Two years after “Star Wars” and a year before the 1980 “Flash Gordon” live action film, (mainly remembered for its theme song by Queen) a new version of Flash Gordon filled my Saturday morning TV screen. With bright neon laser-gun effects and lifelike animation of various aliens, “The New Adventures of Flash Gordon” was like watching “Star Wars” on TV. But another feature that made it stand out from other cartoons was its powerful message of unity.

In the first episode, a human crew of futuristic astronauts – Flash Gordon, Dale Arden, and Dr. Hans Zarkov – journey to the distant planet of Mongo to warn its inhabitants that their planet is coming dangerously close to Earth. But they’re captured by strange creatures and dragged toward a distant castle in a large bubble-cage. Two other alien prisoners, a forest archer and a Lion Man, explain that they’re all prisoners of Emperor Ming, the cruel overlord who rules Mongo. Yet they seem to hate one another almost as much as they hate Ming.

“You both hate your emperor, Ming, yet you fight between yourselves,” Flash challenges.

“Every race on Mongo is an enemy of every other race,” grumbles Thun, the Lion Man.

“Each man stands alone on Mongo,” adds Prince Barin, the tree archer. “As you’ll learn. If you survive, Earth-Man.”

Flash soon sees their point, as an attempted jailbreak is nearly foiled when Prince Barin abandons their team plan to save his own skin, leaving the others to fend for themselves.

When Flash and the others finally meet Ming, they learn that he’s aware of Mongo drifting toward Earth. In fact, he’s causing it, in order to weaken Earth with earthquakes and tidal waves so that he can invade and conquer it. (How does Ming manage to steer his planet through space? I don’t know; it’s a cartoon!) So Ming has made himself an enemy of everyone on Earth, as well as everyone on Mongo. The epitome of a common enemy!

Flash and Thun escape, but Dale and Dr. Zarkov remain prisoners in the castle. While struggling to survive Mongo’s wastelands and form a plan for rescuing the others, Flash and Thun encounter another alien race: the Hawk Men. Once again, Thun shows utter disgust for the race, reminding Flash that all races on Mongo are enemies to each other.

Flash has had it. “No wonder a tyrant like your Emperor Ming rules you,” he chastises Thun. “… if you won’t unite to stand against him!”

People like to talk about unity. It’s a fun word, and it sounds noble. Yet it seems like a lot of people have trouble grasping its true meaning. Many people think that being unified means agreeing with one another. So they don’t allow anyone in their group to enter into deep discussions of topics which some members might disagree on. After all, they think, they must preserve unity by “keeping the peace”.

But that’s not unity. Real unity isn’t always peaceful, and it has little to do with agreement. In fact, those who feel they need to agree with others in order to work together will have a difficult time achieving unity.

Unity requires commitment, not agreement. People choosing to work together in order to achieve a shared goal. It doesn’t require that those people also share the same political views, religious beliefs, or cultural practices. Don’t expect others you work with to share your opinions, and don’t worry that you’ll have to share theirs in order to remain together. If you’re truly unified in purpose, you can discuss different views without your team projects falling apart. And if you’re truly committed to a friendship, you don’t need your friends to think like you do in order to enjoy spending time together. You can agree to disagree, and respect one another’s views without having to adopt them.

Thun soon learns that Flash has his back, and that he’s serious about working together. “You’ve saved my life more than once, risking your own life to do so,” he observes. “Why?”

“Because we’re all in this together,” Flash answers. “And by sticking by each other, well … maybe we can accomplish something.”

Having seen Flash’s commitment to unity demonstrated time and again, Thun experiences a change of heart. “You spoke of this before, standing together against the common foe. Now I understand your words, Flash Gordon.”

Disagreements are not obstacles to unity and teamwork. They’re priceless opportunities to create and solidify genuine unity. If you can move past your own opinions in order to show respect and acceptance of someone else, you’ll experience a new sense of shared commitment and make real progress together.

Check out The New Adventures of Flash Gordon at amazon.com!

I love “Frosty, the Snowman”. It’s about the only Rankin-Bass Christmas special that our three-year old daughter can watch without encountering any scary Christmas monsters, like the Winter Warlock in “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town”, or the Abominable Snow-Monster – nicknamed, “Bumble” – in “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer”. I remember being quite terrified of the goggle-eyed Bumble myself when I was a toddler.

