While at lunch on Saturday in our little town of Belvidere, I looked up and coming in the doorway was my son, Sean. He lives in Florida so seeing him in a restaurant in my town was a surprise, to… Continue reading

On Wednesday evening, on a local back road, a teen-age boy’s life ended in a terrible crash. Yesterday the tragedy compounded when news outlets reported that he took his own life. I did not know him but I cannot shake… Continue reading

Finding the right balance between feeling valued as a human being and becoming an entitled narcissist is not all that simple. Our culture preaches self-love to us constantly, yet millions of people live with insecurity, trying desperately to prove their… Continue reading

Down deep most of us want to have a purpose, a mission in life, to know: “This is the reason I exist.” Yes, I’m old enough to remember the Blues Brothers, Jake and Elwood, who made a punch line out… Continue reading

When people call me “Pastor” they are using the Latin word for “Shepherd.”  My daily prayer is that I will care for the flock of God in a loving, caring, spiritually protective way. Sometimes, when the pain of another overwhelms… Continue reading

There is an old story, true or not I’m not sure, about a man who strung a tight-rope across Niagara Falls to show his skills. To the gathered crowd he asked, “Who believes I can push this wheelbarrow to the… Continue reading

At my age there is a real possibility of becoming ‘set in my ways.’  The ways I ‘do life,’ the foods I like, the patterns I follow, are comfortable, like a pair of old shoes. And that’s just fine. A… Continue reading

Who is the real you? Yesterday the political world focused on some past words of one of the candidates. In a video clip that played widely, he made statements that were cringe-worthy about crime and race, his words seeming to… Continue reading

I am not an athlete and so in teen years when athletic prowess is so important, I had no skills necessary for the games in high school phys ed class. When the appointed captains picked teams I always felt humiliated.… Continue reading

We all tend to feel some level of discomfort when another person shakes up our understanding about how the world works. This is not just true about the ‘big’ idea things. We tend to think that the way Mom made… Continue reading