Between my junior and senior year of high school, I went to Ghana as a foreign exchange student. I lived with a family for three months in a fairly remote part of the country. Every day we walked to get water for cooking, cleaning, and bathing. It was a bit of a hike and water […]
Most holidays are predictable. July 4, December 25, February 14 – we automatically know the holiday connected to these dates. But Easter changes. Easter is the first Sunday after the full moon (called the Paschal Moon) after March 21, which is the spring equinox. Easter is tied to solar and lunar cycles, not the calendar, […]
I have an older brother by thirteen months, so we are really close to being “Irish Twins.” As a parent and now grandparent, I can’t imagine having two boys this close in age and I am sure we were a handful. One day mom went to the basement to do laundry and my brother and […]
My granddaughter and I are pretty good buddies. In church on Sunday, she wanted me to hold her while we were standing and singing songs. It made me realize that this was coming to an end. Not next Sunday, but it’s coming to an end. She is going to reach the height and weight where […]
We played co-ed volleyball with three other couples and all our children are boys. So naturally our team was named Boys-R-Us. While our families have transitioned and we don’t all live in the same community, we’ve maintained our friendship. It started very innocently. A friend put a metal wishing well on a rummage sale. As […]
It’s Eclipse Week and it has been described as a “once in a lifetime” experience for some, especially here in the United States. Certainly, it is an event that comes along rarely and is a day that is marked as a day to remember. I was holding down a button in my car and it […]
This was one of those weeks. Two people died unexpectedly. Neither I knew well, but well enough. The brother of one of my good friends fell down a flight of steps, suffered significant injuries, and it didn’t end well. The other was a person I’d served on a community board with and died very unexpectedly […]
Everyone spends part of their lives alone. Even in the midst of the busiest cities, even when surrounded by people, we can be alone. Starting a job where I work out of our home and travel, I’ve been spending more time alone. It’s different. It’s not that I have much to complain about – it’s […]
This summer I’ve enjoyed getting on my bike more regularly. There is a nice bike trail near where we live and it is a 19-mile loop around the city. There are several things I like about the trail. It follows a river and has some good scenery. It’s fairly level. Often I see birds and […]
I’ve had some different relationships with death. Growing up, we rarely would go out to eat. If dad had a funeral and received an honorarium, he’d take the family to a restaurant. While I can’t say I hoped for people to die, it sure was nice to go out to eat every once in a […]