Posts by D C

My wife has many traits that I admire, but two of her greatest are her strength and her empathy. Like her father, my wife strikes up conversations with strangers easily and manages to put most people at ease. I was reminded of this recently when we were in a local appliance business in northern Wisconsin…

Every summer, I spend time with one of my favorite authors, Sigurd Olson. For me, Olson is a guide, a person whose words transport into the power of wilderness. Olson spent his life exploring wilderness, becoming one of the leading spokespersons in the drive to preserve it. Living from 1899 to 1982, Olson grew up…

Ever since I was a child, I’ve had the wish that everyone would be given at least one “do-over” in life. When I was young, I’m pretty sure that was my response to tragedy. I was only ten years old when the janitor for the church where my father was pastor was seriously injured in…

The challenge of the ancient prophets isn’t that they seem out of date, but rather that they  speak so forcefully to our current situation.  I was reminded of this earlier this week when a group I belong to directed me for my morning reading to Isaiah 58: 1-12 in the Hebrew Bible.  If I was…

I was saddened to hear about the one thousand, three hundred Muslim pilgrims who died while on the Hajj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, because of the heat, but I was not completely surprised. Modern travel has lessened the sacrifices demanded of pilgrims, but over the centuries, men and women have always faced danger, sickness, and…

Before I spoke at a church last weekend, an elderly man on a walker approached me for a short conversation.  Learning that I would be talking about interviews that I had conducted for a book, this ninety-six-year-old shared some of his stories—beginning with his experiences in the Great Depression.  It was a brief encounter, but,…

On a spiritual retreat last week, I expected to be inspired by the speaker. While I was not disappointed, the two moments that made the deepest impression on me over the weekend were spontaneous comments that, in retrospect, I believe I needed to hear. The first came from Mother Hilary, a nun, who shared that…

A conversation with my son lined up with what I recently read about home insurance. Home insurance is not a subject that I have given much thought to. I have home insurance, I trust my local insurance agent, and then I tend to forget about it. Our son and his family live along the Atlantic…

A trait that seems to be steeped in the human brain is “either-or” thinking. I was reminded of this when numerous university campuses ended this spring semester not with calm graduation celebrations but with protests about the war in Gaza. The majority of student protesters is decrying the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza at the…

Although I’d been invited, once I retired as a professor, to march with my colleagues at Franklin College’s commencement, I hadn’t done so for the past few years because of COVID-19. But this year, I robed up and joined the faculty, staff, and students for this yearly celebration. The experience was surreal because I knew…