A flooded living room-April Fool!

It was a good joke! I was really fooled.

I left home early this morning for some quiet time and meditation. As I read several passages of scripture and thought on them the phone rang and my wife, in a very excited voice, started telling me how the living room of our home was covered with water. She said the hot water tank must have burst; water was everywhere. I envisioned a living room full of water, mop buckets, ruined furniture and the whole works. Then she said..April Fool!

We laughed. Not to make it any better,I used our automated caller and called every member of our church and told them that President Obama had declared today a holiday and no one had to go to work- then quickly followed it with...April Fool!

She played a joke on me. I played a joke on all of my members and everybody will probably be playing jokes on each other all day today.

Everybody gets a good laugh, but they don't get the day off.

There is a verse in the bible that when taken personally becomes a confession for each of us. It's in 1 Samuel 26:21 "behold, I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly."

At one time or the other the devil has prompted all of us to play the fool. We have played the pitiful joke of faithlessness on ourselves and on others.

The truth is, God is good all of the time.

And that's no joke.

Being bullied is no fun

They bullied a girl so much she took her life

I was saddened when I heard the news about Phoebe Prince, the 15 year old Hadley, Mass. girl who committed suicide after being bullied. At first, I wondered how being talked about could result in a suicide; then I read the facts.

There were nine youth charged for bullying her. They participated in "a nearly-three-month campaign" of verbal assaults and physical threats against Phoebe. Phoebe's picture was scribbled out of a student-body photo hanging on a classroom wall. The bullies slammed her on Face book and sent her mean text messages. The attacks culminated on the day of her death in a "torturous day" during which Phoebe was harassed in the library, in the hallways, and walking down the street on her way home. On the afternoon of her death, a few of them reportedly drove by her while she walked home, shouted "Irish slut" and "Irish whore," and threw a soda at her.

She couldn't take it anymore.

I remember being bullied in school. I was short and nerdy. It was easy to crack on me. I felt bad even though I was not suicidal.

Often youth don't think how their actions make others feel. Everyone wants to be accepted, approved and to some degree assimilated. None of us like personal attacks.

There is a verse in Matthew 7:12 that says, "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets."

Maybe the bullies who pushed Phoebe to her death by their taunts should have learned the lesson of Matthew 7:12