“Life Ain’t Fair, But It’s Our Job to Make it That Way” – Robert McNary (my Dad)
We arrived in the mountain village of Nicaragua with a truck load of food aid for the small village recently decimated by flooding. We began the process of handing out food to desperate families and, as typical, the line was filled with women and children. ...
7 Lessons Learned in the First 7 Days of Shop Kansas Farms Facebook Group
While my wife and I watched a Hallmark movie just a week ago, I had the idea to create the Shop Kansas Farms Facebook Group. Here are some lessons I've learned: 1. 4,580 people want to buy local. Yep, that's how many people have joined in seven days. I was watching a...
What if Our Job Was to Make Others Beautiful?
s,"I didn't know I was so pretty," the young lady said as she flipped through the proof book of her senior pictures. Her eyes welled up with tears. That was the best compliment I ever received as a photographer. For nearly a decade before the digital revolution, I...
You Can’t Do Great Work With Junk Tools
"I thought you were a carpenter," my friend sort-of joked. "That's not a very straight line you cut!" "Well, like my brother Mike taught me," I replied. "You can't do great work with junk tools. He had invited me over to help him build a shed and assured me he had all...
The Gift of Asking the Right Question
A young lady recently asked me for my "wisdom and insight," about some questions she had. Admittedly, there was a time in my life my ego would have kicked in and I would have crawled up on a soapbox and pontificated. However, rather than wax eloquent with pompous...
Staying Positive in a Negative Environment
How do you stay positive in negative environments? Maybe it's your job, your family or your favorite social media platform that is filled with negativity. And you're drowning. What do you do? Here are some tricks I've learned: Music - I start my day with positive,...
Marvelous Marva: How to Keep Joy in Your Life
“Name one thing in your life that you are in total control of,” Marva said. “Think about it; what is the one thing you’re in absolute control of?” I paused, running through an inventory of my life and searched for things, then she answered her own question. “You’re in...
What Power Will You Use to Make the World More Beautiful Today?
What are the things in your life that you enjoy making beautiful? Is it your garden? Your family? The company for which you work? A spreadsheet? A book you’re writing? Yourself? Pause for one minute and make a list. Are you back now? Good. Now ask yourself, what...
Giving Five Minutes of Hope
“Five minutes of hope can stop a person from committing suicide.” I learned that lesson in theory, first, then I learned it in real life shortly thereafter when I talked a man out of the .357 he had pointed at his temple. For twenty years I served as a minister of a...
Creating A World In Which You Want To Live
Are you exhausted with the negativity you see in the news and on social media? Do you have to work or live with someone who is negative or critical of everyone and everything? As the old saying goes, “A crazy person will even make a sane person go crazy after a...