Norris Burkes

I was 28 when the Air Force sent me to Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, to complete Chaplain Basic Training.

For three weeks, I was elbow-to-elbow with other young chaplain wannabes.

On my left sat the first of many chaplain priest friends. Yet from the beginning, Father Frank found me disturbing on two levels.

This summer I flew to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, to sharpen 1,492 pencils. A long trip for such a chore.

But readers of this column know I’m involved with the Chispa Project, which outfits libraries for children in Honduras. My daughter Sara Brakhane directs the project.

Those sharpened pencils were needed for Pedro Nufio Elementary School, home of Chispa’s 88th Honduran library.

Disney theme parks introduced a new ride this year to replace the old Splash Mountain. The attraction—Tiana’s Bayou Adventure—opened in Florida and debuts in Anaheim this winter.

For me, the updated ride can never match the magic I felt on my first visit to Disneyland decades ago. I arrived with my church youth group, led by our volunteer leader, James Newman, known as JE.

As we waited for opening gates, JE suggested we voice a prayer of thanks. His prayer went something like this:
“Dear God, thank you for safe travel today and our wonderful youth group. But most of all thank you for putting Disneyland here just for us! Amen.”

The caller to my church office had a question. “First,” he said, “I’m curious as to what kind of church you are running up there?”

This was the kind of question I get since returning to the pastor role.

Many callers are like the young mother of three who told me, “I have three churches I’m considering attending. But first, I’m asking the pastors to answer some questions.”

She squashed that ordinal number “first,” as if drawing a line in the theological sand.

“First, does your church teach tithing?”

Whenever I meet fellow veterans, we often engage in some good-natured ribbing. I set up the first joke by announcing that I’m an Air Force vet. This inevitably invokes the response, “Oh, you mean you’re a Chair Force vet.”

I understand the nickname because Air Force members occupied a lot of chairs doing technical work in places such as Cyber Command and Space Command.

I met those seat-techies in 1994, on my first active-duty assignment at Onizuka Air Force Station in Sunnyvale.