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Why Respect Matters

Hello from the diner, When I come to the diner today, I remember how this family establishment has become part of the collective memory of my time in Bloomsburg. There was a period where I was here most every morning and names like Dave, Doug, or Father Fennessy, seated at the left counter as you walked into the corner restaurant, were as constant as the days of the week. There were our own…

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"The Road Not Taken"

Hello on the first of June,As noted by my father regularly, time will begin to seemingly pass by more rapidly. Of the many wise things, truthful things he said, this one might be the more accurate. At least, that seems to be the case as I consider how we got to the first of June, and it seems like only a few weeks ago it was mid-March, and I was watching the tournaments. In barely three weeks, we…

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Obi-Wan Kenobi or Darth Vader - the Ultimate Dialectic

Hello from a day of early morning errands, While it’s only Tuesday, it seems I have done enough stuff to manage an entire week. It is a beautiful day, not overly warm, but the sun is shining brightly, somewhat a rarity the past few months, but at least for a few days it might be a needed companion. I believe it was first apparent when I was in graduate school in Houghton, but I am quite sure I…

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To Lament or To Learn

Hello from the micro-acre, The summer I did my Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) at St. Luke’s in my hometown of Sioux City, there was a lot on my plate. I had been diagnosed with what then was determined to be Ulcerative Colitis, I was on leave from the seminary, was planning a wedding at the end of the summer, and perhaps, most importantly, I was working diligently to figure out who I was.…

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Where Do We Find You?

Hello from Bloomsburg, It’s Friday, and it’s been a week of extremes when it comes to what I was planned for and what I was not. It began with the Memorial Day, and I was fortunate to attend the commemoration of veterans at one of the most well-kept of area cemeteries. The event was nicely managed, and it reminded me of some of our better angels that we are all part of when we allow. Bella, the…

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Not Merely Called, but Being Called For and To

Hello on a the last few days of May, The last day of May is a significant day in my lifetime. It is the day I graduated from high school as well as the day I was confirmed by the Rev. T. P. Solem, the interim pastor we had between the pastor I remember as a small child, the Rev. Orion Anderson and the Rev. Paul Ofstedal, my pastor through my high school years. When I graduated as a member of the…

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Silence: Wisdom’s Best Reply

Hello at the end of an great weekend, This past week a close friend asked me about how I seem to know how to respond to what someone says or just how to reply in a given situation. Let me preface my response with an honest disclaimer. I certainly have been know to put both feet in my mouth and chew vigorously upon occasion. And why that must get have been more the case earlier in life, it can…

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Innate Goodness: Possible or Not?

Hello from the Magee, The weekend was a bit lowkey, but I think I enjoy that much more than I did once upon a time. And yet in my solitude, my brain is constantly wondering about who we are as humans. One of my traveling friends, someone with a few years on me, but brilliant in their own rite, to be sure, regularly admonishes me that I should quit thinking so hard. There are times I honestly try…

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The Dangers of Faithfulness

Hello from Pennsylvania, and the hope that spring will still arrive, I, as former pastor, a life-long Lutheran, somewhat a Bonhoeffer scholar, and a person who believes deeply in the power of the sacraments, placing the word dangers and faithfulness as something consequential of the other might seem confusing. And yet let me begin here: faith is itself confusing (at least for me), and if it is…

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Taking Cover, but Never Ducking

Hello from the still transforming space, As of late I have ponder those things in life that give me some sense of pride, not in an arrogant manner, more perhaps more in a resilient way. As I have found myself on the other side of a daily requirement of working in some “you are required to be somewhere” daily process. Recently when speaking with an incredible person who has profound achievements…

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Understanding How and Why

Hello on a day of taxes, unexpected events and unsure of what next. The afternoon will be taxes. it’s been a morning of meeting a large truck with the back of the Beetle, no real damage to the truck, and something quite different for the bug. Dinner tonight with a former colleague and feeling like a bit of one step forward and two back. And yet this too will be managed. Much of what happens on…

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Trying to Make Sense of it All

Hello at the beginning of another week, One of my former students was quite exasperated with me when she lived at my house because I was at some points a real pain, albeit unintentionally. She was the first of a number of students and exchange students who would live with me, and I must give her credit for teaching me more than, perhaps, I could have ever taught her. She was intelligent,…

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Sechs Schock und zehn

Hello from my abode,Today would be the birthday of my adopted father’s eldest brother-in-law, Mr. Clare White Swaby. He was born in 1896, and he was the proverbial Sunday dinner guest when I grew up. He was, by any measure or thought, a character. He dropped out of elementary school in 5th grade, but taught himself to read. When you went to his home, which was only about 100 yards from the house…

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Justice or Partiality: it is a Choice

Hello at the beginning of April, The reality of Spring seems more likely this past week. While the rather usual cyclical weather, both reminding us of the lengthy winter and teasing us the possibility of spring, continues, the increasing hours of light does assist in my more hopeful attitude. As I write it is Holy Saturday in the Latin Calendar; it is on this date in 1968 that Martin Luther King…

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When the Applause Stops

Hello from my little 3rd floor corner of the Magee, As I look out the window, I see a typical little town. There is a statue at the center of our little town commemorating the veterans to the Civil War and beyond, I can see the back of the public library, the flag pole with the Star and Stripes raised before the United States Post Office building, and as I gaze down toward the horizon of Main…

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Making this Place Home

Hello from Bloomsburg, What makes some place home? There is certainly the physical attributes. There are the things, the events, the moments that become habitual. There are the people, and the weeks that become months, seasons, and eventually years. While I have always been amazed by what I refer to as the duality of time, conceptualizing this reality of existence affects me much differently as…

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Teaching Someone to Dream

Hello from my corner, Often I am asked if my life turned out as I expected, and my unequivocal answer is immediately “no; not at all.” There is no statement I have ever spoken or written that is more truthful than that. And of course, a reasonable response would be why not? I think for me it is simple (and perhaps simultaneously complex). I had no idea of what I would do, what I wanted, or where…

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