One of the best things about “Frosty, the Snowman” is that Abby likes it even more than I do. One of the worst things is that it’s a lot shorter than those other Rankin-Bass shows. I got Abby up the other morning to give my wife, Nicki, a much-needed rest. Once you have kids, “sleeping in” is usually a strange and distant memory from times past. Especially for a stay-at-home mom, for whom taking a ten-minute break is also a distant memory.

So Nicki got a rare hour of extra sleep while Abby and I watched “Frosty, the Snowman”. Three times. As soon as it ended, she wanted to watch it again. And again.

But I don’t mind. Nicki needed a break, and “Frosty, the Snowman” is actually a great story about making sacrifices for others.

After some children make a snowman and name him Frosty, they complete their creation with a magician’s discarded top hat. They’re thrilled when the hat magically causes Frosty to come to life! This prompts the self-serving magician, Professor Hinkle, to snatch back his trashed hat, realizing he can use its magic to make himself rich.

The magician’s pet rabbit, Hocus Pocus, returns the hat to the children, and Frosty comes alive once more to play with them.

Until he notices that the temperature is rising, and he’ll soon melt. One child, Karen, hops a train with Frosty and Hocus Pocus to the North Pole, to take Frosty somewhere that he’ll never melt. She finds a perfect way for a snowman to travel, inside a freezer car.

But it’s not such a nice way for Karen, who finds herself shivering and sick from the ride. Frosty realizes he needs to leave the train and find some way to warm Karen up fast. He and Hocus Pocus find some forest animals to help them build a fire, which revives Karen, while Frosty keeps his distance. One can never be completely comfortable without making the other miserable. But they care enough for each other to make those sacrifices.

The other morning, we got an unexpected heavy snowfall. Nicki had to run out for an appointment, so she had no time to shovel the drive. I was working a late shift, so had another hour before I had to get ready. Before shoveling, I started up my car and Anna Beth’s car, to get the defrosters going. Anna Beth Wildman is a church friend who’s staying with us for a while. She had a late night, so I figured I would clear off the roof and windows of both of our cars while she got some rest.

After an hour of cleaning cars and shoveling snow, a friend, Nadean Rosborough, pulled up with her two kids, Grant and Rachel. Our neighbor, Kathie Whitney, watches the children while Nadean works. Before driving away, Nadean reminded her children, “Be a blessing!”

What a nice thing to remind people of. To actually plan on blessing others. Doing something to make someone’s day go a little easier.

A minute later, both children had grabbed shovels to help me finish up. It was certainly a blessing to my 43-year old body to have some help! I was nearly done, anyway, so I asked them if they would be okay doing the rest while I showered for work.

I expected them to finish in five minutes. Instead, they continued working, digging up the frozen ice patches that I couldn’t crack, and even shoveling our front porch! How nice to have someone volunteer to do something I had no time – and not much energy – to finish doing myself.

Thankfully, most of us don’t have to worry about big sacrifices to be a blessing, the way Frosty and Karen had to. We won’t go cold or hungry by lending someone else a hand, and we won’t melt. It just requires a slight inconvenience to our schedule to help someone who’s stranded on the road. A slight inconvenience to our finances to give someone a little extra cash, without expecting repayment. A slight inconvenience to our self-expression to keep quiet and grateful for the pink-and-orange-striped sweater that our aunt got us for Christmas. Or to keep just as quiet when our less-than-grateful niece explains that she never cared for pink and orange together.

It doesn’t usually take much time or effort or resources to bless someone. Just a decision to actually do it, and to place the needs of others above your own.

There are so many little things people can do to be a blessing to others. As I wrote this blog, Nicki and Abby were making Christmas cookies to give out to our local police and firemen, to thank them for their ongoing service to the community. It’s something my wife has done for years, and now she gives and receives even more blessing from it by having our eager three-year old daughter help her.

It’s a blessing when kids offer to help with simple chores around the house. It’s a blessing when we make room for Anna Beth to stay with us, and when Anna Beth offers to wash dishes without even asking if we need it done.

It’s a blessing when people give you a break from your usual chores by helping out. It’s a blessing when people watch your kids so you can head to a job or an appointment, or even have a rare night out. It’s a blessing when you offer someone a smile, or a thoughtful note of appreciation and caring.

How can you be a blessing to others this Christmas and in the New Year? Start with a simple reminder to yourself to do it. Once you decide to be a blessing, you’ll be amazed at how many opportunities magically present themselves.

