Here are the remarks that I shared at my Dad’s funeral on October 25th. My Dad did things right. If he took on a job, he did it right. He would give attention to detail and put in the time required to complete the task to the very best of… Continue reading
It’s not easy living in paradise. I am confronted with decisions, like are we going to hang out on the beach, go fishing, or go for a little drive to gawk at multi-million dollar coastal homes. Maybe I will do a little writing from our porch overlooking the Gulf of Mexico.… Continue reading
As I get older, I have a hard telling if I am getting wiser or just crankier, more discerning or just out of touch. Nowhere is that more apparent than in my taste in music. I once heard Justin Hayward (front man of The Moody Blues and solo artist) say… Continue reading
The Royals are atypical champions. They have no pitching ace, no huge power hitter, and no superstar. Two years ago, they were bottom dwellers. How did they become world champions? They built on the right foundation. (Character) Everybody has values and those values determine what you do, and how you… Continue reading
My column in the Kenosha News, last Monday: Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.— Howard Thurman What makes you feel alive? You may be able to answer quickly, or… Continue reading
In the summer, I was free to roam the entirety of the tiny Midwestern village, and do things with my favorite person on earth, my Grandpa. But fishing with Grandpa was the best thing ever. He got excited about fishing. I got excited about fishing. There was over sixty years… Continue reading
This post is part of the July 2015 synchroblog that invited bloggers to write about “What It Means To Be Pro-Life.” My fifty-seven year-old friend has been fighting for her life for over a month and half, after having emergency surgery to repair complications from a previous surgery. She is… Continue reading
Sam My Grandpa made everything better. He was my favorite person in the whole world. Somehow, he merged a stern German demeanor with a tender, yet manly love. As I look back, I think I was special to him, like he was to me. Six-foot-tall. Back straight as a broomstick.… Continue reading
Hold on! I am going to cover a lot of ground in just a few words. We all have our narrative, our story. That story forms a grid through which we witness events and develop opinions. Our stories are very powerful as a means of communication. That’s why a good… Continue reading
That’s what Elle Luna’s mother used to tell her. Elle is the author of the book, The Crossroads of Should and Must, a book I own, and will soon read. What does it mean when someone says, “You should…?” Let’s take a peek at what is implied by those words.… Continue reading
Here is a copy of my column from Monday’s Kenosha News. I never thought about Leonard Nimoy dying, even after he was recently admitted to the hospital suffering from COPD at eighty-three years of age. He was Mr. Spock for Pete sake! As Mr. Spock, he just got cooler as… Continue reading
People around the world have become a part of the community of the shocked and heartbroken, as they grapple with the death of the beloved, frenetic comedian and Academy Award-winning actor, Robin Williams. We all loved this guy, the comedic genius who made our heads spin, the actor who melted… Continue reading
Here is my column from Monday’s Kenosha News. Being Wisconsin, I could have entitled this column “Make Your Own Beer,” but there is a fair chance you are already doing that. Or, I might have used the title “Make Your Own Sausage,” but nobody really wants to see sausage being made. So,… Continue reading
My mother’s dad was a six foot tall, straight-standing German, the first generation born in the U.S. As a kid, I was fascinated by the fact that he served as an interpreter for the U.S. Army in WWI, and once met General John J.“Black Jack” Pershing, the commander of U.S. forces in… Continue reading
Out of all of my favorite musicians, there is one artist that has a special place in my heart above all others. When I was a kid, Johnny Cash has reached the second peak of a career that that waxed and waned through six decades. In those days, Cash was… Continue reading
Nothing says Memorial Day like noise, dirt, speed, heat, and cold. So the announcer proclaimed as the 900-horsepower winged sprint cars were being pushed onto the one-third-mile clay oval before a massive holiday weekend crowd of racing enthusiasts gathered at the county fairgrounds grandstand. It was sixty-seven degrees when the… Continue reading
It’s funny where it comes from. I am inspired by my ninety-one year old uncle that I love to visit when I am back in Missouri. To this day, he carries a bit of shrapnel in his leg from WWII that causes him some difficulty in walking. Yet, he finds… Continue reading
Something is wrong, very wrong! Something is missing. It is making us stupid. It is stressing our relationships. It is creating a gaping hole in the middle of our culture. I see it every day. It’s in my face on the cable news networks as a Republican spokesperson and his… Continue reading
Saturday, Patty and I hung out with prize hogs, bulls, rabbits, geese, goats, turkeys, and chickens (my personal favorite). Baby pigs vigorously tugged on their mommie for their dinner in front of amazed city folk who had little knowledge of the origins of their bacon. Chicks hatched before our very eyes.… Continue reading
I like senior citizens, perhaps because I am well on my way to becoming one. There are some ways in which I don’t like for people to act their age. Middle-aged people and older people that talk about their ailments and complain about taxes incessantly get on my nerves. But when… 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
Good Friday sucked. The original one was filled with brutality, torture, confusion, doubt, guilt, fear, and oppressive grief. My Good Friday began in a cemetery in a military chapel beside one of those massive fields with their row after row of tidy white grave markers of veterans. The seats in the… Continue reading
“Dad” Lewis, the owner of the hardware store in town, does not have many weeks left. He is dying of lung cancer. He has always been a man of few words who was not known for his compassion. His faithful wife is worn out and exhausted from taking care of… Continue reading
My Uncle Bob (John R. Hager) the oldest of my Dad’s four siblings, passed away last Friday. The “R” is for Robert and everyone called him “Bob.” I have only recently learned of some of the details his full life. After high school, he helped build a naval base in the… Continue reading
Just thinking about the images makes me crazy. A twenty-year-old young man shot his mom in the face, then using her guns blasted his way into an elementary school and mowed down twenty-six people, most of them six and seven year old before taking his own life. The tears are… Continue reading
