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 …
Our oldest son texted us: “He is born!” After 30 hours of labor, our first grandchild had entered the world. “Glory to God in the highest!” We hurried into Chicago to hold him as soon as we could. His uncles and aunts traveled from Texas and Minnesota to meet him. …
A dozen towns are strung like worry beads along the Lake Michigan shoreline from Milwaukee to Chicago. Worry has been particularly palpable in three of those towns—Kenosha, Waukegan, and Evanston—this year. Violence erupted in Kenosha in August after police shot Jacob Blake during an arrest. Peaceful marchers in Waukegan have …
Freddie Gray, a 25-year old black man, died in April of 2015. His spine was severed while in police custody in Baltimore. Not long after, I read a column written by Chicago Tribune columnist, Clarence Page, in which he used the words Systemic Discrimination. I believe it was my first …
After giving it four months, I finally unsubscribed to the daily emails from a particular news website. In early March I was hungry for news and commentary. There was a lot going on. The Cubs, with new manager David Ross, were off to a lackluster start in spring training. The …
