Looking back now, it is difficult to believe that in early 1972 I was singing “Bridge Over Troubled Water” in a choir for one of Arthur Blessitt’s crusades in Boston. You might remember Arthur as the man who carried the wooden cross around the world on foot. He logged 38,000 miles and visited 315 nations. A new Christian and like so many others, I had been swept up in the adventure of it. In June of that same year, I was part of the 100,000 high school and college students swarming in Dallas, Texas at the Cotton Bowl for Explo‘72. Sponsored by Campus Crusade, we had come from around the…

The boy had been sent to the office of the principal by a teacher at her wits’ end. “He’s incorrigible,” she murmured and left him at the door. The principal took the heavy wooden paddle from his desk and with me as the required witness gave the boy the first of three strokes. I knew it stung. I had been paddled myself at the same age and for the same reason. But it was the boy’s response that unsettled me. It was not a smirk but an indifferent smile after each swat as if he were neither frightened or remorseful. He only grinned and when the punishment was finished stood…