Do you ever wonder if your kids are listening? Do you ever wonder if they take to heart anything that you tell them? Do they ever connect the dots in ways that surprise you? It’s bedtime. Past bedtime, actually. Being a bad Dad or good Dad, depending on your perspective, I had allowed Annie and [...]
Some time ago during one of my kids’ elementary school events I was walking the halls observing the latest student created art and literary projects displayed on the walls. One was by some third graders who were given the assignment to write about what they thought their future would look like. All were entertaining to [...]
If someone gave you a ticket to spend a day anywhere in the United States, where would you go? I’d be on a plane to Chicago before you could say “deep dish pizza”. Several years ago I had opportunity to attend a preaching/teaching conference at Willow Creek Church with my friend and pastor Duane Cross. [...]
About a month ago I noticed my lawn beginning to wake up. Understand, my patch of backyard grass takes all of five minutes to cut. I had five minutes so I rolled out the mower. It never takes more than two pulls for the Briggs & Stratton to fire up. Yet on this day, it [...]
Got an email the other day with the subject line “Interesting Trivia”. It said that at two minutes and three seconds after 1 PM today the date will be: 01:02:03; 04/05/06 It won’t happen again for a hundred years. We tend to take note of events that don’t come around often. Halley’s Comet makes an [...]
Years ago my friend Glen, a cowboy who’d rather be horseback riding and team roping than doing anything else, summarized the inherent problem of not taking life one day at a time as only he could do. “When ya’ got one foot in yesterday and the other foot in tomorrow, yer’ pissin’ all over today.” [...]
“So I’m not four anymore?” “No, Annie. You’re five now. Happy Birthday!” For weeks Annie and Emma have been talking about how they would soon be five years old. Now that the day is here, they seem a tiny bit wistful pondering that being five means they are no longer four. I understand that. We [...]
My roses are blooming. Wanna come see? I remember my Grandfather saying these words. “My roses are blooming. Wanna come see?” He’d want me to follow and I would. Not because I had a passion for roses. More out of respect for Grandpa. Oh, I liked them ok. But he loved them. He even painted [...]
It was July of 1989. En route to Milwaukee for a business meeting I decided to take a few extra days to visit old acquaintances along the way. While in Chicago I had opportunity to spend time with some dear college friends. On Friday evening we met for dinner at Timone’s, an authentic old neighborhood [...]
Go north on Hayden and you’ll see the sign on your right, just past McKellips. Announcing your entrance into the city limits of Scottsdale, it reads, Scottsdale – Welcome – “Most Livable City.” The sign stands twelve inches away from a brown block wall marking the west edge of Green Acres Mortuary and Cemetery. I [...]