I was there at the time, but I surely don’t remember it. The way my mom tells the story, when I was a baby—not sure exactly how old—I came down with a dangerous case of pneumonia. So bad it was that I spent several days in the hospital in a…
On a recent Saturday, I awoke to a weather alert on my phone. The National Weather Service had issued a severe storm warning for our region with the added threat of tornados. The tornado threat level was both significantly high and rare. All the conditions pointed to the potential for…
Few of us alive today have witnessed such a confluence of “storms.” The major front we’re all dealing with, of course, is the “virus crisis” and everything related to it. Few of us appreciate having our freedoms curtailed, being told to stay home as much as possible. Health care workers…
I enjoy hiking. There’s something refreshing about being out on a trail somewhere, away from stuff and buildings and noise and traffic. Most of my hiking has been the day-hike variety. Arrive at a trailhead at some point in the morning, lace up my boots, grab the hiking pole, and…
It’s a quite natural thing, really, to want protection from or deliverance out of a crisis. An ominous diagnosis threatens my health. The recent stock market mayhem threatens my financial future. A global pandemic threatens…well, everyone in some way. The rising power of communist China threatens our national security. Radical…
Recently I was…somewhere…and a song came on, the tune sounded vaguely familiar, as if from my ancient past. I paused to listen but couldn’t quite make out the lyrics until the last line, apparently repeated at the end of each stanza. Ah, but I was so much older then; I’m…
On a recent Saturday, the weather finally turned nice enough to go for a walk along the riverfront in nearby Dixon. Wasn’t all that warm—in fact, the breeze was cold—but the sun was out, the sky, blue, and a pretty good day, overall. So, off we went—we, being my wife…
Reading the title of Brandon Crowe’s little book, Every Day Matters, might leave one wondering its emphasis. Is he suggesting that every day counts, is important, and makes a difference? Or is the focus on every day, as opposed to say, every year? Or is the book about stuff—matters—that require…
In his book Backpacking with the Saints, Belden C. Lane candidly shares a couple of hiking “fails” in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains when he was a college student. On one occasion, he and his roommate were on a descent that involved a seemingly endless series of switchbacks. So, they thought…
My first real attempt at hiking was, shall we say, a learning experience. I wish I hadn’t waited until my late 30s to learn, but there I was. The youth leader at our church in Shelburne, Vermont, took some of the guys on an overnight backpacking trip to the summit…
