Category: Christianity
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Beginning a career as a Jail Guard opened my eyes to a whole new world of scary people. Larry was one of them. One day, when I entered his cell, Larry stood with a large metal pipe in his hand. He had pulled a piece of plumbing out of the wall. Now he had a…
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In my office, a framed newspaper photo hangs, depicting a much younger version of me. In it, I’m standing in the bed of a pickup truck that is loaded with 50 tall marijuana plants. Sporting a classic 1980s cop look, I wear a thick mustache, a tight polyester uniform, and aviator sunglasses. And, I’m basking…
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I am in California today. Anaheim, to be exact. We flew in last weekend to visit Disneyland for the first time. It’s been forty years since I was in Los Angeles last. My previous visit, however, was not so fun. My last trip to L.A. occurred when I was young and stupid. My friends told…
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I vividly remember the first dead body I encountered as a young deputy. My partner and I responded to a missing person call, only to find the old man deceased in his backyard. Though the experience unnerved me, the older, veteran officer was unfazed. As we waited for the coroner to arrive, my partner laughed…
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Effective policing often involves being in the right place at the right time. I found myself at that place one night when a vehicle pursuit began on the interstate. A state trooper attempted to conduct a traffic stop, but the driver refused to pull over. What began as a small chase in another county turned…
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I received an interesting telephone call at the office one day. A mom I knew asked me about a certain neighborhood. Her son had just bought a house there, and she wanted to know if it was a safe area. I paused a moment and stared at the phone. “Safe? Compared to what?” I asked.…
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As a young deputy sheriff, I often found it difficult to stay out of my own way. It amazed me as much as anyone that they issued a badge and gun to my immature self. It’s only by the grace of God that I survived those years. One day, Dispatch called me off patrol to…
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I’ve flown commercial airlines many times. On a few occasions, I flew with missionary bush pilots. Bush pilots take flying to another level. These guys fly in the remotest regions of the world and land on the crudest airstrips. I once flew with a bush pilot in a single-engine Cessna in rural Africa. The flight…
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I studied Criminal Justice in college, partly because it required no math. The arithmetic part of my brain doesn’t function as I would like, so I avoid it. Criminal Justice, therefore, sounded like the perfect major. In almost four decades of police work, only a few circumstances required that I do math. Those events, however,…
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In law enforcement, vehicle maintenance is a high priority. We drive patrol cars hundreds of miles per week, so the oil must be changed on time and regularly. Failure to do so is frowned upon, to say the least. We were required to get the oil changed every 3000 miles. That meant we kept a…