The Very Last First

Yesterday without much fanfare and just a bit of sulking, we experienced our very last first. It was the very last first day of school for the family. Aaron, our youngest, is now a senior and so the rituals of closing a summer with the first day of school are now...

Does Church Matter – Even When it is Boring?

Come on…admit it…we have all nodded off in church. Blame it on a lack of sleep; a stressful week; or just that you cannot quite connect with the preacher who is trying to articulate the nihilistic culpability of Pilate in light of modern consumeristic tendencies…see,...

Does Church Matter?

I have to be honest; church has not always mattered to me: As a teenager church did not matter much when it came to my dating life, unless there was a pretty girl in the youth group. Amy was and still is a pretty girl, but she was not in my youth group. Church did not...

A Nose Job

My nose is not much in terms of looks, which is too bad since it is more or less the center of my face. It has been broken twice – once when I was six and fell face first from a silo and again when I was a teenager while playing football. It is a bit crooked, wide,...

Better Boys Among Us

The last few years my reputation as a farmer has suffered. I have planted and labored in the fields only to find the deer and other varmints beating me to the harvest or droughts beating down my plants or insects beating down my hopes. It is enough to make a...