math.  Going on Johnny Carson, Johnny was skeptical, but out came the owner with his proud pooch.  Who actually looked rather dazed.  After Johnny and the owner talked, Johnny told him to show him.  Having the dog sit attentively, he asked the dog “what is two minus two?”  And the dog just sat there, saying nothing.  After a few seconds Johnny got nervous, and asked “is the dog going to answer?”  To which the owner replied “he did, two minus two is nothing, and he said nothing.”  Gotcha Johnny, bet your dog can’t do that.  But my favorite animal story is from Red Skelton.  He claims his horse can add, and after assembling a group in the stable, proceeds.  He whispers something in the horse’s ear, then asks him “how much is 2 plus 2?”  The horse hesitates a few seconds, then hits his hoof on the ground four times, 1-2-3-4.  The crowd is silent, they’re amazed, and then Red goes up to the horse, hitting his foot on the ground, “c’mon boy, one more.”  It seems the horse could count better than Red.  Maybe we just need to listen to the answers better, they answered correctly all three times.

After raising two sons, I learned during the teen age years the power of a one word answer.  “Can I go out?”  “No.”  “Can you give me $10”  “No.”  “Can I have a new motorcycle?”  Well, I didn’t say it was perfect.  But when giving one word answers, it leaves no room to argue.  But when you say “no it’s a school night,” they can argue, just like you used to.  “I don’t have $10,” could be answered “that’s OK Dad, just give me $5 now, you can owe me the rest.”  And can I have a new motorcycle usually meant a ride to the bike shop to look.  Without telling Theresa, although after leaving in the truck, she learned to get suspicious.  One word answers, they still work today.  Yet today I find that we have a whole generation that cannot give one word answers, or won’t.  Ask someone a yes or no question, you get a small dissertation for the answer, but not answering the question.  Democrats are real good at this.  “Did you see what happened?”  “Well I was busy driving, when the light turned red, and a dog barked, and lost my train of thought.”  You didn’t answer the question, was that a yes or no?  Even the subtraction hound answered better.  “Do you ride motorcycles?”  “I had a friend who crashed, and after that I rather walk.”  Is that a no?  “Were you in church Sunday?”  “Well the Chargers were on.”  Is that a no?  Why don’t you just answer the question?  Why can’t people just say no, yet rather perjure themselves even more?  Yet I hear this everywhere, and when I give a yes or no answer, catch the questioner off guard.  He doesn’t have that extra few seconds to program himself for a response.  “What did you say?”  And again the same one word answer.  Or does that make it a two word answer?  Yet when asked to give details about something, “I don’t know,” is often the answer.  I guess if you want details, ask it in the form of a yes or no question.  Invoke the Jeopardy rules, become the big winner.

So when asked are you saved, how do you answer?  A simple yes or no question, yet I get the story of the bad time in church.  How they went to Catholic school.  How they don’t believe religion.  Does that mean no?  Why can’t you just admit it?  Saying nothing is still saying no, unless you are the subtracting dog.  But yet it is the one thing, the final exam between us and heaven.  And given in the form of an open book test, Jesus tells us “you must be born again.”  “I am the only way.”  Yet many skirt the issue, thinking they skillfully have avoided making a decision.  Outsmarting God.  Yet that is their decision, they have not acknowledged Jesus.  Well, maybe some will say he is a great rabbi, but great teaching won’t get you to heaven.  Study to find yourself approved, not saved.  But we give to the poor, and tithe at church.  We even talk to our kids about drugs, and make them go to church.  Maybe not bad things, but who is the impetus on, you or God?  Where is Jesus in all this?    The answer is still no.  For Jesus tells us “to be gone, you never knew me.”  Talking to a crowd, the church type, who did many things in his name, but for their glory.  But it was Peter, when Jesus asked him “who do you say I am?”  told him “you are the Christ.”  And he answered correctly.  So who do you say Jesus is?  Believing in God isn’t enough, even the demons do, and shake.  They know who Jesus is, and rebelled, and went to hell.  Do you get it now?  So many call out to his name in vain, blaspheming it, yet he loves back in return.  So I ask, are you saved?  Maybe a better question is “would you like to be forgiven?”