Be a blessing!

Find more reviews of “Frosty, the Snowman” at amazon.com!

It’s strange to think that Christmas is all about celebrating an intrusion into our lives. Viewed from the broadest possible perspective, it was an invasion of our world by God himself, disguised as an infant in a human womb. It’s such a strange occurrence that many people refuse to believe it – even those who were anticipating it.

In the movie, “The Nativity Story”, a young virgin woman named Mary (Keisha Castle-Hughes) is told by her parents that they have arranged her marriage. She is to be married to a man named Joseph (Oscar Isaac), to whom she is then introduced. Despite the fact that such arrangements were common among her Jewish people, Mary is upset by this and feels that she is losing all control of her life.

Things soon get worse. Mary is visited by Gabriel (Alexander Siddig), an angel who brings her a message from God. Gabriel tells Mary that she is about to become pregnant, and her baby boy will be the Messiah, the savior of her Jewish people that had been promised for centuries.

Many Christians today think that the Jews should not have been surprised. After all, their scholars had studied prophecies over and over, which explain that the Messiah would be born of a virgin in Bethlehem, the city of the great Jewish king, David.

But although many people wait on God to do something in their lives, they often fail to grasp it when God actually does act. In ancient times, the Israelites prayed for God to free them from slavery, but they were reluctant to follow God’s chosen savior and leader, Moses, even after he led them out of captivity. Later, when God sent the prophet Samuel to commission a new king for Israel, he never expected God to have him choose David, the smallest and least impressive of his family.

And no one expected God to choose an ordinary teenage girl to be the mother of the coming Messiah.

Mary’s parents agree to let her go visit her cousin, Elizabeth, for a few months. There, Mary learns that Elizabeth (Shohreh Aghdashloo) has also received a promise of a miraculous birth. Far past childbearing age, Elizabeth is also preparing to deliver a son. The same angel had spoken to Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah, and told him that God would cause Elizabeth to bear a child, to be named John – the same John who would later baptize Jesus.

Seeing the birth of John, and the love Elizabeth shares with her husband, Mary feels a little less alone, and a little less afraid. She can see, right in front of her, that her future can work out. That God can arrange it all just the way it needs to be, in spite of her doubts.

She returns home, only to face the shock and outrage of her family and friends, when they see her enlarged belly. No one believes her story of an angelic visit. Instead, they believe she has violated God’s written law against fornication, a crime for which Mary can be stoned to death. Joseph, admirably, casts no stones, but simply breaks off the marriage arrangement and leaves, swallowing his pride and abandoning his own future plans.

No one expected to have their lives disrupted this way. To have their family shamed, their wedding canceled, and their lives at risk for harboring a woman who had desecrated God’s law in full view of the community.

But God wasn’t surprised.

So often, the reason people can’t believe in miracles is that they don’t believe that anything can change. When disasters strike, they assume that everything is lost, and beyond recovery. They’re so focused on the destruction of today that they don’t believe in the possibility of a tomorrow.

But Mary has seen a tomorrow, through Elizabeth’s life. So she can now cling to the angel’s message, in spite of the disappointed and scornful stares of her family and her neighbors. She knows that God is doing something, even if she can’t understand exactly what it is.

Joseph soon hears from the same angel that Mary’s story is true, that she will bear the Messiah, whom they are to name Jesus. He finds Mary and renews his promise of marriage, telling her that he’s received the same message she heard.

Mary now has a true ally. Someone to share in the secret promise of God’s activity among them. Something that only a few people hear of, and far fewer actually believe.

Throughout history, God has done the unexpected. If you’re waiting for God to act in your life, take another look around. Has God acted on your behalf in the past? Has he provided you with a home or a job when you desperately needed one? Has he sent people to rescue you when you got yourself into some deep trouble? Has he provided you with trustworthy friends, family or neighbors that you can count on to cheer you up in the worst of times? If you’ve seen God act in the past, you can trust that he’ll continue to help you in the future. And if, like Mary, you’ve seen him act in the lives of those who trust in him, you know you can entrust your life to him as well, and watch him do things in your life that you would never have expected.

God is a God of miracles. Watch for them.

Find more reviews of “The Nativity Story” at amazon.com!

Last spring, I was playing in our back yard with my two-year old daughter, Abby, and an older toddler. The moment I had come outside, they smiled at me and squealed, claiming that I was a monster and running off. They were having a blast trying to escape the towering, slow-moving creature that threatened to eventually catch them. (All the best monsters lumber along slowly, to build the suspense.)

