Tag: fiction

What really matters

You know the moment: Young George (and later the adult George) steps up to the old countertop device, closes his eyes, crosses his fingers, whispers his grandest dream—”I wish I had a million dollars”—and then squeezes the lever. A small, reliable flame springs to life on the very first try. His eyes snap open, he grins wide, and out bursts that exuberant exclamation: “Hot dog!”

What a perfectly old-fashioned thing to say! “Hot dog!” was the 1920s–1940s equivalent of today’s “Yes!”, “Awesome!”, or “Let’s go!”—pure, unfiltered joy.

But the real magic lies in what that little device actually was: a vintage cigar lighter, a common fixture in early 20th-century drugstores and soda fountains. These contraptions were notoriously unreliable. The flint might spark weakly, the fuel might be low, or the mechanism might just be finicky. Most people had to try several times to get a flame.

So a charming piece of kid folklore sprang up: If the lighter lit on the first try, your wish was destined to come true.

Every single time George makes that wish in the movie—once as a boy full of big dreams, and again as a young man about to “shake the dust of this crummy little town” off his feet—the flame appears instantly. Hot dog! His wish is sealed. The universe has spoken.

Of course, as the story unfolds across decades of sacrifice, heartbreak, quiet heroism, and small-town love, we realize George never gets the million dollars. He never builds skyscrapers in Babylon or dances on the equator. The grand adventures stay just out of reach.

And yet… that lighter always lit on the first try.

In the end, the film whispers the deeper truth: George’s real wish—the unspoken one beneath all the million-dollar dreams—was for a life that mattered. For connection, for family, for being needed. And that wish? It came true spectacularly, flame after flame, in ways he could never have imagined as a boy at Gower’s counter.

On this Christmas Eve in 2025, with the world feeling heavy and uncertain for so many, I find comfort in that tiny, stubborn flame. It reminds me that the things we wish for most desperately often arrive in disguise. The million dollars might never show up, but the million little moments of love, kindness, and community? Those add up to something infinitely richer.

So tonight, if you’re feeling the weight of the year, maybe try this: Close your eyes for a second. Make a quiet wish—not for riches or escape, but for the things that really light up a life. Then imagine a small flame flickering to life on the very first try.

Hot dog.

Merry Christmas, May your own wonderful life be full of first-try flames, unexpected joy, and the kind of love that turns ordinary days into miracles.

And remember: You really have had a wonderful life… even if you haven’t always seen it that way.

With gratitude and a little snow-dusted hope

Standing Between Darkness and Light: Reflections at Sixty-Seven

There are moments in life when movies, memories, and years of lived experience weave themselves into a single thread. Looking back from sixty-seven, I can see how the stories that once entertained me now speak with deeper meaning. They shine a quiet light on what I have carried, what I have learned, and who I have become.

Two films from late 2001 come to mind—stories set in the shadows of espionage and conflict, filled with characters wrestling with impossible choices. On the surface, they were thrillers. Beneath the surface, they were studies in darkness, loyalty, and the long, hard road toward redemption. Only now do I see why they left such a mark.

Photo by David McElwee on Pexels.com

Both narratives followed men who lived in the shadows—first as soldiers, then as operatives shaped by ambiguity. Each learned to navigate life with precision, endurance, and a sense of duty that often required more than most people ever see. They carried weight—emotional, moral, and sometimes spiritual. They worked under pressure, made decisions that others would never know about, and shouldered consequences that rarely made headlines.

Yet in the end, their defining moments weren’t the missions they completed or the dangers they survived. Their defining moments were the ones where they chose love over protocol, compassion over convenience, and human life over institutional safety. In those choices, we see how men shaped by darkness still gravitated toward the light.

At sixty-seven, I understand that more deeply than I once did.

Life has a way of testing every belief we have about ourselves. There are seasons when the weight feels unbearable—years of responsibility, the losses that accumulate, the roles we never asked for but stepped into anyway. There are moments when duty seems to conflict with compassion, when institutions fail the people in them, and when the world asks us to harden our hearts just to stay afloat.

But there is another story running underneath all of that. A quieter one.

The older I get, the more convinced I am that light has a way of finding its way into even the darkest corners. Faith becomes less about having every answer and more about trusting that God meets us in the places where our strength wears thin. Love becomes less of a feeling and more of a choice—a decision to stand with people, protect them, guide them, or rescue them when the world turns away.

Redemption, too, looks different with time. It is not a sudden, dramatic reversal. It is slow, steady restoration. It is the grace that holds you together when you have carried too much for too long. It is the courage to step toward the light even after walking through shadows.

When I look back, I see how many moments were shaped by these themes. Times of crisis where clarity finally emerged. Seasons of confusion that eventually revealed deeper purpose. Relationships tested but made stronger by truth. Leadership forged in hard places. And always, the gentle hand of God pulling me back toward the light when the world felt heavy.

Those old movie stories were fiction, but the truths inside them are not. We all stand at the crossroads between darkness and light more often than we admit. We all feel the strain of choices that have no easy answers. And all of us, if we are honest, long for redemption—something that tells us our struggles were not wasted and our sacrifices were not in vain.

At sixty-seven, this is the lesson that rings truest:
the weight we carry does not define us. What defines us is the love we choose, the faith we hold, the light we walk toward, and the redemption that meets us along the way.

#LightInTheDarkness
#FaithInTheJourney
#RedemptionStory
#LessonsAt67
#HopeThatHolds