Sometime in your life, you will be asked by the spirit who you say Jesus is?  Saying nothing will be saying no.  No means hell, yes means heaven.  God will honor your request to not acknowledge him on earth, and he won’t know you in hell.  Yet you will worship him every day in eternity, but in utter pain, for every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord.  Even under the earth.  While the rest of us will worship in complete peace and joy.  Again I ask, are you saved?  If the yes or no part is too hard, how about “would you rather be in heaven or hell?”  And you have just been given the answer, right from the one who is the only way.  Yet many will deny him, or put him off, until it is too late.  Today is the day of salvation for many, it is also the day of damnation for those who deny Jesus.  Inspector Clouseau before being attacked by a dog in a hotel, asked the manager “does your dog bite?” And bending down to pet it is viciously attacked.  To which the manager answers “it’s not my dog.”  Another yes or no question.  Is Jesus your Lord and savior?  Only two people know, you and him.  Don’t kid yourself or deny yourself into hell.  Now you know, what is your answer?  Are you saved?  A simple yes or no question, that has eternal ramifications.  There are many excuses for losing, don’t add yours to it.  Jesus is Lord.  Amen.

love with compassion,

Mike

matthew25biker.blogspot.com

buy American, or bye, America

There was a time when “buy American” was more than a choice, it was the choice, for American hands designed, made, and manufactured the best and greatest merchandise in the world.  We were the country that manufactured most of the world’s cars, and close to 100% of them sold here were made here.  Let’s test your automotive geography and see.  Ford meant Dearborn, Studebaker meant South Bend, Oldsmobile meant Lansing, Buick meant Flint, Jeep meant Toledo, Rambler meant Kenosha, and Detroit was home to everyone else from Chevrolet to Chrysler, Hamtrammck meant Dodge and Cadillac was The Standard of the World.  Industrial named towns, where workers toiled and built American products.  A far cry from the Imports that we grew up with.  Weird cars, poorly designed, and driven by college professor types who smoked pipes and wore funny hats and goatees.  Who were more interested in conservative cars than their liberal ideas.  Cars built in places like Sindelfingen, Gothenburg, Trollhatten, Wolfsburg, and ones we could relate to such as Abingdon, Coventry, or Lingotto.  They had names like Mercedes Benz, Volvo, SAAB, Volkswagen, and FIAT.  Small, tiny, uncomfortable, they were the opposite of our appetite, which was longer, lower, wider, V-8 powered, and covered in an excess of chrome.  We were America, we were Americans, and we led the world, and the world followed.  And that was the way it should be.

But soon cars started coming from places named Tokyo, Hamamatsu, and Yokohama. Cars we wouldn’t be seen in on a bet, with dubious quality.  Remember the fading black bumpers on Japanese cars that faded to black with or without washing? German rubber disintegrating while watching?  English cars that leaked, German cars that weeped, and yeah, now you remember.  But today, where “buy American” has a label attached to it, are what you are buying really American made?  Or even an American car?  Honda has three plants in The US of A.  Toyotas are built in Indiana.  BMW’s are made in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and Mercedes Benz in Tuscaloosa.  Still confused, Mazdas are made in Flat Rock, Michigan, Nissan in Tennessee and Mississippi.  Hyundai in Alabama, and VW were once made in Pennsylvania.  Still confused, how about once proud American nameplates?  Chevrolet, built in South Korea, GTO’s built in Australia, Ford and GM trucks still built in the States, but with only 60-70% US made parts.  Want a Camaro, built in Canada.  And for a car to considered an American built car, it only has to have 50% American made parts, so what are you driving?  Buy American, has really turned into bye America.  When Nissan and Toyota both sell US made trucks, and Ford builds cars in Mexico, GM trucks in Mexico-please tell me it isn’t so?  What has happened to the famed nameplates we grew up with?  Will we soon call them South American trucks, Canadian cars, or world cars, as many refer to them now.  Design them in China, make them in Hanoi, and import them to America-all under a Chevrolet name?  See the USA in your Chevrolet?-it went overseas, and never came back the same.  Maybe we should have seen it coming when Mercedes Benz were sold through Studebaker, or when Ford was offered the VW plant from Germany as war reparations and said no, what was it good for, and then in 1949 two VW’s were imported.  But today buying American is becoming a foreign concept.  So what are we to think about our own heritage?  Born in Texas, raised in Jersey, moved to California?  But am I still an American?  Born in the US of A and proud of it.  But what of hyphenated Americans?  What of hyphenated anything?  What are they really?

