Charles (Chuck) Kensinger

Feel Good Ads

August 20, 2024

I’ve written about commercials that I find stupid or offensive. I would like to tell you about some of my favorites that promote happiness and health. Have you seen the Jardiance spots that promote this diabetes medication? They are an old-style musical song and dance production. If you don’t like musicals, you will not enjoy them.

Another good one is the Make-A-Wish advertisement with the little girl roping and pulling a star. She takes it to a window in a hospital room. She wants the star to grant the wish for another kid who needs hope and encouragement.

One thing that makes me feel good is music. I like a good advertising jingle or an old familiar song used in a new way. I am not talking about the mattress commercial that uses three words “all night long” from a song. I mean the songs that I grew up with. If an ad uses music from the sixties or seventies, it gets my attention.

That is what they are trying to do. Get our attention. Sell their products. We have a free economy. You can sell someone a rock and call it a pet. You can make a doll, give it a name and a birth certificate, and sell it for ten times what it costs to make. Don’t sell people stock certificates to a company that doesn’t exist. You might go to jail for that.

Advertising and propaganda are the same thing. Advertising is good. Propaganda is bad. They attempt to do the same things. Convince you that you need something they have. Propaganda sells ideologies. Advertising sells products.

Political commercials are propaganda. They want you to believe the half-truths and misinformation that they spread. That guy is a communist. He voted for higher taxes. No one wants higher taxes. We all hate commies, or is it anarchists this week? Put an old song in the background and we might listen to your commercial.

I need another song. I need to stop writing about what some commercials want me to believe and just relax and listen to the Beach Boys, Elvis, or the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. I think I need a new mattress. All night long.

Pride before the fall

August 19, 2024

What does it mean when someone says, “Pride goes before a fall?” You may have heard it in a movie or TV show. Some of you may think that it is in the Bible. Warnings against pride fill the scriptures but these are not words that appear there.

Pride is the emotion that makes us think that we are better than others. Pride lifts us up above who we really are. Belittling others is one of those things that does not make you better. It makes you less.

Jesus told us to take the lower place at feasts. Let others move us to a better seat. We need to humble ourselves. When we think of those around us as being equal or better than us, we become a friend, a loving companion, and a confidant. When we think we are better than others, we become a bully, a braggart, a loud mouth.

Jesus told a story of two men who were praying. One was a Jewish leader, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee thanked Jehovah that he wasn’t a sinner like the other guy. The IRS man fell on his face and asked for forgiveness. Jesus said the second man was the one who was justified by his prayer.

Another problem that came up for Christ was the hypocrisy of those who rejected Him. They wanted a sign from Him to prove He was sent by God. Healing people by His touch, raising the dead, and walking on water, was not enough for them. Satan wanted Him to turn stones into bread or jump off the temple roof. He refused to perform stunts for the entertainment of the crowd.

The Sanhedrin expected to become the rulers when Messiah drove the Romans out. That was not what the prophecy said. That was the second step of the process. We need to follow the steps in our lives. One at a time. Lose the things that clutter our time and keep moving.

We all know someone who is puffed up with themselves. We see this in businesspeople and politicians of all parties. A bully is someone trying to prove he is smarter, richer, or stronger than you. They use names, insults, or physical violence to make us think they are better than we are.

A lot of people have fallen because of their pride. The saddest scenario is when they continue failing repeatedly without learning this time-worn saying. Success is not measured by making money, building structures, or winning elections. Others will support you when you treat them kindly. A loser does not know that he can gain the whole world and lose his soul. Jesus said that, too.

Technology is ahead of the law

August 18, 2024

I heard this statement on the news tonight in a story about information that our smart vehicles are collecting about us. This data can be obtained by law enforcement agencies with a subpoena. It also may be sold by those who collect it. That may be the car company or a third party.

I had not thought about this. Your location at any time, calls you make including recordings, or even conversations in your vehicle are some of the things that you don’t know others have access to.

My wife and I have commented about product ads that we discussed popping up on Google. We have smart TVs and a smart vehicle. Where else may we be that someone is listening in or watching us. We do not have the devices many use to play music or answer questions on command.

The statement “technology is ahead of the law” did not surprise me. I have known it for years. Every new technological breakthrough has been used in ways that the government eventually restricts.

