Weekly Reflections

A brief pause each week to consider what matters, what lingers, and what’s worth remembering.

These stories are available on audio through Substack.

The Myth of Divided Loyalties, the Lies We Tell Ourselves and the Suck of Politics

In 1963, three years before I was born and two years after the US sent its first combat troops into Vietnam, CS Lewis would write, “The greatest evils in the world will not be carried out by men with guns, but by men in suits sitting behind desks.” More [...]

10
Jan
My Blue Christmas

I used to love Christmas and the things that surrounded it. The luminous lights, the December decorations, and of course the tasty treats. Remembering a time before the Internet when you couldn’t buy peppermint bark in July and when Santa’s wasn’t competing with scary witches. Our years in America [...]

20
Dec
Right of Center Field: Rediscovering Sunday Fellowship

One Sunday afternoon in late winter, I went out drinking with my friend Ted. We had meet several months before, both recent transplants to Minnesota, both of us outsiders. He was from Wisconsin, I was from Illinois, and he became my closest friend while living in Minnesota. We were [...]

13
Dec
When the French Killed My False Faith in Meritocracy

A year after my fiftieth birthday, the leadership structure where I worked underwent some significant changes. When change happens at the very top, the rest only rolls one way, demonstrating the laws of gravity. I was right in the middle of that way. After spending my entire adult life [...]

06
Dec
From God to Drugs: How Someone With a Masters in Theology Ended Up in Pharma Marketing

No longer my source of income, student loans were now my source of debt. I needed to quickly find a job. I signed up with an employment agency despite limited secretarial skills, having opted out of typing class in high school. (I’m still paying for that shortsighted decision. Like [...]

22
Nov
Paradise Lost: Pets, Loss and the Power of Love

In the fall of 2019, we noticed Mozzer’s health was declining. Prior to this, he had been a very healthy cat. Vet appointments consisted of routine vaccines, routine dental care, and no prescriptions. We knew he had been born with a heart murmur and that as a breed the [...]

15
Nov
Appalachian Summer: An Unexpected Lesson in Gratitude

When I was sixteen going on seventeen, our church youth group learned about the Appalachia Service Project (ASP), a Christian nonprofit ministry focused on the “eradication of substandard housing in Central Appalachia.” Growing up, I was aware that there were families who didn’t have the same standard of living [...]

08
Nov
Imago Dei: My Lutheran Love Letter

I spent almost every summer while in college as a camp counselor at Imago Dei, an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) camp in Wisconsin. Youth ministry had become my passion and purpose, one so personally fulfilling that I justified the fact that I was attempting to love God [...]

01
Nov
Owasippe: A Love Letter to Scouting

I loved Scouting as a teenager, and it absolutely made me a better human. I still draw on the skills and knowledge I developed in Scouts, and I look back with fondness on the many friends I made and the experiences I had with them during this time when [...]

25
Oct
Happy Birthday Dad

Monday, October 20, begins another work week for millions of people after a weekend of football games and preparation for a Halloween that falls on a Friday this year. Monday is also my father’s birthday and Wednesday marks two years since he left this world. Life truly is both [...]

18
Oct
My Yankee Doodle Moment of Fame

During those late childhood instances when I found myself alone at home, I would secretly live out my alter ego as a famous artist. Performing for my introvert-friendly audience that resided safely within my own imagination. My family in absentia, I would began to prepare for my prepubescent performance [...]

11
Oct
Six Lies of the Modern World

As I began to write about my story, I realized not only my deep devotion to the material world but the lies that I believed to sustain my faith in stuff. Lies that sustain the modern world, particularly in the west. Lies that have always deceived us.

04
Oct