Nah-Nah-Nah-Nah, Hey, Hey, Goodbye…

Well, Denmark has canceled all their stamps as of December 30, 2025. PostNord, the state-run postal service in Denmark has been issuing postage as we know them for 175 years. The first few issues from 1851 were, admittedly, boring royal emblem designs. Since that time, Denmark has issued stamps that are historical, colorful and purposeful. Like all postage stamps they carried letters which kept people connected.

Then along came the internet. People stopped writing letters on paper. Therefore, all the stamps of Denmark, including the love stamps – are canceled, forever.

As a small child growing up with my grandparents in Chicago, it was common for us to sit out on our front porch and wait for the postman to arrive. He went up and down the neighborhood with his roller cart stuffed with exciting mail. It was the same mail carrier, and his route was completed twice a day – with morning and late afternoon delivery!

Many decades later, the cost of mailing a one-ounce letter has rocketed northward while the ‘service’ in the Postal Service has long departed. 99% of what finally gets delivered goes from the mailbox to the recycle bin.

Denmark pushed the first domino and others will follow.

We also lost the Lincoln Head Penny. Pennies have been in circulation for 230 years. The Lincoln penny came about in 1909 as a centennial memorial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth in 1809 in Hardin County, Kentucky, on February 12. It was costing the U.S. Government (us) 2.1 pennies to produce one penny. So much for buy low and sell high.

Anyway, Lincoln pennies may become more popular to collect again but they are gone. Note that you need to find the 1909 VDB and the 1909 SVBD to complete the set. Lot’s of luck finding those.

So much loss to absorb and then comes the devastating news! The Chicago Bears are pulling up stakes and leaving Chicago. While state and city officials have been hibernating, the Bears have sought a new cave in Indiana. Iowa made a humorous effort to try and lure the Monsters of the Midway to the cornfields of ambrosia here in Iowa, but we never really had a chance.

The Bears started out in Decatur, Illinois as the Decatur Staleys in 1920. One year later they moved to Chicago and became the Chicago Staleys. In 1922 the name was changed to Chicago Bears. That makes them the oldest team in the NFL.

Despite having a fiercely loyal fan base and having been the greatest NFL team ever in 1985-86 (not to mention the incredible 2025 season) the love affair is over. They are divorcing from the Windy City.

All of which are stark reminders that there is one thing which endures. We read this truth in Isaiah chapter 40 verse 8 of the Good Book, “The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.”

The Bears are history and so now I will have more time to read the Word, something that is enduring and timeless. It is definitely a better use of my time.

Something else that is on the way out at an alarming rate is my youthfulness. In fact, it outran the Chicago Bears a long time ago. It’s happening to you also. If you don’t believe me look at the photos in your smart phone from just a few years ago. The evidence is there.

In that Word which stands forever* we are encouraged by the results of salvation for believers as written by the Apostle Paul in 1st Corinthians 4:16-18 “16 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. 17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

We are to focus on the things which are not seen – our God, Our Savior, our future home in the new heaven and the new earth, and our faith. In the meantime, while the flight suit body is whittling away, our soul and spirit are being transformed by the daily work of the Holy Spirit.

As a result, as believers we are strengthened.

Going-going-gone…. what is going to disappear next in the temporal world we live in?

*This begs the question – if our stamps go away, what happens to the Forever stamps? NASB95

 

 

Oy Vey…Is It That Time Again?

How many times a day are asking the question, “What time is it?”

Time is like a slippery eel. It’s hard to grab hold of. Time is like a rare commodity where there just isn’t enough of it. Time is a dimension that can boggle the mind. Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein wrestled with the concept of time. Perhaps we can borrow from Churchill and identify time as “…a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma…”¹

Time hems us in all matters of earthly life which makes heaven even more desirable since it is outside of time.

Today, we woke up to a specific time promised us in the Bible in Ecclesiastes 3:8b A time for war and a time for peace. These two cycles of a fallen world define human history. A time for war captures heroisms and horrors of unprecedented proportions. And we give pause to wonder why it is that we have to endue this kind of time.

This time it is that time with the Islamic Republic of Iran as our current host enemy. Why Iran this time around? We need only to look back 47 years ago to February 1979 when the clock was set. A revolution was brewing in that country against the leader, the Shah of Iran. The U.S. put him power in 1941. As such, Iran was favorable to the west, even though the Shah wasn’t real solid on human rights. Conversely, President Jimmy Carter was all about human rights to a fault because his geo-political thinking was blurred.

The CIA was asleep at the wheel and misjudged the momentum of the revolution. The Shah was deposed and came down with cancer. We took him into our country for medical treatments which angered the revolutionaries. So did the fact that we froze Iranian assets. In November of that year, Iranians took 52 American hostages. Those poor souls would be held captive against their will for 444 long days and nights.

Things went from bad to worse as President Carter sent a rescue team under the moniker Operation Eagle Claw. Tragically some of our rescue helicopters and a transport plane crashed in the desert killing 8 of our servicemen. The mission was complete failure.

The loss of a western friendly Iran is very arguably the greatest single foreign policy disaster in the history of our nation. Iran has been responsible for terrorist bloodshed, murder, mayhem, and destabilization around the globe ever since.

