Blogging is the best way I know to begin writing. The craft is learned by doing and blogging provides the discipline of writing for someone else on a regular basis. I realize the technical issues may seem a little daunting to you, so I will help you get started. Your will… Continue reading
If you have determined, perhaps, somewhat tepidly, that you want to give writing a try, where do you begin? Certainly, you can open up a new Word document and write away for your own satisfaction. However, there are two significant limitations with that approach. Not many people will read what… Continue reading
I became a writer as a pastor who wrote sermons. For about fifteen years, I never wrote out a sermon. It was too much work and wanted to keep the presentation spontaneous and real sounding. So, I used and an extended outline. When I did begin writing sermons out, surprisingly,… Continue reading
This month’s synchroblog focuses on helping Christians know what to do (or not do) and what to say (or not say) when others are going through times of personal tragedy. Links to the other writer’s contributions are listed at the end of the post. You will want to check them… Continue reading
This is a book that hardly anybody wants to talk about. That alone makes it important. We don’t like talking about death or “having our affairs in order,” and we really don’t like delving into financial and personal business matters that involve the likes of the IRS. When Someone Dies… Continue reading
When you’re stumped, when you have writer’s block; write about that. That’s a paraphrase of what Bono said about said songwriting. I can always think of something to write about. This blog is evidence of that fact. But I do feel a little flat. I feel like I need a challenge,… Continue reading
Yesterday, I tried to remove all evidences of winter from my property. I picked up the maple sticks that had fallen in the yard, as well as the dog poop. Both had been held in the icy clutches of the snow and re-frozen snow that became ice for months. I… Continue reading
I am just now sending a book to the editor that should have been published by last October. There are some reasons for the delay, like, travel and other pressing events. But the main reason that it is not published is me. Honestly, sometimes I think it is crap. Sometimes,… Continue reading
Since I was a pastor for all of those years, since I am the age I am, and since I am currently hanging out with my parents at a hospital, I have been thinking bout elderly people and aging. Having been around so many members of The Greatest Generation, I… Continue reading
Time flies when you’re having fun! A watched pot never boils. Everything takes longer than you think it will. We have all of these quaint little sayings about time. Really time is nothing more than incremental measurements of our existence. It’s unrelenting as symbolized by the ticking of the… Continue reading
I am sitting here is the darkened breakfast room of The Holiday Inn Express adjacent to the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City. It’s almost eleven at night. I am out here so my mom has a dark and quiet room to try to get a head start… Continue reading
The war on Christmas is all the “rage” in some conservative and Christian circles. Their cry is to keep Christ in Christmas. Everybody knows that our cultural celebration of the holiday involves a lot of traditions that do not overtly express the origins and deepest meaning of the season. I… Continue reading
We love having our family around us at Christmas. Every year for forty-three years we have had a Christmas Eve gathering that originally included our kids, then their wives, then the grandkids, then the great grandkids, and occasionally other family members and friends who need a place to feel loved. Some… Continue reading
The call came when I least expected it. I had just finished a huge late season window cleaning job and came home exhausted and I was falling asleep while opening the mail. Then Patty called. She said. “It’s time. He’s coming early.” In a daze, I replied, “Time? Coming?” Being… Continue reading
It was one of those times in life when everything else seems to stop and all of the important and pressing matters are no longer important or pressing. I remember it like it happened in slow motion. Patty and I were walking along main street in the Kansas City suburb… Continue reading
I have to tell you what happened while we were in St. Paul enjoying Thanksgiving, our grandson’s birthday, and our daughter and son-in-law’s anniversary, all between last Wednesday and this Sunday. First, I asked a neighbor to take care of our crazed cat and watch over the place while we… Continue reading
I usually think about values in terms of my obituary, what I would want people to remember about me when I am gone. I would like them to say: He was real. Pretension makes me nauseous, and sometimes I am nauseating, but my goal is to be real. Being real gives other… Continue reading
My faith is unconventional to say the least. I have been a pastor for over twenty years, but I no longer “go to church.” I have read and studied each book of the Bible and I have taught several of them in great detail, but I don’t read it much… Continue reading
Getting older and having little to lose by expressing my opinion, has some real advantages. I have a lot of ideas and values that are very different than those I embraced in the first half of life. I like to write about these ideas once and awhile to help be… Continue reading