Manufacturers have been forced to make workplaces safer. Children have been taken out of the U.S. workforce many years ago. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was created to protect workers years after manufacturers failed to provide safe working conditions.

When telegraphs, railroads, automobiles, airplanes, and many other devices became widespread it took years for laws to be ratified controlling their use to protect the public. We still have problems with internet companies and Congress can’t seem to decide on what needs to be done.

If you are under thirty years old, you probably haven’t seen this fact of life. The government is always behind on everything. They promise us everything when they are campaigning and after forty or fifty years in office they retire and have not fulfilled half of their promises.

The talking head who made this statement must not have much experience. He probably still believes in the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus. We need to realize that Big Brother is not just a reality TV show. We are being watched and listened to when we don’t expect it. That is today’s reality. Welcome to the future.

Commercials # Two

July 27, 2024

These ads are insulting.

I watch commercials. I am a fan. Not all advertising meets my criteria. I am critical of those copywriters that make fun of us. The ads running with the councilor that are helping young homeowners not become their parents are especially offensive.

Two of our three daughters and their husbands own their homes. The finance company is also a shareholder. They are not becoming us. They all have some similarities to us and our in-laws. They are their own individuals. However, I shave my father in the mirror most days. On other days, I do not shave.

My children’s parents do not post pictures of meals and parties. Some of them and their children do. My life is not boring. If it was, you would not be reading my columns and books. I rest my case and my backside.

I am friendly, even on elevators. I also have bad jokes. At least my kids and grandkids say they are bad. I do not understand why they use my material if it is not worth laughing at. Some of them have been handed down for generations.

Then there is the TV commercial about the in-house composter. I recycle a lot of things. I follow the adage “reduce, reuse, recycle.” However, I believe that composting is best done in the ground. I have buried the leaves and food waste for many years. My garden beds are raised. That makes it easy to recycle food and yard waste. I no longer dig 3x3x6 foot trenches in my garden. It was an effective visual for the young men who wanted to date my daughters.

All the insurance commercials drive me up the wall. While sitting on the ceiling I compare Flo, Evie, the Allstate guy, the cartoon general, the toucan, and all the other spokespeople. You can insure your car, life, health, pets, and all your expensive toys.

There is even insurance that is represented as a warranty. Everything stops working at some point. Pay a monthly fee and someone else will pay some of the repair expenses. Be sure to read the fine print. What they tell you in the commercial is not what you thought you heard. Listen for “starting at,” “beginning with,” “from,” and all those other words that require thousands of words to cover their rears.

The ads for the portable fire pits that show their product in many settings with different folks around them are some of the best I have seen. They are simple and understated. The main purpose of advertising is to make you remember their name. I remember some of the company’s names, which I have shared here. There are those that I couldn’t give you even if I wanted to.

What are your favorite commercials and why? You may not see many except for the ones that pop up on your phone or streaming service. Mostly those are short and sweet which is what makes the best advertising. If there is small print on the screen or *, &, #, or other non-verbal communication do not agree to anything before you read everything. Happy hunting.

America is still great

July 26, 2024

Get lost in the fifties with me.

I am a child of the fifties. I began school in the fall of 1960. When the decade changed to the seventies, I was in high school. I wrote a feature story about how it felt to begin a new decade which was published in my high school newspaper. I wanted to become a journalist. That was where I was headed.

I remember when Allan Shepherd became the first American to fly in the first Mercury manned spacecraft. I was in front of our TV watching Walter Cronkite as Mr. Shepherd took that historic ride. I was there for the launch of all six mercury flights including John Glenn’s Friendship 7 orbital flight and Gordon Cooper’s final Mercury flight in Faith 7.

I watched every launch of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. I saw most of the splashdowns. My life revolved around the NASA space program and the astronauts. When I graduated from high school, there was one more moon mission to be flown. In my opinion the manned space program showed the greatness of America.

I watched this live. Did you?

Yes, we beat the Russians to the moon. We do not know for sure, but it is assumed that more cosmonauts were lost during their programs than were killed in our entire history of space flight. Does this make America great? I think that depends on your perspective.

The Russians who put themselves at risk were willing to risk their lives just as Americans and others have. America has never been great because of our government. We are great because of our people. Our government started the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; however, it took courageous men to go into space. These men were my heroes.