Fast-forward (when we look at history, we can cheat time by going back and forth instantly) to today. A joint U.S. and Israel operation attacked Iran in the daylight hours this morning. The Iranian response, in turn, was directed at several other Arabic nations. They almost always stayed on the sidelines when we, and or Israel, would mix it up in the Middle East. This time Iran has angered them such they will no doubt enter the fray. It will be Shia (Iran) vs Sunni’s.

Biblically, this is a very interesting time. Jermiah 49:34-39 describes a future prophecy of Elam which is modern day Iran. We read in VV35-37:
³⁵ “Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Behold, I am going to break the bow of Elam, The finest of their might.
³⁶ ‘I will bring upon Elam the four winds From the four ends of heaven, And will scatter them to all these winds; And there will be no nation To which the outcasts of Elam will not go.
³⁷ ‘So I will shatter Elam before their enemies And before those who seek their lives; And I will bring calamity upon them, Even My fierce anger,’ declares the Lord, ‘And I will send out the sword after them Until I have consumed them.

This could be the fulfillment of this prophecy or a partial. The phrasing of the four winds means the enemies will come from all directions. Iran has teed it up for that to happen.

Amid the folly of war, we often seek some ray of hope. Well, here it is for Iran in Jeremiah 49:39 ‘But it will come about in the last days That I will restore the fortunes of Elam,’”
Declares the Lord.

In the meantime, let us pray for our men and women uniform who have answered the call of the nation-prepared to give the last full measure. And let us pray for “a time for peace”.

¹Churchill on a 1939 radio broadcast about Russia, “I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key.”

NASB ‘95.

 

What’s So Bad About Bad Bunny?

The NFL, not generally known for family friendly entertainment during the half-time of the Super Bowl, gave well over 100 million viewers the opportunity to see and hear somebunny named Bad Bunny.

You may feel somewhat relieved to know Bad Bunny has a different birth name - Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio. He was born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. He started singing at a young age and came up with a hit song in 2016. Today he has the additional moniker as the “King of Latin Trap.” By all accounts Bad Bunny is a Latin-American rapper.

Apparently mega-star credentials and the offer of many carrot$ were enough to get Bad Bunny hired to perform at the Big Game featuring the Boston Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks. This turned out to be a controversial hire though, which makes you question sometimes about what goes on in the boardrooms of business.

What was Bud Light thinking when they tried to bury a brand name buy expecting good ol’ boys to drink woke suds? The same bewilderment can be applied to executives at Cracker Barrel where the clientele are overwhelmingly gray heads and white heads. As one myself, I notice it every time I go back to the Barrel for the breakfast steak and eggs with a side of hash browns.

The NFL drafting Bad Bunny for the Super Bowl left many people feeling like Bugs Bunny wanting an answer to his question, “What’s up Doc?”

Well, we have to recognize that the NFL is a business. And that business is making their carbon footprint global. So we can arm wrestle whether promoting American culture or another culture is the way to go. But it’s the sub-culture that Bad Bunny represents and promotes that should be a concern for Christians.

In the classic tale of Alice in Wonderland, Alice is sitting with her sister as they read a book. Alice gets bored and distracted. Suddenly a White rabbit with pink eyes comes over by her.  It is the White Rabbit who clamors, “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!” (You find out ‘late for what’ in chapter 2. I won’t spoil it for you).

 

Then White Rabbit pulls out a watch from a waist coat to check the time. Now Alice has quickly gone from distraction to full, inquisitive attention. White Rabbit took off and ran right down a rabbit hole. Alice followed. Lewis Carroll, the author, describes what happened next, “In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.

 

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.

 

Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything;…”

Chapter I: Down the Rabbit-Hole from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865, public domain).

 

If you watched the half-time show, you know what you saw. Among other things it was crudely sexual. So, you know what you saw, but did you know what you heard? The words were sung in Spanish. Perhaps you might want to see the translation of the lyrics, though I will warn you, it would not be beneficial for you to go to far down that rabbit hole – it’s dark.

Yes, I am all about free speech and I know I can always turn it off and not support it etc. etc. etc. But as Christians there is more to it. In Paul’s letter to the Romans 12:1-2 he tells us what our response should be to all that God has done for us as outlined in Romans chapter 11 (which, by the way, is very beneficial to read). Paul wrote, ¹“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. ² And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

As Christians, we are not to be formed by this world and its folly. Rather, we are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. This means we desire what the Holy Spirit of God desires and we live by that desire. If we become distracted and then suddenly chase after the things of this world, we risk being conformed to it. Ever wonder why some kids know the Easter Bunny, but not the Resurrected Christ?  Too much conformity!

In the 1988 film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, it was Jessica Rabbit who tried excuse her life with the line “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.”  Perhaps the same can be said for Bad Bunnny. Yet he’s not righteous. I have that in common with B.B. None of us are righteous: Romans 3:10 “as it is written, There is none righteous, not even one.”

And still there is Good News: Romans 3:21-22 ²¹ But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, ²² even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; …”

Translation – anybunny can be made right with God through Jesus Christ. Pray that for Benito.