I am a motorcoach:
Two Seven Two, with a few words on being a motorcoach . . . four words to be exact: Seek, Meet, Honor, Serve. For this post our focus is Seek.
The word Seek is fundamental to appreciation of the nature of a motorcoach. I have no accidental or happenstance passengers. I do not wander streets like a taxi, watching for someone to flag me down (which is more like rummaging than Seeking). I do not open my door for roadside strangers with their thumbs out and a suitcase at their feet. In fact, any form of unplanned or unauthorized boarding is strictly forbidden. Before I welcome a passenger aboard, that passenger has been thoughtfully pursued. It’s a team effort. Details of a tour or charter were fashioned and painstakingly perfected with each passenger in mind. Promotions, phone calls, scheduling, routing, accounting, special needs evaluations, and all manner of fitting the journey to persons on the journey precedes my leaving the garage. Yes, my appearance is mechanical, but all moving parts only matter because of this: I am relationally intentional.
Selfies
Outside the Missouri state capitol in Jefferson City. Inside, lawmakers are at work and important matters are on the table. Here, decisions are reflective of the multi-faceted will of society. My passengers, Missouri Right to Life ambassadors, are here for relational engagement, dialog, due diligence on behalf of the voiceless and most vulnerable.
A visit to The National Churchill Museum. On March 5, 1946, here in the carefully chosen quiet of the Westminster College campus in Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill delivered his most famous speech. It was titled The Sinews of Peace. It opened with the statement: “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent . . .” And Churchill made clear his motivation for traveling so far to make the speech: “I feel the duty to speak out now.”
MEETING THE NEWS on the roadways of America, first-hand, real time, real world news—going out and discovering the news . . .
News of ham and Bread: A member of the Missouri Right to Life group on the Jefferson City trip had also been on the recent trip to Washington DC and was among those stuck on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. He told of being grateful for provisions that arrived on day two: “one piece of bread and one piece of ham for everyone on the motorcoach.”
News of virtual steak: The report of another of the recent turnpike hostages was of hunger that was taunted for 20 hours while snowbound beside a billboard advertising a steakhouse and featuring a giant picture of a succulent steak.
News of Doritos: A subject of passenger muse was a Doritos Super Bowl ad featuring an ultrasound with an animated fetus. Media sources reported a tweeted complaint by NARAL (a pro-choice group) that the commercial humanized fetuses. The ad was actually fan-chosen, the winner of the Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” contest, a contest awarding $1 million to the winning producer and the privilege of national exposure during the Super Bowl. The contest has been running for ten years and this was its final year. What a note to end on.
Remember the Union Pacific Big Boy, the largest steam engine ever built in the United States? Last week I showed you a wooden scale replica of the 1,250,000 lbs and 132 feet long locomotive. Well, here is the actual Big Boy, on display at the Museum of Transportation in west St. Louis County. The Museum of transportation is a definite must see if you are ever in the area and have some time to hunt it down.
If you are ever in the vicinity of Fulton, MO, you’ll be glad you prioritized a trip to the National Churchill Museum, where you will find (among many other great finds) a section of the Berlin Wall, symbol and physical reality of the “iron curtain” Churchill spoke of in his 1946 speech – torn down in 1989.
Quote Of The Day samples
“If you’re going through hell, whatever you do, don’t stop.” ―Winston Churchill
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” ―Martin Luther King Jr.
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Great Job, Russell! keep it up!
Only a moron (and I am one in many other ways) could say a fetus is not a human baby. God forgive us; but more importantly please change our hearts!
Ron Cowan
These pictures are incredible! I am still stunned that part of the Berlin Wall is in MO!
I need to contribute to my above remark a quote from late billionaire Mark McCormack (who made the majority
of his fortune in sports management): (paraphrase):
“Close triumphes in sports are thrilling. Close victories in company are anything but!” He
was asked repeatedly why he managed pro professional athletes and not rock stars, considering that they were temperamentally alike.
He said, “Rock and roll management has excessive competition.”LikeLike