O, Kenosha

Kenosha, Wisconsin (pop.100,164, about 150,000 with suburbs)) is our nearest city at about 10 minutes away. We are there several times a week. It was a manufacturing city that has successfully re-invented itself as a distribution center and tourist destination. It’s growing. The downtown is rapidly redeveloping and the Lake… Continue reading

Observations

Change We never really know what the future holds. Life can quickly change very unexpectantly. Irony A microscopic virus, a cousin of the common cold, killed thousands, crippled the economy, and confound the nations of the world. Its manner of spreading, coughing and sneezing, and its manner of abatement, handwashing,… Continue reading

Responses

Response: any behavior of a living organism that results from an external or internal stimulus. What do our responses to this pandemic and our staying at home to lessen its impact tell us about ourselves?  Honestly,  I believe we tend to have an initial knee-jerk reaction that is more related to… Continue reading

Does it Matter that the Chiefs Won the Super Bowl?

The Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl last night after a fifty-year drought.  But does it really matter? If I didn’t know better, I would think the NFL was enterprise invented by billionaires, lawyers, and modern-day gladiators.  It is an American oddity. The world has soccer, known elsewhere as… Continue reading

When the Call Comes

The call comes.Everything changes.A flurry of activity ensues. Sunken cheeks.Is she aware?Is she there? Each breath scrutinized.Sit and watch.Was there a slight change? Nurses care.Hospice explains.We speak words of love, not knowing if they are heard. Even the aids kiss her forehead as tears roll down their faces.Our hearts melt.We love their love. Faith and… Continue reading

Missing Tony and Charles

The deaths of Anthony Bourdain and Charles Krauthammer may be practically forgotten and long gone from the internet’s trending topics by now. Yet, they deserve to be remembered. They were artists who, to the best of my knowledge, never painted a portrait or sculpted a bust. They used words, reasoning,… Continue reading

Disagreeing Without Being Disagreeable

Recently, I was face-to-face with someone I thought highly of and we were in the midst of a serious disagreement about political issues. It has happened several times with several people. While I enjoy a good open discussion, I don’t enjoy these encounters. In these situations, I am usually shocked… Continue reading

Who Can You Believe?

When Fox News anchor Shepard Smith was asked about the opinion side of Fox News in a recent Time Magazineinterview he ruffled some feathers when he replied: “We serve different masters. We work for different reporting chains, we have different rules. They don’t really have rules on the opinion side.… Continue reading

A Surprising Source of Spiritual Authority

I am going to suggest what might seem like a strange, or even heretical source of spiritual authority, but first I want to consider the usual suspects. Many people are looking for something they can hitch their wagon to. They want to be able to point somewhere and say this… Continue reading

The Pathway Out of Partisanship

Our nation has had only one independent president. That’s right, only one who stayed out of the partisan fray and refused to be locked into a political ideology. He certainly had his principles and stuck to them, yet he understood the value of moderation. While non-partisan, he was far from… Continue reading

Old?

Our newspaper prints a summary of the obituaries on the front page along with celebrity birthdays. As I look as the obituaries, I say to myself, “older, older, older, younger, older, younger”, etc., depending if the deceased was older or younger than me. Then I glance at the celebrity birthdays… Continue reading

It All Comes Down to Relationships

On March 3, 1991, in the wee hours of the morning three friends who had spent the night watching basketball and drinking were speeding on Interstate 210 in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. A California Highway Patrol unit gave chase, but the driver refused to pull over. The… Continue reading

Ditch Digging and Dining Room Tables

Something beautiful happens in ditches and dining rooms. More specifically, it happens when we dig a ditch with another laborer and share our table with another diner. Chip Gains introduced me to that concept. Chip and his wife Joanna are the stars of the hit HGTV show, Fixer Upper. Chip… Continue reading

Do Evangelical Christians Have Any Moral Authority Anymore?

    “After telling me how to live my life, who to love, what to believe, what not to believe, what to do and what not to do and now you sit back and the prostitutes don’t matter? The grabbing the you-know-what doesn’t matter? The outright behavior and lies don’t matter? Just… Continue reading

Christmas Contradictions

  It’s so pervasive. Songs, shopping, Santa. Sometimes we feel it. Sometimes we don’t. Warm memories fill our hearts. Sad realities replay over again in our minds. It’s fun. It’s obligatory. Rooted in faith. Embedded in culture.   Yet, it is real. Though, we have made it fake. It was… Continue reading

Peace. Love. Joy.

Do you have a mantra,a frequently repeated word, formula, or phrase, often a truism? I do. It has been my personal focus for quite some time. I wrote it down and remind myself of it daily. Here it is. Peace. Love. Joy. Peace. I am at total peace with God, so I will be at peace with… Continue reading

The Coffee Pot’s Secret Recipe

My favorite breakfast place in the world is The Coffee Pot. What’s not to love? The food is fabulous, the menu interesting, the location full of character and charm, and the service is dependably friendly and efficient. So, I decided to meet with owners, Julie Zorn and Janis Barnhil to… Continue reading

Help for a Polarized Nation

This was my column in the Kenosha News in February, but is still very relevant. We have a very energetic president who currently lives alone, doesn’t require much sleep, works weekends, and tweets before most people are awake. So, there is no telling what may have happened in the intervening… Continue reading