One afternoon last month, while I was working on some mindless routine tasks, a song came on the internet radio station quietly playing in the background. I’d heard it before, a rather pretty, though somewhat melancholy, tune. I couldn’t make out all the lyrics—wasn’t trying to, either—but the repeated phrase,…
After having a relatively minor bout with COVID a few weeks ago, my bride finally felt up to getting out for a bit of a hike. We thought about heading south to Matthiessen State Park near LaSalle, Illinois—a little sister park to her more famous neighbor, Starved Rock. Both have…
“Nature speaks a silent message that can be heard when conditions are just right.… Truth exists in wild places—where the air is clean, the water pure, the land free.” Scott Stillman, Nature’s Silent Message Honestly, I’m not very good at listening out there…there where the sounds of silence speak volumes…
It never entered my mind as a 7-year-old kid to be filled with anxiety over Valentine’s Day. You? I surely don’t remember a bunch of rules about it, imposed upon us by the school administration in my public elementary school. Not like in some schools these days. Granted, memory fades…
Camping had become a vacation of choice when I was a child of 7 or 8. Our family’s first camping excursion is a blur, having faded in my memory and beyond reach. It’s the second or third attempt that stands out—because it didn’t happen. In the summer of ’67, plans…
Last Saturday, the sun gleamed brightly off the snow, beckoning me to step outside for a brief hike. At the same time, the wind chimes hanging on the back patio played furiously in the blustering wind. To go, or not to go. That was the question. I needed the exercise,…
Living a little under a mile from the church where I serve as pastor, I often walk to the office in the morning to get some exercise. I’ve discovered that listening to an audiobook along the way makes the walk shorter and less routine. There are, after all, only so…
Didn’t seem like a very good day for it last Saturday—cold, cloudy, an icy mist in the forecast—but I felt the need to get some exercise, so suggested to my bride that we go for a walk. We headed to one of our favorite local spots, a multi-use trail that…
I don’t like being cold. Due to the nature of my work, I spend a good bit of time at a desk: reading, studying, administrative stuff. This time of year, it doesn’t seem to matter what I do, my feet and hands are often cold. And I don’t like it….
“Here we are as in olden days…” Are we? In many ways, we are. Christmas rolls around again as it has for centuries. Hasn’t always been so universally celebrated; nevertheless, no one alive in the western hemisphere remembers when it wasn’t celebrated. The other night, we went for a Christmas…
