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
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
We’re wimps! We, the people of the United States of America are a sorry lot in the way we exercise our citizenship. I am a wimp, too, but I am beginning to train to be a better citizen. We vote based on superficial information that has been carefully engineered by… 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 love the church. What’s not to love about a community representing Christ to the world? It’s a beautiful ideal, even though the reality is, all too often, a different picture. There is a huge potential in the thousands of churches across our land, but the church needs to make… Continue reading
You probably are aware that Kansas City Chiefs linebacker, Jovan Belcher murdered his girlfriend who was the mother of his three-month-old daughter just minutes before driving to the Chiefs’ facility where he put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger, taking his own life. In the parking lot,… Continue reading
“I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth – and truth rewarded me.” – Simone de Beauvoir Not thinking is easier than thinking. Believing as we are told is easier than testing those beliefs. Finding a tribe (political party, denomination, unnamed segment of… 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
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
By the time you read this Election Day 2012 will over. Thank God! However, I am writing on Tuesday morning. Patty and I have already squiggled in our ovals and fed our ballots into the optical scanner by 7:30 this morning. Either Barak Obama will be rehired or he will… 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
And I thought we were polarized during the last election cycle. Your neighbor puts up an Obama or Romney yard sign and you think, I thought he was an okay, but apparently he is an idiot. One of your Facebook “friends” writes about what an ass Obama or Romney is… Continue reading
While we are overwhelmed with political propaganda and endless chatter from the talking heads and spin doctors, there is not enough attention given to three foundational questions that should affect how we vote. The answers to these questions should be applied to every governmental program. Is it the role of… Continue reading
If I had a magic wand, here are three things I would fix in our political system. The Electoral College would be gone. When you vote for the candidate for your choice for the President of the United States, you are really voting for your state’s electors. All states, except Maine… Continue reading
I usually listen to talk radio streaming on my iPhone as I get ready in the mornings. This morning I began with my usual WPR (Wisconsin Public Radio) program doing their review of political happenings for the week with guests from the Democrat and Republican perspectives. Facts were irrelevant to… 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
This is a comment in response to a post on another site (though it also posted here on glennhager.com). It covers several issues, so you would understand it better if you the post and the comment I am responding to. Here is the link to the post, so you can… Continue reading
As I was surfing Facebook, I saw an acquaintance’s claim that Romney was trying to take us back to the days of Ozzie and Harriet. It was a curious response to the debate. Some conservatives might look on those times as the good old days and some liberals regard then… 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
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
There are some things I look for when hiring a plumber. I want to know if he knows what he is doing and if he is good at it. I want to know if he is honest, going to show up on time, do quality work, not leave a mess,… Continue reading
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
We live really close to Wisconsin (a block and a half away). The state is home to Reince Priebus, Chair of the Republican national Committee and Paul Ryan Republican Vice Presidential nominee. So, our geography, the campaign news reports, and the political conventions have me thinking about politics. The word, politics… 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 wish Peter Faulk were still living and wearing his crumbled Colombo trench coat. I would love to hear him approach some church leaders at a convention and say, “Excuse me, sir. Just one more question. Did Jesus come to start a religion?” Religions have sets of beliefs that its… 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
“Follower of Jesus” is the new cooler way to say “Christian”, a word loaded with centuries of baggage that no longer seems very Christian. Yet, “follower of Jesus” sounds a little smug to me. It reminds of those church-goers in ancient Corinth who weren’t in the camp of Paul or… 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
Many years ago, I heard a radio preacher say, the goal of the Christian life is to sin less. When I was young (and more optimistic) it made sense to me. After all, we are to become more like God and he is holy. So, we should, at least, be… 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
This post is part of a synchroblog entitled, What’s in Your Knapsack? Links to other participants are listed at the end of this post. Here is some more explanation from the Synchroblog site… Whether it is white privilege, heterosexual privilege, male privilege, Christian privilege, able-bodied privilege or any other privilege… 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
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
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
John 20-21 Each mealtime has a special feeling to it. Breakfast is refreshing because it has been a long time since dinner. In our day, many people skip it or eat a pop tart on the way to work. Almost never does someone fix breakfast for you. So, when we have… Continue reading
One 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 bars. One, trying to be holy through self-improvement and dissociation, the… Continue reading
John 12:12-19 Twenty years later, I remember the opening scene. Jesus is playing with the children, palm branches are being waved all over the place as the little ones sing and dance while running down the aisles of theater up to the stage. It is that festive, moving, celebratory picture that is my… Continue reading
When pressed to summarize what he required, Jesus said, love God and love your neighbor. Paul, the Apostle fleshed this out by saying that God wants living sacrifices. He is asking for a huge religious paradigm shift that calls for an end to people trying to appease God. He is… Continue reading
Do we learn best from our failures or our successes? I learn a lot from my failures. I should, because I rehearse them over and over. I learn what an incredible screw up I am. I throw some gasoline upon my ever smoldering sense of shame. I paralyze myself from moving forward… Continue reading
