Tuesday, May 5, 2026
Cinco de Mayo
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Who you gonna call
Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
And if your friends are my friends, then …
MY friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
I don’t remember when I have not put people on a pedestal. I remember a prophetic guy from Kansas City named Steve Staggs. He was one of my heroes. We sat in a Burger King or something somewhere, and he spoke so well,and so clearly about God and my future that I was in awe.
Steve didn’t like that at all. “Don’t put me on a pedestal. Nobody belongs up there except God.” Jesus, of course, said something like that when he pointed out, “You seem to be listening to men as if they were God. Why? That will get you in trouble.” John the Baptist pushed hard against the popular hope that he was the messiah. “NO! I might be the forerunner, but don’t call ME the messiah. That’s someone much greater than me.”
But I hero-worship anyway.  I need somebody to love. And who better to love than someone who will love me? God speaks: “ No thing and no one can take my place.” God is God, and you are not.” But God-with-skin-on is easier to BE with than God-who-creates-me, who I think must be distant and busy with everyone and everything else to have much “time” for me.
When I text folks, sometimes I hear back, sometimes I don’t. When I call or facetime them, flesh calls to flesh. When their faces appear on my screen, often I get spiritual goosebumps. My senses don’t lie. Texting is fast, and efficient when I’m focused on an action item. Still, no one would call texting a way to be intimate.
These days I remember friends from everywhere and every time. They tumble around in my mind. They get on top of each other.. Decades of counseling and traveling and just plain living open up their gates and the people flood out. The crowds get unruly in my head as they tumble over each other. No room to move in this cramped brain. But  when I call one person the noise of the rest is muffled.. Then there is joy in heaven, and in my soul.
Who you gonna call? The Ghostbusters advertising tag line is never far away. It does require an answer, though. Who indeed? I want to talk to everyone.
Ever heard of lucky-dipping for verses in the Bible? Usually these days I am lucky-dipping in my memories and when I push the Siri button and say “Siri, call …” it isn’t long before I feel the grace of US together, and I feel the power of the psalm:
Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
In these pre-surgery days Margaret and I are texting hundreds of friends about my diagnosis, schedule, etc. So important. But calling is different.
Jesus said (in person and not in a text) “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.”
In the USA 75% of us test as extraverts. We talk better than we listen. The other 25% listen better than they talk. Because we want it all, psychologists invented another category, the ambiverts. I guess that makes sense if you’re trying to be all things to all people.
With God I’d like to be quiet and listen, knowing that he will share something with me of the glorious splendor of his kingdom. These days this happens more often. When I sit and do ONE THING, it is easier to be with God. I think Brother Lawrence is a great model for me … do the dishes, eat my food, simple things while I breathe and rest.
I’m able to do this better these days. I have lots of unfinished business. I have miles to go before I sleep. But nowadays more often I pull up the horse, tuck myself into the blanket, and sleep in the cart.
What, me worry? Some of us are old enough to remember Mad Magazine and Alfred E. Newman. My ambitious type A planning doesn’t have much traction now. As my friend John Auten had them write on his Havana, Illinois tombstone, “Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last.”
The ruler of this world has no power over me.
Jesus said that.
He’s teaching me how to be like him.
(Acts 14, Psalm 145, Luke 24, John 14)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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