As a boy, teenager, young man, and eventually a father I looked at these heroes as people that I wanted to emulate. I knew I did not have the courage, physical stamina, and intelligence that astronauts had. I did have the courage to become a husband and father. My dad had been my hero for many years. He was up there with those astronauts.

I had given up my dream of being a journalist to surrender to be a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. As I trained to be a preacher, I learned that what made America great was the gospel of Christ as it has been represented in the American citizen. Not everyone born in the United States does things that make this country great.

Today there is a slogan used by a political group Make America Great Again. This is abbreviated MAGA. Because of the person who started using this slogan while running for President, many of us do not view MAGA as a positive force. My personal viewpoint has always been that America is great because of great Americans.

You are probably one of these people that I am talking about. How do we make our country great? We must be good citizens. That means respecting others and being willing to work. We must be kind to others. Patience is a virtue. There are many virtues.

One of my favorite School House Rock episodes.

I find it depressing that there are those that believe that America is great or not because of whoever is President. He is one man. An entire country is not good or bad because of one man. Our constitution says that our government is by the people and for the people. A person is singular. We the people are plural.

I believe that it is our responsibility to Keep America Great. Would you comment below if you agree that we need to keep America great. I would like to see as many of us that are making this a wonderful world to adopt the slogan Keep America Great, not Make America Great Again. Which do you believe in, an America that needs to be made great or keeping it great by treating others as we want to be treated?

For better or for worse

July 12, 2024

I’ve officiated at several weddings over the years. I remember the first one in the fall of 1976. Cindy and I had not been married for a year. My store manager at Wendy’s asked his girlfriend to marry him. When she said yes, he asked me to marry them. I used standard traditional vows for them. Love, honor, and cherish till death do you part. The line, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse was also included in the ceremony.

As the years went by and other weddings, I noticed that some brides and grooms did not want these words and those traditional vows were changed. One couple gave me a ceremony they downloaded from the internet that included their children from other marriages. Their pastor had declined to marry them because of the vows.

Think about what the phrase for better or for worse means. The best situations you can imagine are the better. No one wants to think about what the worst could be. What if the plane crashed as you were flying home from your honeymoon? What could be worse? It crashed on the way to the location.

What would cause you to get a divorce? Adultery? Finding out that your spouse had a million dollars of debt and no intention of ever paying it off? They were married before and forgot to tell you. And they also neglected to get a divorce. As you move into your first place together, the police pull up and arrest your one and only for rape or murder.

Would you stick it out in these situations? What is the worst you can think of? Do you know that often it is the best thing that causes a marriage to fail? Children can be a bone of contention for some couples. Women may transfer their love for their husbands to their children. He would be torn between his love for them and his need for companionship.

Wedding vows only work when you commit to each other for life. No matter what. Our marriage has lasted for forty-eight years. My Mom and Dad never made it to forty. He died when he was sixty. Mom could have found many reasons to end their marriage. She did not.

Commitment is difficult. Do not run from it. Run toward it. Fight for it and each other. I find it interesting that many couples refer to each other as a fiancé. They haven’t even set a date and have been living together for years. I’ve seen these relationships break up shortly after the wedding.

Good and bad are relative. All it takes is for circumstances to change. Hang in there, baby. The best and the worst you can imagine will change. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Challenge yourselves to become better than you have ever been.

50 years ago

July 9, 2024

Do you like nostalgia? I do. I like to think about everything I have experienced in the almost seventy years I have lived. This is not a column on the events of those decades I have lived through. I want to talk about where I was fifty short years ago.

I was a sophomore at Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri. It was called Southwest Missouri State University at that time. I was a creative writing major because they had no journalism program. In May I received my acceptance letter from Missouri University in Columbia.

My parents were surprised at my reaction to receiving that letter. I opened it and laid it down without saying any more than, “I’ve been accepted.” For over six years I had been talking about getting my degree and becoming a reporter. My love of writing grew through those years.

What happened? Why did I transfer to Southwest Baptist College in Bolivar, Missouri? God called me to become a minister of the Gospel. In March my youth pastor had asked me to serve as our pastor for youth week. I preached my first two sermons on Sunday morning and evening. I had never considered the ministry before this.

