Note Card: A Little Boy and His Lunch

Written on a 4x6 note card by Stan Julin.

February 16, 2007

John 6 beginning:  I like the story of the feeding of the five thousand.  There are some blanks to fill in as to nonessential details, which are not given – questions, that is, to imagine.  I have heard that the Greek παιδάριον means, not just a boy, but a little boy.  That can be verified but helps only for imagination.  [Blog author’s note:  This was verified, Strong’s #G3808]

I can picture the innocent boy standing by with his lunch, unaware that Andrew had his eye on that lunch – or aware.  His mother had had the foresight to make up a lunch for her little boy. …It was not his fault that thousands of people had not prepared themselves anything to eat.

Stan's Life Verse

An amusing anecdote about my father keeps coming to my mind.

My father has never had any appreciation for what might be referred to as “Pop-Christianity”.  He scoffed at “God is my co-pilot” bumper stickers.  The nifty places people thought to write “WWJD?” did not give him a tingle down his spine.  He preferred a congregation belting out one of the great, tried and true hymns of the faith to a service where no one sings very well because they cannot imitate the ‘bluesy moaning’ of the latest Christian pop sensation’s new ‘God-God-he’s-our-man-if-he-can’t-do-it-nobody-can’ radio hit.

At some point while I was coming up, it became popular within the church for people to claim a life-verse.  People would select a verse that they felt best represented their outlook on life, and they would then casually drop the verse reference into conversation whenever they were able to do so.  It made people feel good about themselves that they had lived the Christian life so fully that they had settled on a single verse that best represented the theme of their lives.

Note Card: The Problem of the Trinity

Written on a 4x6 note card by Stan Julin.

October 2000

Some people criticize the idea of one God in three persons as if it is a contradiction.  They seem to think of us as if we are fumbling around with an unworkable scheme that was handed to us, and we don’t have enough sense to see that, or enough honesty to admit we were fooled.  Is he one or three?  Why can we not make up our minds?

But the idea is quite logical.  Could it be a fact of life that it is not good for a person to be alone?  Yes, we need privacy at times, but one of the essentials of being persons is that we need other people.  Offenders are sometimes put in solitary confinement as a punishment.  What happens to them there?  What types of people are loners?  Why do people need support groups?  Why is it that men without friends are in trouble?

It's Really Good to See You

February, 2011
I have two brothers.  Do I feel jealous that I'm the one who has to deal with my father's Alzheimer’s? 

No.  Not really.  Not yet at least.  Here's why:

First of all, my parents simply deserve to be taken care of when they need it.  If no one helped two people like my parents at a time like this, the stones would cry out.

Second, it's not like I'm stuck with this job because my brothers refused to step up.  When it became apparent that my dad had Alzheimer's, there was no question that one of us was going to help in this way if it became necessary.  In fact, my other brother who lives locally would not even give me his "blessing" to move forward with taking mom and dad into my home until he had a chance to investigate the practicality of doing so himself.  I just happened to be in the best position to help, and that’s how we decided who would offer this assistance.  This situation is a very difficult thing, but the decision was easy. 

The third reason is that often blessings come with the difficult path.  My father still has small moments of relative lucidity, which I get to experience, little moments in time when I have my father back from the grave, as it were, before the static noise of Alzheimer’s comes rushing back.  My brothers do not experience these moments.  The stresses of talking on the telephone, or being a visitor in someone else's home, or having visitors in one's own home bring out the worst behaviors, not the best, in someone with Alzheimer's.

I've had a pretty bad cold for the last few days, and so to avoid keeping my wife awake all night with my coughing, I have been sleeping on the couch.  This morning, in the early quiet of first daylight, I awoke to find my father kneeling beside the couch, his face a foot from mine, staring intently at my face.

What Does Your Father Do For a Living?

February, 2011
One of the graces of dealing with Alzheimer's is that comedy sometimes sits astride tragedy, a white knight on a black horse.

My father and I spent an hour of a lazy Sunday afternoon sitting on a bench beside a small pond in my back yard.  The weather was beautiful and we chatted comfortably the whole time.  Most of what he said was unintelligible to me and vice versa, but his demeanor seemed to indicate that he was enjoying my company.  That was good enough for me.

Note Card: The Reasons for Things

Written on a 4x6 note card by Stan Julin.


Date Unknown
When God prepared to make man, there surely were many ways he could have made him.  He could have made the whole creation in any way he wanted.  He did not have to make an earth with a sunrise and sunset, man with hunger, sleep, thirst needs.  Living creatures with procreational abilities.  And so on.  But he did make all things as we discovered them to be, and the reason for them is more important than the fact of them, just as the reason for the things he said is more important then the bare fact that he said them. We must inquire as to why God made things as he did or we will pass through life never putting things together.