Some years back a woman of Persian descent asked me what nationality I was?  I said American, and she asked what kind of American?  Just an American, what could be added to the best to make it better?  But no, she meant where was my heritage, again America, going back over 150 years.  But she wanted to go back further, and kept pressing.  And I wanted to quit answering...I am an American-not a hyphenated hybrid anything.  Born and raised.  But she kept pressing, and it became time to end the interrogation.  So I told her, “you really could say I am a heaven-American, for my heritage and family are based on Jesus Christ.  I am a Christian, and my final home, my only home will be heaven.”  And she got up and left.  She asked, I answered, and told her the truth.  My name is written in the census in heaven.  I am here but for a short time, the Bible calls us sojourners.  Travellers.  Which maybe explains my love of being on the road.  And the road feeling more like home with each trip.  As Christians we are truly foreigners here, our citizenship is in heaven, and Jesus has the papers to prove it. The Book of Life.  I am not a hyphenated anything.  And unlike a car with an MSO, Manufacturer’s Statement of Origin, I have an Master’s Statement of Origin, telling me God came to earth in the form of a man, then returned to heaven.  My birth certificate may state Texas, but my born again certificate states heaven.  And heaven is where I will spend eternity.  Much easier to explain than where was your American car built?  Or buying American built in Mexico.  And so we find the gospel is simple so I can get it.  Next time you buy a part for your Chevy, and it says made in China, or for your Mercedes Benz and its states Japan, think about it.  But even more important, think of where parts for you come from?  Where were you created?  By whom?  And all signs will point you to heaven.  Just like Jesus does.  A choice you make, and if you want to eliminate hell, choose heaven.  Hell exists for the angels who fell, and wouldn’t have a place for people if they didn’t choose it.  Think about that one-hell is a choice, just like heaven is. 

Someday it will be bye, America, and hello eternity.  I am going to heaven, how about you?  Jesus came to save you from hell,will you let him?  If the name sounds foreign to you, I encourage you to meet him. Be guilty by association with him, knowing him personally.  As we look back to Fords from Dearborn, Chevies from Detroit, and Buicks from Flint, let us not become orphans like many car brands.  Studebaker from South Bend, Olds from Flint, Plymouth from Detroit, and Rambler from Kenosha.  All proud names at one time, now only found in history.  Where you will be found is up to you.  Jesus knocks, what will your answer be?  All my parts are 100% heavenly...if you are what you drive, where you go will tell us what you are.  Only Christians make it to heaven.  Everyone else is a foreigner.  Maybe that is why God will welcome us home some day.  And for us, that place over the rainbow will be heavenly.  Truly there is no place like home, when we call it heaven, and heaven calls us.

love with compassion,

Mike

matthew25biker.blogspot.com

this old truck is really vintage

There was many a time as a kid I was told “this isn’t the library, if you want to read a magazine you have to buy it,” by John at the Sweet Shoppe.  But a recent walk through Barnes and Noble is a quick reminder of how things have changed.  I know of no other place where you don’t have to buy or rent the goods, and for the price of a Starbucks can read all the latest if not so greatest books and magazines.  So while killing time, looking for the best way to spend the gift card I had, I noticed the cover from Vintage Truck, which used to be called This Old Truck, until the This Old House people threatened to sue.  It seems they felt their devotees may confuse the two, houses and trucks, and so This Old Truck became Vintage Truck.  Either way, a great magazine devoted to the preservation of small trucks.  And the first thing I noticed after I noticed the cover, was it was different, but the same.  The magazine I get every other month in the mail has a great photo of an old truck on it, with only the title Vintage Truck on it.  This one was along with the same photo, had teasers of the articles in side, ruining the cover shot.  Why would they do that crossed my mind for a second, and then I recalled a conversation with some guys I knew from Road Rider, now Motorcycle Consumer News, from back in the early eighties.  They too only printed great photos on the covers, but to increase sales, which it did, they too put teasers on the cover.  Which only goes to show a picture may be worth a thousand words, but the words make you buy the magazine.  No word yet on the version found in the library....