As I recovered from my week following our pastor around Springfield I began to wonder if my desire to become a reporter was what God wanted me to do with my life. Was it possible that Jesus was calling me to become a preacher? As I prayed about that, I asked if I should continue to plan for transferring to Columbia.

My decision was made early in the spring, and I transferred to SWBC to study for the ministry. I thought I was supposed to become a pastor. After graduation, I continued working at secular jobs. I realized that my calling was to be a workplace minister. That is a Christian who works inside businesses with a calling to serve his fellow employees.

My careers in purchasing, sales, and management allowed me to have contact with numerous businesses and their staff. Becoming a confidant and advisor to those around you is not always easy. My training as an interviewer and observer helped me in this regard.

After fifty years, I continue to train other Christians to be workplace ministers. You could be one of those. We are all called to be there for each other and to proclaim the gospel to everyone we can. The best way to do this is through a personal one-on-one relationship. That is how Jesus taught His followers. That’s good enough for me.

Good Friday?

March 29, 2024

Sunday is the day that we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus whom we call The Christ. Today is Friday. Why do Christians call it good. Around two thousand years ago the savior of the world was executed by the Romans. What is good about that?

Jesus said that there is none good but God. (Mark 10:18, Luke 18:19) He had just been called a Good Teacher. He was not arguing with this young man. He was trying to educate him. We call people good. They are not. We are not. Good is a word that we use easily. Jesus wanted to point out that in His definition of good, no one qualifies except Jehovah.

Can a particular day in history be considered good? Will the day you die be good or bad? Personally, the day I leave this body will be a good day for me. I will be with God. That includes Jesus. He said He would come back and take me to be where He is. (John 14:3) Why would that be bad?

If anyone had a bad day, the day we are remembering would be bad for Our Lord. He was arrested the night before. He was charged with blasphemy. That is making himself equal to Yahweh. He could not argue against that charge. He is equal. He said it. “The Father and I are one.” (John 10:30)

The Sanhedrin took Him to Pilate. (Matthew 27:2) They changed the charge. “He claims to be the King of the Jews.” (Matthew 27:11) Jesus did not deny that charge. Why would He do that? Did He want to die? No. He had to. To save me from my sins He required it. He is God. (John 1:1-5)

The previous evening the sacrifice asked if there was a way to prevent Him going through crucifixion. (Matthew 26:39) There was no other way. If He did not do it, you and I would be punished for our sins. He had to perish for the entire human race.

That was not all He must do. That is what we will celebrate this Sunday. It is not Easter. That is a holiday named for a pagan god that the Romans worshiped. The emperor took that festival of debauchery and tried to change it to honor Jesus the Christ. The name stuck. I prefer to call it Resurrection Day. We need to forget the chicks, eggs, and bunnies. It is the day of the empty tomb. Mary saw Him alive. (Matthew 28:9) The Roman soldiers were like dead men. (Matthew 28:4) Over five hundred witnessed Him in His resurrected body. Why don’t you believe it?

He came. He died on that Friday. He arose on Sunday. Friday is good because He came back to life and made it possible for all of us to live in His presence. That is yesterday, today, and after we die. Honor Him by remembering what He did for us.

Someone Please Love Me

March 27, 2024

When it debuted in 1974 my family watched “Little House on the Prairie” because Laura’s stories were some of my mother’s favorites. Between Zane Grey and Laura Ingles Wilder, I don’t think she could decide which she liked best. Grey wrote more prolifically than Mrs. Wilder. Mom had all the Little House books in her collection. She was always finding a new Grey Western that she did not remember having read.

I remember her telling me about a couple of books she had found that were new. She told me that as she started reading, they were the same stories she read before with different names.

Michael Landon produced the TV series and even wrote some of the episodes. Many were not original tales by Laura. I just watched this episode. IMDB shows it from season one, episode twenty-two. The synopsis says: “While out of town to buy horses, Charles Ingalls boards with Brett Harper, a man who is emotionally withdrawn from his unhappy family and trying to lose himself in work and whiskey, blaming himself for the accidental death of his oldest son in a riding accident four years earlier.”

This episode first aired on March 5^th, 1979. I have never seen it before. Why did God make me wait over forty-five years before he chose to show me some of His truths that are reflected in this story? Michael Landon is the screenwriter and as I said previously this was not one of Laura’s memories that she had recorded.