After a while, my 42-year old body grew tired of jogging after the speedy little would-be-victims, so I decided to create another game. “I’m not a monster anymore. But look!” I said, pointing up at the high roof of the house. “Oh, no! Another monster’s coming from behind the house! He’s really big!”

Abby glanced up at the roof, saw the imaginary monster, and fled with a playful smile, calling, “Let’s run!”

But the other boy stared up at the house, then looked back at me in utter confusion. He looked back up at the house again to confirm that, in fact, there was nothing there. He couldn’t see what Abby and I saw. He had never learned how to imagine that way.

In “Miracle on 34^th Street”, a gentle, kindhearted stranger (Edmund Gwenn) drifts into New York City to enjoy Macy’s annual Thanksgiving Day Parade. A dead ringer for Santa Claus, he is soon asked to fill in when the “Santa” that was hired is found drunk. The man gives such an impressive performance that he’s soon hired to play Santa at Macy’s store, and everyone is thrilled.

Until they find out that the man’s name is Kris Kringle, and he believes that he really is Santa Claus.

Most people find Kris harmless and don’t mind his delusion. But Doris Walker (Maureen O’Hara) fears that Kris’ fantasies will harm her daughter. Recently divorced, she doesn’t want to set her daughter up for the same disillusionment she’s faced in life.

“No Santa Claus, no fairy tales, no fantasies of any kind, is that it?” probes Fred Gailey (John Payne), a lawyer trying to get to know Doris.

“That’s right,” Doris says. “We should be realistic and completely truthful with our children, and not have them growing up believing in a lot of legends and myths. Like Santa Claus, for example.”

This sounds like a nice plan for raising sensible children. Children who can be practical and logical, and think through things to find a workable solution.

The problem is that, without imagination, no workable solution can be found, unless it’s already been thought up by someone else and recorded in a book somewhere. (A non-fiction book, of course!)

Without the ability to see things that aren’t there, we can’t discover. We can’t create. We can’t hope. Believing in myths and legends like Santa Claus when we’re younger helps us imagine new ideas and new solutions when we’re a little older. If you root out all things that seem impractical or imaginary, you throw out the baby with the bathwater. If we can’t see love, is it worth pursuing? If we haven’t experienced compassion, is compassion really important? If we don’t know hope, does hope even exist?

Some Christians worry that if children believe in myths and fairy tales when they’re young, they’ll lump God together in that mix when they’re older, deciding that Jesus is just another fairy tale.

I often find the opposite to be true. The skeptics are the ones who refuse to believe in anything they can’t see or touch. They simply never learned how to believe.

Kris soon discovers the problems that little Susan Walker (Natalie Wood) is having with this, when he learns that she can’t enjoy playing games with other children. When the kids in her apartment all pretend they’re animals, Susan can’t relate, since, after all, she’s really a little girl. Kris tells her it sounds like a wonderful game to play. “Of course,” he cautions her, “…in order to play it, you’ve got to have an imagination.”

Susan doesn’t even know what that is.

“To me, the imagination is a place all by itself … a separate country,” Kris explains. “You’ve heard of the French or the British nation. Well, this is the lmagine nation. It’s a wonderful place! How would you like to make snowballs in the summertime? Or drive a big bus right down  th Avenue? How would you like to have a ship all to yourself, that makes daily trips to China and Australia? How would you like to be the Statue of Liberty in the morning, and in the afternoon, fly south with a flock of geese?”

This all sounds incredibly exciting to Susan. But she doesn’t know how to reach this amazing place.

“It’s very simple,” Kris assures her. “Of course, it takes practice. The first thing you’ve got to learn is how to pretend.”

Pretending, as children, that things can be something more than they already are is how we learn to discover, explore, and create.

I have no worries about children believing in Santa Claus, or fairies, or super-heroes, or cartoon characters on TV. For children, the Easter Bunny and Tinker Bell and Superman and Jesus all occupy the same world that they live in. Trying to force them to “face reality” and abandon their play world will not help them develop faith. Believing in magical creatures as a child helps us recognize that some things are beyond our understanding or control. Reining in these fantasies simply teaches children to cling to their own preconceptions, allowing no room for new ideas from anyone.

As they grow older, children learn how to distinguish between fantasy and reality. But if they never embrace fantasies in childhood, they’ll never learn how to dream or hope for something more than they’ve already received in life. No way to ask themselves, “What if?”

