Posts by D C

My wife and I share Swedish ancestry, so we knew from the time we were young that the Nobel Peace Prize is named after a famous 19th century Swedish inventor.  While people might assume that we would be proud of that fact, the truth is more complicated. Alfred Nobel was a highly successful businessman, but…

Last week, I was looking for something to read before bedtime and by happenstance I pulled from the bookshelf A Fine Smirr of Rain, written by my friend Bill Bridges.  When Bill passed away suddenly a little over a year ago, I lost a close friend and a writing mentor. Bill was a journalist, first…

Pope Francis’s funeral did not mean the end of my admiration for this uncommon leader.  I am rereading two biographies of Jorge Bergoglio, as he was known before he took the name of Francis for his papacy.  I’m also reading some of his sermons—many of them his spontaneous thoughts—as well as reflections from Church leaders…

One of my best memories from this summer centers on our older son and his family joining us on vacation in northern Wisconsin.  My ten-year-old grandson, having grown up on fishing stories from his Dad and from me, was determined to catch a bass while he was with us.  On the first day they were…

Recently, President Trump, surrounded by several doctors he has appointed and Robert Kennedy, Jr., made a short but strong statement that advised pregnant women to avoid taking Tylenol during pregnancy.  In his roughly twelve-minute address, he repeated his warning—by my count twenty-one times—that there is a link between taking Tylenol and autism. I commend President…

It’s been a long time coming, but a debate that’s been brewing for decades—no, centuries—has  finally broken out.  I’m referring to the exchange between Pope Leo and Elon Musk. The issue arose in a conversation that Pope Leo had with a journalist.  In referring to a report that Musk could become the world’s first trillionaire,…

I attended a pricey Christian liberal arts college in the late sixties.  Tuition, room and board, and books and supplies ran a little over two thousand dollars a year.  That was a big price tag in those days when earning $1.50 to $2.00 an hour was common for part-time and summer jobs. Of course, there…

I feel a special kind of pain when two people whom I admire greatly are locked in a feud.  That is the situation with two monumentally significant songwriters and performers, Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan.  Some may argue that the feud is Mitchell’s problem, given that she has criticized Dylan more than Dylan has replied…

One of the most terrifying aspects of Hitler’s rise to power was the support he received from the churches in Germany and Austria. Jesus wanted the Church to be the leaven that would transform the cultures in which it grew. All too often, however, cultures end up transforming—or should we say deforming—the Church. Nazi Germany…

I have loved baseball for as long as I can remember. My brother, a year and a half older, loved the sport as well. Any summer day when it wasn’t raining would find us outside playing catch until dark. Contact with our heroes—we were loyal Chicago White Sox fans—was almost entirely through radio. Once my…