The theme is love. The love of a man for his wife and children and a woman for her husband and children. The death of a child often drives a couple apart and that is the plot here. This story would at first seem to be one where Charles is put in a dangerous situation.

Brett Harper is a horse breeder. Charles is sent to him to purchase ten horses by a very tight-fisted man. These characters are completely new to the series. We see none of the other regulars in the series in this episode. Michael used four main characters to draw from Charles Ingalls what we all know and love about him. He is a good and understanding man, a good father, and a friend even to strangers.

Mr. Harper invites Mr. Ingalls into his home while his crew gathers over a thousand horses for the army. Laura’s dad gets the best of that group. Of course, that means he stays with them for a few days. As you watch he becomes a surrogate father to this man’s kids. He comments on the wife’s pretty hands.

After his compliment, she sees him as a possible replacement for her grieving husband. Landon maneuvers his tale to sweetly point her back to the man that she knows she still loves if he will only give her the chance to help him. After four years of running from the anger at himself for the death of his oldest son, he decides that he will try again to let her help him gain control over alcohol and depression.

The wife is going to leave with Charles to move her children to town away from her husband. Ingalls decides that their leaving is not best for her husband. He escorts her back into the house and takes the kids from the wagon. As Laura’s father drives away, we hear in Melissa Gilbert’s voice the telling of a letter that was received two years later. A fourth child was born to the couple. A son they named Charles.

As a writer, I learned much from this script. You can start your plot the way others have before you. How your characters act must be consistent with who they are. The way the story concludes is yours. That is what I want you to hear today. You may have made bad choices in your life. It is still yours and you can change it.

Eight Decades

March 2, 2024

I’ve experienced a great deal from the time I was born in the 1950s until now in the third decade of the twenty-first century. I have not lived seventy years, but I have experienced some or all of eight decades.

My first recollections were of the race for the President that ended in November of 1960 with the election of John Kennedy. My Dad was a Teamster. This meant he and Mom always voted for the Democratic candidate. I did not understand why they did that, but I was just a kid.

Dad was a Baptist and did not want to vote for a Catholic. On more than one occasion I heard him discuss with other adults the guns and explosives that they kept in their basements to use to overthrow the government. The only other group they seemed to hate more was the blacks. That wasn’t the word they used.

In the 1960’s I watched the Mercury astronauts fly into space and circle the Earth. Later the Gemini program tested technics and technologies that would be needed during the Apollo program that took men to the moon in 1969 and into the 1970’s. A total of twelve men walked and drove on the moon. Did you know that one man took a golf club and ball to the moon and made the first drive not on the surface of the Earth?

Many new devices were developed in that decade. Microwave ovens, wireless home phones, and computers for businesses came into use. Manufacturing and technology were stepping up all around the country. Television moved into the future with cable companies spreading throughout the country.

In junior high, I discovered the world of science fiction. Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clark were the first authors that I read. The first sci-fi movie I saw was “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” It premiered in the late 1950s and is still considered one of the finest motion pictures of its kind.

The next two decades saw many low-budget films produced but the genre took a giant leap forward with the original Star Trek TV series and the first Star Wars movie. Special effects technologies continued with George Lucas and his vision. And we need to talk about graphic novels. When I started reading them, they were called comics. Everything from Spiderman, Batman, and Classics Illustrated were being published. These were much better than the Mickey Mouse and child-type magazines.

I have watched computers progress from the Univac and the IBM machine that NASA used to calculate the trajectories of all the space vehicles. The 1980s brought personal computers and cell phones into our homes. Smartphones came around in the next decade.

Those two decades saw the way we watched movies and television change drastically. Satellite systems, video cassette recorders, and compact discs for audio music became popular even though they are mostly obsolete now. The DVR and streaming services came on the scene. The internet was needed for all this new technology.

Our new millennium and century began with a possible panic that never materialized in the computer and technology areas. In my lifetime I have watched black and white, color, cable, satellite, and high-definition programming come into my home. Now I walk around with a computer more powerful than the one that got us to the moon in my shirt pocket.

I haven’t even talked about robots, artificial intelligence, and many other advances. I mentioned reading earlier. I have carried a book with me from the time I learned to read and now have over two thousand on my phone that I can read in print or audio versions. I even have comics on my phone. What a difference a decade makes.

Walk With a Servant