Now I must admit that I too fall for a pretty face, and more often than not the words on its cover.   Certain buzz words will get my attention, and make me pick up the book, hoping the content is as fulfilling as the teaser.  And what is the first thing we look at in the article-the pictures!  So maybe we discount the power of the cover photo, when the photo is the key to the story.  And once again one picture is worth a thousand words is intact.  You might want to ask yourself, “what makes me pick up a magazine and want to read it?”  Maybe we need to go back to another old saying, “you can’t tell a book by its cover,” and although the pictures get our attention it is the words that complete the transaction and make us look up what they say.  So looking at magazines on my ottoman, I notice all the words that grab my attention.  Where once cover girls, cover bikes, or cover cars once were, now words cover them, and tell me what is inside.  Which either makes me pick it up, or put it down.  At one time we had to thumb through it to see, now we get sound bite of written words, and make the decision.  And I wonder, how much do we miss when we don’t open the book to see what is inside?  And subtly we are being told what to read.  Not to read, and I wonder what I have missed over the years.  And if an advertiser, how many of my ads went unread based on the teasers on the cover.  Yet we are attracted by the picture, but it is the words that direct us.

Remember the children’s Bible covers when you were a kid?  Noah’s ark, how many times have you opened up to read about a great flood?  Yet I see very few if any Bibles that aren’t black.  Bonded leather, or other colors.  And still it is the best selling book of all times.  Imagine what it could do if it got creative in its advertising?  Think of the teasers on a cover.  Tailored to each group it is trying to read.  In a health store, “thousands live on bread and fish alone.”  For working moms, “Feed your family for pennies of bread and fish!”  And the story tells of Jesus feeding the 5000 with a few bread and fish.  Science fiction fans would be spellbound at “the battle of Armageddon!”  Even porn stores could quote the Song of Solomon, intimate reading.  Rated X-how many now will pick it up and see?  All without pictures on the cover.  Imagine how Bible sales would increase if God had a great PR firm behind it?  So what is God thinking, why isn’t he advertising more?  Maybe we should go back to an evening in a garden, between Jesus and Nicodemus.  Old Nicky was told “you must be born again to enter the kingdom of God,” and all he could think of was a return to a prenatal time.  How could that be?  But Jesus was talking of a spiritual rebirth, a changing of heart, a rebirth of the spirit.  And although he left his meeting with Jesus asking questions, some 20 chapters later in John, we see him at the grave of Jesus, with Joseph or Arimethea asking for the body of Christ.  Something had happened to him in those 20 chapters, and he and Joseph, known as a silent believer, gave everything to take the body.  Nicky faced ridicule, power loss, and loss of his riches.  No headline can make you do that, just as no t-shirt, bumper sticker, or sermon can change you.  They are not bad, but by themselves don’t save.  It takes the same thing that changed Nicodemus, it takes the holy spirit to tell you that you need Jesus.  And only the spirit can change the heart to do that.  So maybe God knows what he is doing, and his advertising budget is well spent.  We find freedom in the spirit, and then when guided by that same spirit, we find the words to make us change. 

You may be the only Bible that someone may read.  What is on your cover?  What photo of Jesus do you want to know about you?  Or are you just a glam event, wanting the glory, but not paying the price?  Is there anything in your walk with Christ that shows Jesus in your life?  Or do you depend on words?  Which can help, or hurt.  How important are photos, or the act?  Quick, look at Jesus on the cross.  What comes to mind first, the vision or his words?  What were his last words?  But we remember the vision even more.  So maybe words sell magazines, but images change lives.  Now, what is on  your cover?  Any last minute changes before you go to print?

The same spirit that saved Nicodemus is the same Jesus that saved you.  No matter what your cover looks like, God can see the inside.  He can see the articles we are, and wants to edit them for our benefit.  And who could be a better editor than the one who inspired a best seller, the Bible?  Turn to him, be led by him, and become a best seller.  Not to compete with the Bible, but to be complete in the Bible.  Only found in Christ. 

Now for your table of contents....if necessary use words.  Be the gospel in action....dis-cover Jesus today!

love with compassion,

Mike

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