Make Your Own Cheese

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

Old Love

Patty and I were vendors at the Kenosha Harbor Market last Saturday, which happened to also be our fortieth anniversary. The weekly market is an altogether lovely event in a beautiful location. There are over one hundred white 10×10 tents in a two block area and some side streets flanked by… Continue reading

Memorial Day Americana

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

Am I Illinoising You?

A reprint of my column in the Kenosha (Wisconsin) News: I have a confession. Brace yourself. I live in Illinois. There, I said it. Please, don’t stop reading. Even though I’m from “south of the border,” it’s only by a block and a half. And that’s how I explain to… Continue reading

Party!

I cannot help but see the stark contrast between Jesus and present day Christianity. It is almost as if they are two different faiths… one separated, cloistered its own subculture; the other, on the streets, in the slums, and the suburbs, alike. One, trying to be holy through self-improvement and dissociation,… Continue reading

The Fair

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

Why My Kids Will Never Forget When They “Forgot” Me

This post is part of a synchrobog in which we recount our favorite prank. The links to the other writer’s contributions are listed at the end of this post. After work, the kids and I met Patty at Giordano’s, a deep dish, Chicago-style pizza place in a neighboring suburb. Upon… Continue reading

What’s Wrong with Us?

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

Gr-attitude

This post is part of a synchroblog on gratitude as a spiritual practice. The other contributions are listed at the end of this post. I don’t exactly feel like the most qualified person to write about gratitude. If the topic were complaining or ranting, I would be in more familiar territory. When… Continue reading

Provocative

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

Life

This post is part of a synchroblog, entitled, Choosing my Religion. The participating writers are answering the question, “If you could change to any other religion in the world (other than Christianity), which would you choose and why?” The links to their contributions are posted at the end of this post. I am cheating. I… Continue reading

Farmer’s Market Fringe

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

Party Hardy

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