Cheating Death!

One Sunday morning, before driving to Church, I received two emails informing me of the deaths of two different men that were Smokejumpers with me.  Back in our smokejumping days we all joked about “cheating death” every time we made a successful parachute jump into a wilderness to fight a forest fire.   I will get […]

Lost Keys

Last week, I dropped by a friend’s house and found him on his hands and knees in the front yard. He was frantically searching for something.  I went over to him and asked what was going on.  He told me that he had lost the only keys for his truck and had to find them.  […]

Irritating People!

Have you ever had a person in your life that simply pushed your buttons whenever you were around them?  Perhaps you might just have one in your life right now!  There is just something about that person that gets under your skin.  They may be antagonistic toward you; treating you with scorn and perhaps even […]

Storms of Life

Many years ago, a farmer owned land along the Atlantic seacoast.   He constantly advertised for hired hands. Most people were reluctant to work on farms along the Atlantic. They dreaded the awful storms that raged across the Atlantic, wreaking havoc on the buildings and crops. As the farmer interviewed applicants for the job, he received […]

ALICE IN WONDERLAND…SPIRITUALLY SPEAKING!

ALICE IN WONDERLAND…SPIRITUALLY SPEAKING! In that timeless tale, Alice in Wonderland, Alice meets up with two strange characters who ask her very pointed questions.  Their questions and Alice’s answers give us food for spiritual thought.  First, Alice meets up with the Great Caterpillar, sitting on a mushroom, smoking a hookah.  “Who…are…you?” he asks Alice.  Alice […]

The Mouse

A Mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife opening a package. He wondered with great curiosity, “What food might this contain?”  He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.  Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning.  “There is a mousetrap in the house; there […]

The Hawk

Many years ago I read the following story from a book that we were using with our children. After all this time, this one story has always stuck with me. I am reminded of it again and again while driving…seeing some drivers (and sometimes myself) consumed with anger over a slower car or an untimely […]

Monument to Self

  I once had an opportunity to visit a monument.   Even guide books warned against taking any time to visit this place.  One book said it was a monument built by a wealthy man to honor himself.  Another stated:  “you will be sorely disappointed. Very rarely does someone go to visit the monument with the […]

Welcome to An UpWord Glance!

Welcome to An UpWord Glance blog. I originally began doing An UpWord Glance for the both the folks working in prisons and for the men living in those prisons where I served as Chaplain. Each week a new story will be published to this site. This will be a simple story…no heavy theological treatise.  The goal is […]