In the end, Susan chooses to believe, despite of her disappointment. Although she sees no tangible evidence that Kris brought her the specific present she asked for, she decides to take him at his word. “I believe. I believe,” she mutters to herself. “It’s silly, but I believe.”

It’s okay for children to believe in Santa Claus, and what might be. Fantasy and fictional characters are the ideals that inspire us to be better people. Without them, we can never imagine ourselves creating a better world. And we may have trouble believing that God could choose to enter our personal world – in spite of all of our flaws and failures – to involve himself in our lives.

God is nothing like Santa Claus, responding to our “wish list” prayers. Nor does he need to prove his existence or his authority by giving in to our demands, at Christmas or any other time of the year. But by transforming himself into one of us, to walk among us and experience the same struggles that we experience – God becoming a man, Jesus Christ – then taking the punishment that we alone deserved – God did something that was beyond anyone’s imagination.

Imagination is only the start of believing – and receiving – what God has done for us.

Enter the worlds of children this Christmas, and practice some imagination. You might discover something new.

Find more reviews of “Miracle on 34th Street” at amazon.com!

Christmas is a wonderful time for families. It can also be a lonely and despairing time for people without one.

In the film, “Lethal Weapon”, Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) is an LAPD detective who’s on the edge. Recently widowed, he’s become violent on the job and suicidal in his private thoughts. Christmas isn’t much of a celebration for him – it’s just another needling reminder of how alone he is. After staring at a picture of his wife, he prepares to shoot himself and end his misery. But he reports to work instead.

Unsure of what to do with him, Riggs’ superiors dump him off on Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover). A stable cop preparing for retirement, Murtaugh is in no mood to deal with Riggs and his multiple problems, but he doesn’t have a choice. He’s stuck with Riggs, who is considered a “lethal weapon” for his Special Forces fighting skills, and deemed a danger to himself and others. Murtaugh is Riggs’ last chance to work with a partner.

Once they learn to respect and trust one another, Murtaugh invites Riggs over to his house for dinner. A loner who lives on violence every day, Riggs feels awkward in the Murtaughs’ cozy living room and kitchen, full of Christmas decorations and the aroma of home-cooking. Murtaugh introduces Riggs to his wife, Trish (Darlene Love) and his three children, as Riggs tries to settle in. Riggs eventually eases into the family setting, as he discusses Murtaugh’s fishing trips and listens to his banter with Trish, while fending off a crush from Murtaugh’s teen daughter, Rianne (Traci Wolfe). By the time he’s ready to leave for the night, he concludes that Murtaugh has a really nice family, and tells him so. At the same time, Riggs is starting to realize that a family like Murtaugh’s is exactly what he needs.

After I graduated from college, I continued to attend a small church for many years. I was the only single man among a dozen married couples, most of whom had small kids. I felt awkward at times, too, but people welcomed me into their homes and made me feel like part of their family. I learned how married people related to one another and resolved arguments, and how they played with and disciplined their children. Being allowed into the lives of those families helped me understand how a family works. More important, it made me recognize that I was not alone.

Later, my younger brother, Robert, started attending the church, and I wasn’t the only single guy anymore. Then one day he got married to his lovely wife, Laura. Afterward, I went to a post-wedding party at a church member’s home. Our pastor, Bob Frisby, told me privately that he was concerned I might feel uncomfortable now, being the only single man in the church again, because someone had made a joking comment after the wedding about my single status. He made it a point to assure me that I was just as vital in the church as any married person. He wanted me to know that I truly belonged with the church. My new family.

The Bible says that God places the lonely in families. I experienced that over the years of being single in a church full of families. I grew close enough to some of them to feel as though I was part of their own family, because that’s how they actually viewed me.

For Riggs, being welcomed into Roger Murtaugh’s family made him realize his own worth. That there were people who cared about him and wanted the best for him, not just at Christmas but throughout the year. By the end, Riggs gives Murtaugh a private “Christmas present”: the bullet he had been saving to end his life. He’s decided that he doesn’t need it anymore.

If you feel you’re alone this Christmas, reach out to people around you. Not everyone can be with their own family, but there are still people who will gladly open their door to you. Or if you’re already settled with your own family, consider who might need an invitation to join your celebration.

No one should be alone at Christmas. Reach out to those people that care about you – your extended “family”.