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…
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…
