A Putin Pay Cut

September 23, 2022

It was seven years ago that I wrote the following words about Vladimir Putin.  And frankly, while I don’t have an update on his projected net worth, the world has a more vivid picture of just who this man is. This makes the contrast with the finest teacher who ever walked the planet more stark.  […]

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Hand in hand

September 16, 2022

His was the first day of second grade. A new school. Unfamiliarity in excess. Hers was the start of school. Kindergarten. Again, all new… facilities, instructors, administrators and relationships. New. But as Abe and Juni ventured off to school together on day one, they had something that transcended new. Something that more than equalized the […]

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Queen Elizabeth II has died

September 9, 2022

At 96 years old, and after serving as England’s prime monarch for over 70 years, the Queen passed away.   And as the news breaks, the world seems to recoil. Words like tragic, and unexpected, and devastating emerge. With surprising intensity, dignity, and urgency. It is indisputable that Queen Elizabeth II lived a noteworthy, and […]

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Neighbors From Different Neighborhoods

September 2, 2022

I’m not sure that I can put a firm timeframe together on when our Colorado Community Church “neighborhood” began to assemble, but at the start it coalesced as a community of care for Mary and me as we brought Eunice Cargo, Mary’s 90-year-old Mom, to church with us. We tended to gravitate to a particular […]

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Cosmic FaceTime

August 26, 2022

Picture the scene… a classroom in a vibrant church in the Chicago suburbs. The date is March, 2010, and the context is a Sunday shortly after the death of my Mom. Grace Wolgemuth was a regular attender at the church, and loved by all who knew her. Ruth Guillaume, my sister, was interacting with a […]

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Emmie…

August 19, 2022

Just, Emmie. As summer begins to retreat, some days more willingly than others, I’m prone to reflect on this past season. Perhaps a throwback to the years of reporting to my classmates at Whittier Elementary School in Wheaton on my summer activities. This summer was punctuated by significant time with our eleven grandchildren. Seldom all […]

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Does Jesus Know Sign Language?

August 5, 2022

The video rolled… all 3 minutes and 53 seconds of it. Watch the video here, Deaf Teen Quest – Ajah’s Story. It told a story. Actually, several stories. Of a mission, of a message, of a passion for the overlooked and silenced. Ellen Kameraad was the storyteller. But there was no mistake that it was […]

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I Got It Wrong, or Did I?

July 22, 2022

For years I’ve enjoyed quoting Thomas Friedman in his noteworthy book, The World Is Flat. Nearing the end of this work he sets the criteria from which to judge the worth of a culture. In essence, Friedman says that you “judge a culture, society, or organization, by whether it has more dreams than memories, or more […]

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Queen Juni

July 15, 2022

Juni and I sat in an exam room, waiting for a doctor to come and give us the treatment options for the weeks ahead. Juni and her three siblings are staying with us for a few days, and a “hill rolling adventure” gone awry had resulted in a broken humerus bone for our 5-year-old granddaughter. […]

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He wept. We weep.

July 1, 2022

But as he came closer to Jerusalem and saw the city ahead, he began to weep. (Luke 19:41) “It wouldn’t be so bad if my Mom just smoked pot.” A 12-year-old. A camper at our YFC middle school camp. A throwaway line to a cabin leader who had helped to get this boy to camp. […]

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