My life, my vocation, my identity, and the church have always been intertwined. I finally came to the realization that somehow these things had to be unwound. Being my vocation was just too painful. My emotions, sense of worth, and well being would rise and fall like the tide, depending on how… Continue reading
We have recently been to a couple of huge area festivals that attract thousands, the Strawberry Festival in Cedarburg, Wisconsin and Fish Day in Port Washington, Wisconsin. The Strawberry Festival in a massive array of all kinds of vendors taking up several blocks of charming, historical downtown Cedarburg. There is… Continue reading
I am an analytical, process-oriented person who sees the value of plans and systems, but I am increasingly reverting back to the “impatience” of my youth. I don’t really think it is impatience. Instead, I believe I have mistakenly listened to the voices of the ultra-cautious naysayers (including my own)… Continue reading
We have been road trip warriors this spring with a 3,500 mile tour of the South and a trip to Northwestern Missouri to visit family only three weeks later. I confess, I had mixed feelings about the latter trip because I knew it would be busy, if not chaotic. Five… Continue reading
After a couple (or was it three) very potent Margaritas and several hands of Rummy, someone said something that I found amusing at the time and I broke out in uncontrollable giggling. When I say giggling, I mean I sounded like a Junior High girl. And when I say uncontrollable, I… Continue reading
Am I staring at it or is it staring at me? I could say anything, but not just anything comes from my soul and not just anything will touch another soul. Sometimes the words flow much faster than the spelling and grammar can keep up with. Other times, the… Continue reading
Many Christmases ago when my nephew was at the height of the cool toy stage of life, he tore into one of his gifts from my parents, his grandparents, to make the awful discovery that his practical-minded grandma had given him the gift of tidy whities. They were not cool boxers… Continue reading
Why can’t I be happy sitting in the pew and doing a little something to help out at church? Why can’t I be content to be a part of community association and help out at various fundraisers? Why can’t I become a part of the system and just shut up? Look… Continue reading
My favorite NFL team lost today… by a wide point spread … to a really bad team… on the heels of a four game winning streak, and I didn’t like it one bit! I hate expectations! I really hate them when they are projected on me and I am almost always disappointed… Continue reading
Temperatures cooling Hearts warming Family converging Kitchen cooking Television parading Table praying, chattering, complimenting, delightfully consuming Dishes washing Football watching Paper reading Naps calling Holidays commercialized This one less corrupted A reminder to Hold each other close Remember our advantages And those for whom they remain a distant hope All… Continue reading
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA&w=640&h=480] Steve Jobs made me do it! In his 2005 commencement speech at Stanford he told three stories from his life that wound up shaping his future. They were about dropping out of college, getting fired from Apple, and being told he only had a short while to live. When… Continue reading
Is it bad to get angry? Contrary to what I was taught, no, it is not. It is not bad to let your anger control you? Yes. And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.” Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry. (Ephesians 4:26) Anger is a… Continue reading
Transitions are always unsettling, filled with thoughts of excitement, fear, anticipation, and anxiety. It would be great if we could set our personal GPS and follow the directions to our desired location, never needing to redirect. But, alas, that is not at the way life plays out and it really… Continue reading
Right now, I am frustrated. My current circumstances provide lots of opportunities to find myself in such a state. Fortunately, I have been in good spirits for some time. Roadblocks have led to creative thinking or an acceptance of the uncertainty of all that hangs in the balance. I am not… Continue reading
I am a dislocated warm weather guy. So, I usually have a lot to complain about with the fluky, upper Midwest, Great Lakes-influenced weather where I live. Just one “problem”, it has been a lovely spring, which is unheard of around here. In our area, there are scads of free… Continue reading
This part of me trying to explain my relationship to the church. You might want to read Part 1, first. Question #2 Why don’t you go to church anymore? Short answer: I am currently following Jesus without being a part of the institutional church because I like the freedom that it provides in living… Continue reading
I write as a way to help me make sense of things with the hope that it might help someone else who happens to read it. So, I thought I would tackle questions about my relationship to the church. I know by delving into this personal area that I am opening… Continue reading
When thinking about a framework for laying out my personal story, I thought of Moses. While I don’t rate the same biblical or prophetic pay grade as Moses, the great movements in his life remind a bit of mine, only not in the same biblical proportions. Okay, the Moses comparison… Continue reading