I am seriously moved, definitely warmed and inspired as I just finished a new novel by Doug Worgul, entitled, Thin Blue Smoke. These characters got into my heart and let me know I still have a heart. They’re real and flawed. Some of them have had some really bad breaks… 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
I have hit an awesome chapter in Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward and I am trying to unpackage it. Every time God forgives us, God is saying that God’s own rules do not matter as much as the relationships that God wants to create with us. (pp. 56-57) I always thought of forgiveness as… Continue reading
Last Saturday, Patty I were selling Beadmomma jewelry (my wife’s company) at a local farmer’s market. It is a beautiful location on Lake Michigan, with sailboats in their slips just a few yards behind us, a historical lighthouse visible as we looked down the street just across an inlet, and museums along the way.… Continue reading
I have to admit that I have been itching to write about the hoopla surrounding Chic-fil-a and homosexuality. Based on what I know about the story, my conclusions are rather clear. Everybody has a right to their opinion. That means Don Cathy, the CEO of Chic-fil-a, a privately held company,… Continue reading
I am a mountain lover, but I like trees on my mountains, which is why I love the Appalachians. We have been in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, but never the Smokies. It’s my Dad’s favorite place in the world. So, I wanted visit it on our way… Continue reading
Savannah is really old, really southern, and really quirky. It has a mystical quality about it. It’s so darn hot and humid in the summer, you can totally understand why it was designed with all those famous squares all over town. They are basically little parks every few blocks. They… Continue reading
This was our backyard. Our main destination on the trip was an old timey beachside apartment motel, called, Island House Apartment Motel. There are a bunch of them along with a bunch of mansions on Casey Key, a barrier Island on the Gulf Coast of Florida. They call it… Continue reading
Broadway Street “The Honky Tonk district” There is a special excitement to beginning a road trip vacation with a new minimalist agenda. It’s a relief just to leave the old routines behind. On the way here, we enjoyed a picnic lunch of fried chicken, saw Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis… Continue reading
What is it about the South that makes me love it so darn much? Is it because it is warm? Is it because the people tend to be more congenial? Is it the mountains, the waterfalls, barrier islands, the beaches? It is probably all of the above and a few… Continue reading
I was mesmerized by Whitney Houston’s televised memorial service. Maybe, I do miss church gatherings a little bit after all. They certainly “had church”! Whitney was blessed with an amazing gift, a voice that she honed into something extraordinary. She was, apparently, a very sweet, relational soul with an abiding faith in… Continue reading
“You can live forty days without food, four days without water, four minutes without air, but not even four seconds without hope.” – Anonymous Hope Described It is laborious and depressing to try to muddle on when you feel hopeless. In my own precarious situation, I have noticed that the… 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
This post is part of the synchroblog, Down We Go. We all have our prejudices. Personally, I am leery of people who appear to have it all together. Right now, I am recalling the proper, Christian Grandmother who kept the birth of her granddaughter secret because she was born before her mother… Continue reading
Celebrity Edition There are a few well-known people that have made my list of admirable folks, including a singer, a football coach, a Bible teacher, and a comedian. Johnny Cash Cash is always at the top of my “most admired” list because he was true to himself. His musical… Continue reading
Last Saturday I was picking up Patty at the door of our local Wal-Mart when I saw a grocery cart stall out right in the middle of the very busy main lane of the parking lot. The guy in the car in front of me, yells out, “So, you’re just… Continue reading
Thirty-one years ago, I was twenty-five, Patty was just twenty-three and Nathan was thinking about finally being born. You see, according to the doctor, he was nearly a month late. He has always been one to rarely change his mind and when he found his zone, he stayed with it. So,… Continue reading
I was at my son’s watching my favorite NFL team be soundly trounced by a divisional opponent last Sunday, when my iPhone vibrated indicating a new email. That’s how I learned of Gary’s death from a sudden heart attack on Saturday. Like all of you, I was shocked saddened and… Continue reading
Amuck: to rush about wildly That pretty well describes visits from my Grandson Sam, especially, this last one. The boy is a five-year-old perpetual motion machine. Sam and I kept each other busy last week. We toured the Jelly Belly factory just up the road (his favorite thing to do) Went to two… Continue reading
Thirty-six years ago, an immature, twenty-year-old, bushy-haired, long side burned, guitar playing, hippie-like, preacher boy with an uncertain future, but a cool ’66 Mustang married a far more stable and mature eighteen-year-old girl with beautiful straight, long black hair and gorgeous big brown eyes, one week out of high school.… Continue reading
Thirty-two years ago, I was twenty-four, Patty was twenty-two, Nathan wasn’t even a twinkle in my eye, and Michelle was about to enter the world. Always a pretty girl with big brown eyes An advanced child and early walker and talker A high achiever, being valedictorian of her junior high… Continue reading
Last Thursday my forty-eight-year-old cousin, Tim passed out at his job in St. Joseph, Missouri and entered eternity with Jesus. Tim was the youngest of all the cousins and I still think of him as being much younger than his true age. He grew up in the rural northwestern Missouri… Continue reading
Maybe it was the release of Johnny Cash’s last CD, seven years after his death, but something got me thinking about the people who have died that I would really like to spend some time with. I find it strange that I can only think of a few. That might… Continue reading
You may think of Willie Nelson as an ancient pothead hippie with a nasal voice and a worn-out guitar. You wouldn’t be entirely wrong, but that description is vastly inadequate caricature. Thanks to my son and daughter-in-law who gifted us with tickets, we saw Willie in concert at a nearby historic… Continue reading
