On his first flight in his new plane, he started to head for the airport landing strip, just as he had always done. Luckily, his wife was with him and when she saw what he was doing, she chirped, "Pull up, George, pull up! You can't land on a runway. You have pontoons! You don't have wheels!"

Looking flushed and humbled, the businessman quickly hit the throttle and veered off toward the lake. Landing safely in the still blue water, he shook his head ruefully and said, "I don't know where my mind was. I just wasn't thinking. That's one of the dumbest things I've ever done."

Then he opened the door and stepped out into the lake.

My mind operates like that sometimes, does yours? Some people have it so altogether. They always know the right thing to do. Then there are the rest of us. Those of us who step absentmindedly into the lake.

Paul wasn't addressing his remarks only to the absent-minded, though, when he writes in our text for the day, "Look carefully how you walk, not as unwise men [and women] but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil...."

Ron Newhouse