Never Hurt Your Mommy
Gene Simmons (born Chaim Witz in Haifa, Israel), known as the over-the-top, theatrical front man for the world famous, hard rock band KISS, never indulged in drug or alcohol use. That's an amazing revelation, given the party hardy rock-n-roll culture.
But Gene had an interesting motivation for staying on the straight and narrow. His mother, Flora, lived through the Holocaust and survived the horrors of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.
The Jerusalem Post reports, “I’m her only child,” ... “I knew I had no right to hurt my mother. Life had already done enough to her.”
They go on to site a fuller quote from a famous internet meme of Simmons describing his first major interview with Rolling Stone in the 1970s, saying:
“When I met the Rolling Stone writer, I was very careful to cultivate the mystique of the demon. I wore all my spider and silver jewelry and my leather pants. I puffed my hair as big as it could go. With my seven-inch platform boots with silver dollar signs on them and black nail polish, I thought I was ready to project the perfect rock-and-roll image.
"Then, at one point, the doorbell rang. I answered it, and there was my mother at the door with enough food to feed the world: fresh soups, veal chops, pancakes, jams, and cakes.
"She insisted that the writer and I – whom she referred to as 'hungry boys' – stop what we were doing and eat. She kept calling me by my Hebrew name, Chaim, and told the writer that I was a good boy. The big, bad demon was just a mama’s boy.”
The meme shows a towering, fully decked-out Simmons standing with his tiny, elderly mother.
Photo Credit/Attribution Unknown
Simmons' love, concern, compassion, and HONOR of his mama is truly admirable. And using that as motivation to be sure he never "does her wrong" is as good as any motivation one might come up with. Yet, should we really need anything so harrowing, so horrific to prompt us to always want to bring only honor to our parents? Shouldn't we all strive to do so just because it's the right thing to do?
“Honor your father and mother"—which is the first commandment with a promise—“so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth” (Ephesians 6:2-3, NIV).
The Difference A Label Can Make
A Dutch bicycle manufacturer, VanMoof, has come up with an ingenious idea for ensuring that its product is safely transported to its customers. Oddity Central reports:
VanMoof plans to sell 90 percent of its bicycles online by 2020, but after seeing a considerable number of products getting damaged during deliveries and incurring serious losses, the company was left with two options – rethink its business plan or come up with an effective solution. Luckily, they managed to come up with something so brilliant that it’s bound to be copied by other companies that rely heavily on online sales.
Creative director Bex Rad wrote on the company blog:
Earlier this year our co-founder Ties had a flash of genius. Our boxes are about the same size as a (really really reaaaally massive) flatscreen television. Flatscreen televisions always arrive in perfect condition. What if we just printed a flatscreen television on the side of our boxes?
By simply printing a flatscreen TV on the boxes, they reduced the rate of damaged goods by 70 to 80 percent.
When we value what’s in the box, we treat the box with greater care.
In Genesis 1:27 we read, "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." When we understand that people have been imprinted with the very image of God, we treat people with greater care.
But there’s something else that belongs on the outside of our box, something that increases our value even more. Yes, we possess God’s image; but we have also been bought and redeemed by the sacrifice of the Son of God. That means that every person you meet has a price tag placed on them by God Himself--the value of the very life of Christ.
When we value what’s in the box, we treat the box with greater care. How do YOU treat people?
“See how the precious children of Jerusalem, worth their weight in fine gold, are now treated like pots of clay made by a common potter” (Lamentations 4:2).
Men Wanted for Hazardous Duty
Warren Wiersbe, in his commentary of the New Testament, recounts how in the early 1900s, a London newspaper carried an advertisement that read: “Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.”
The ad, signed by famous Arctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, brought Inquiries from thousands of men.
[Warren W. Wiersbe is best known as a Bible teacher, author, and conference speaker. He has ministered in churches and conferences in Canada, Central and South America, Europe, and the United States. He has published more than 150 books and was awarded the Gold Medallion Lifetime Achievement Award by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association.]
Wiersbe postulates, “If Jesus Christ had advertised for workers, the announcement might have read something like this: ‘Men and women wanted for difficult task of helping to build My church. You will often be misunderstood, even by those working with you. You will face constant attack from an invisible enemy. You may not see the results of your labor, and your full reward will not come till after all your work is completed. It may cost you your home, your ambitions, even your life.’”
"Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me'" (Matthew 16:24).