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Perhaps no question is more misunderstood or has kept more people away from God than this: Why do bad things happen to good people?

The implied questions are more direct: Why didn’t God keep this from happening? How could a good God allow evil, pain and suffering – particularly to “good” people?

Little Johnny’s third-grade teacher asked, “Johnny, how do you spell crocodile?”

Johnny thought for a moment and then began, “K-R-O-K-O-D-I-A-L”.

“That’s not the way crocodile is spelled,” Johnny’s teacher corrected.

“Maybe not,” replied Johnny, “but you asked me how I spell it!”

You may recall a few weeks ago when I hand-wringingly admitted a periodic paranoia about bridges, especially those that are high and narrow or creakily cross creeks.

So you may understand that I see terrible irony – and not simply coincidence, language fans – in the fact that we now face two similar and simultaneous problems with bridges.

There is, of course, the historic and embraceable (work with me) Who Da Thot It Bridge here in Shelbyville and now the Sherman Minton Bridge just up I-64 at the Ohio River.

A  man and I were talking the other day about another lost teaching moment for young people.
We reminisced about how boys and girls are missing out on one of those annual activities that taught us so much about the challenges of life, about how we could face them, and, well, about nature, in a roundabout way.
In fact, of the fundamentals taught to our dubious and dumbfounded dispositions, I might suggest this endeavor had perhaps the greatest impact on our development this side of a hug or a switch, though hardly anywhere close to that personal.