Have you ever taken a bite out of a perfectly ripened peach that was hanging from a tree jut a short time ago? There is a certain stance you need to assume when eating a good peach, so the juice doesn’t drip all over you, but it may still run… Continue reading
I am fascinated by the myriad of ways that people express their faith within the parameters of a particular religion. In my journey of the last several years, I have connected with so many people who have gown weary of how they have been practicing their religion. Hence, the conversation… 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
All of the photos of are of the vintage garden apartment where I wrote this post. For the last couple of days, I have done pretty much nothing. It’s called a vacation, really, a three-day mini get-a-way. We came to place where there is nothing to do, and are staying in a… Continue reading
Here is the possible beginning of a novel i have been working on, though this part is very rooted in my reality. I’m flying! A ten-year old cruising down the hill of State Route O in Cosby, Missouri with no hands on the handlebars is flying. I was free. I didn’t… Continue reading
Boyd & Ava chillin’ in a chair I didn’t know if it would work. We had inherited two long-haired Chihuahuas. Due to no fault of their own, we were their fourth home. They are siblings, brother and sister. While they are off-the-charts cute, they are also needy, attention hogs, who… Continue reading
Here is my most recent column in The Kenosha News. Don’t talk about religion or politics. People tend to have strong opinions about these matters, and they really don’t want to re-examine what they believe. Their minds are made up. Today, I am ignoring that sage advice to write about… Continue reading
It’s humid, sticky, sultry. It’s summer, the end of summer. For kids, the freedom of June has turned to into the boredom of August. They have resigned themselves to heading back to school. Parents are shelling out money hand-over-fist for clothes, school supplies, and hefty fees for every program imaginable.… 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
What does it mean for me to follow Jesus? If I think about it in daily life, nitty-gritty terms, it looks something like this: I would stop worrying about the church and would not confuse it with Jesus or his kingdom. I would realize following Jesus is a personal matter… Continue reading
Jesus was not only counterintuitive back in his day, even today there is still a gigantic contrast between his ways and the ways of the religion that goes by his name. The Non-Agenda We have sacred creeds, sacred places of worship, sacred objects, and sacred leaders or clergy. Jesus had… Continue reading
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
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
I was in a funk, terribly bored by the Internet, television, and movies; despising the regular patterns of my life. The more I dreamed of something that would bring a glimmer of life to my soul, the more unattainable it seemed. Fear was holding me tightly, even though I hardly… Continue reading
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
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
Here is my imaginary last sermon. (Sigh) I’ll just get right to it! Today I am tendering my resignation as your pastor. This will be my last month with the church as I help the board through the transition process, assuming they still want me to stick around after I… Continue reading
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
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
If you read the Gospels and you didn’t have any religious background, you would swear that Jesus was doing everything he could think of to agitate the religious establishment of his day. He wasn’t the ultimate hippie or some sort of crazed rebel; he knew exactly what he was doing.… Continue reading
In Jesus day, the Old Testament scriptures had been interpreted very legalistically. Things were spelled out to take out all of the guess work about what it meant to obey (and what counted as sin). According to the Talmud, the 6,200 page rabbinical commentary on the Old Testament, there are… Continue reading
.Penelope loved life and lived it at full throttle. She admired her daddy, emulating his mischievous little grin and his love of ornery escapades. There was an effervescence about her that, at times, just had to bubble over like a well-shaken bottle of Coke. After 9th grade gym class, her… Continue reading
I have seen him many times and I have discovered that he is full of surprises and is very irreligious. I saw him when I looked out at Lake Michigan yesterday from the bluff in Port Washington, Wisconsin as the sun was illuminating our massive blue inland ocean. I saw… Continue reading
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
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
I wish Peter Faulk were still living and wearing his crumbled Colombo trench coat. I would love to hear him approach a church leader at a convention and say, “Excuse me, sir. Just one more question. Did Jesus come to start a religion?” Good question, detective. Religions have their sets of… 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
I am occasionally peaking in on the NASCAR race at Talladega Super Speedway today (Sunday) and that caused me to remember that life is full of restarts. For those of you who think that motor sports are for hicks and watching it on TV is a sure way to induce… Continue reading
During those transitional years, I had a very difficult time figuring out how to do evangelism. Some of the things I have been taught seemed like they cheapened the message by making evangelism all about information and presentation. It seems like there was very little consideration for the person, my… Continue reading
I love Jesus’ response to the women caught as she was having sex with a man that she shouldn’t have been having sex with. Scooped up from the bedroom and thrown into the middle of a mob of self-righteous men, she cowered, quivering, ready for the first rock to hit her in… Continue reading
My book, An Irreligious Faith is now in the hands of my editor. Fortunately, she is not someone that a literary agent or publisher recommended. She is a friend and a gifted writer who gets what I am trying to do with the book. Besides correcting grammar and phraseology faux pas,… 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
Lately, I have run across a lot of people who hate Valentine’s Day. Singles are reminded of their loneliness. Lovers become sadly aware their relationships always fall short of what they see in the movies. The daily grind of life tends to grind the romance right out of life. So,… Continue reading
We saw Les Miserables last night. I didn’t know much about it. I did know it was a classic that had something to do with poverty, love, and the French Revolution. That’s it. Spurred on by the comments of Face Bookers who were deeply moved by watching it and a desire to… 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
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
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
Contrasts: We have sacred creeds, sacred places of worship, sacred objects, and sacred leaders or clergy. Jesus had none of it. We are part of a subculture that insulates us from real life. Jesus talked about a different way of living real life. We obsess over trying to be better… 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
Why do we remember our wounds more than our encouragements? Maybe, it’s because there are more of them. I don’t know, but I do know they tend to get deeply etched in our souls. Maybe, it is because we walk a delicate balancing act in our psyche between feeling “We… Continue reading
A cursory of the Gospels would lead you to believe that Jesus was doing everything he could think of to agitate the religious establishment of his day. He wasn’t the ultimate hippie or some sort of crazed rebel; he, of course, knew exactly what he was doing. He was defying man-made religious rules that… Continue reading
