Waiting for an event to begin, our group was making small talk. One woman mentioned that recently her niece, while traveling, had broken her ankle. It was set by an unfamiliar orthopedic surgeon in an unfamiliar town. “Six thousand dollars!” the woman exclaimed. “Six thousand dollars to set those bones! …
My mother passed away this spring at the age of 86. She had lived her life exactly as she wanted, with few, if any regrets. It was hard to begrudge her departure. Her world was shrinking due to failing eyesight, nerve pain, and cancer. But it wasn’t shrinking only in …
The passing of Queen Elizabeth II brought to mind the final scene in the movie, Twelve Angry Men. The 1957 film stars Henry Fonda as one of twelve jurors debating the guilt or innocence of a defendant who has been charged with murdering his father. With two brief exceptions—the opening …
I have season tickets for Notre Dame football games. (This is surprising for a few reasons, but true, nonetheless.) Anyway, on a beautiful October evening, I had a perfect view as Notre Dame running back Kyren Williams took the handoff and lunged right, as the play had been drawn up. …
As the COVID pandemic receded in my town, the Mainline Protestant churches were the last to resume worship in person. Months earlier, the Catholics and the Evangelical Protestants had applied their will to find a way to worship together in their church sanctuaries without experiencing COVID outbreaks. Meanwhile, the members …
Two things happened on the same weekend this spring. Our lake thawed and our grandson was baptized. In the beginning…darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. Every February when the boys were growing up—when winter had …
“One of the biggest mistakes it to judge policies and programs by their intentions instead of their results.” –Milton Friedman A perfect case study is the Illinois law that legalized recreational cannabis on January 1, 2020. The 610-page law spells out details about regulation, taxation, authority and governance, public health …
On the day before my twentieth birthday, in 1980, I walked through Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin. My childhood friend and I were on a month long trip through Europe. On the day we arrived in West Berlin from Copenhagen, the sun shone on us for the first time in …
Nearly five years after reading an essay by then 31-year old Brian Crooks, I still think about it frequently. Brian grew up in a suburb very similar to and not far from the town where we raised our three sons. Brian is smart. He plays a musical instrument. He likes …
The fable begins with a child walking softly through a jungle, lost in thought. Unexpectedly he comes upon a snake looped luxuriously over a lower branch. The child stops and gasps. The snake smiles charmingly and greets the child. “Hello! Don’t be afraid. I am only a snake.” The child …
