Last year I wrote a short little poem on Mack’s birthday. I shared it with my friend and award winning poet John Poch, now at Grace College in Indiana. (His latest book The Future of Love is out now and it is tremendous!) He replied with the suggestion that I […]
Life
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A sermon for Transfiguration Sunday 2026, leading us into Lent. Preached at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Springfield, Ohio. A lot happens on mountain tops in the Bible. We read time and again of figures who go, or often are sent, “up a high mountain.” It is on a mountain that […]
It was announced three weeks ago, so many of you may already know, but I am humbled to be joining Wittenberg University as their 16th President. As with all search processes, it took time and prayer. Witt, as it is known, is a strong university that, like so many liberal […]
“In the face of death, I realized that it was not love that kept me clinging to life but unresolved anger. Love, real love flowing from me or toward me, sets me free to die. Death would not undo that love. To the contrary, death would deepen it and strengthen […]
Today’s your birthday. Just one day.Just one day. That’s all it is. Just one day. That’s all it took. Just one day. To take you from us. Just one day. And a lifetime is gone. In just one day. Today, 16 January 2025, is Mack’s 21st birthday. Or would be, if […]
This is an entry in the “Acrostic Contemplations.” Knowledge is a flexible term. In some languages, like German, you can have several different words which all track to a single, meager, “to know” in English. You might know a person at work, you can know a fact about the world, […]
This is an entry in the “Acrostic Contemplations.” Rather than the love of money, it is perhaps the lack of contentment, the ability to be satisfied with what one has, that is the root of most evils. Why else do we yearn for more money than because we are unsatisfied […]
Fowl Language is a panel comic by Brian Gordon that usually focuses upon the challenges of parenthood…through ducks. It seems that, in the world of the comic, if not Gordon’s own life, grief has arrived as the father’s mother is nearing her end. His last two comics are wonderful and […]
My back was sore as I scrambled off the floor and the pile of wrapped presents to slide onto the couch and pick up my glass of port. I stretched and observed to Elizabeth that it has been a really challenging fall. There were three main challenges that I had […]
Those of us who grieve loved ones who are no longer with us view All Saints’ Eve and All Saints’ Day in a different way. We remember those who have gone before us, often too soon, and we try and do so in hope. The resurrection is that hope, “the […]