How do we relate to the land on which we live? Many factors influence our response to that question, including our family background and personal path through life, the history of the land, whether we own the land or rent our space on it, our view of…
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“You’re going to want to be careful when your kids play back here,” he said. “Too many people fly down this alley. And when there’s standing water, it’s often seeping up from the sewage. You’ll want to watch for that.” All this came in my first 90 se…
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Earlier this month, subscribers of the HBO Max online streaming service received a rather strange email. Appearing in their inbox was a message with the puzzling subject line of “Integration Test Email #1.” And with the content of the note being blan…
Pastor Hayden came to St. Paul with wit, tenacity, and great kindness. His pastoral residency was a unique experience, weathering unknown times, but his adaptability allowed St. Paul to continue thriving through Dad’s group, Virtual Guys Coffee, and…
On Friday, July 9, cyclists who are currently making their way across the United States will roll their way into Iowa at West Lake in Buffalo. West Lake will mark their 2,645th mile. The cyclists, known as Climate Riders, began their cross-country tr…
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The return of Vacation Bible School at St. Paul this week takes me back two years to my first one here. I was only three weeks into my position and hardly knew anyone. Frankly, the hundreds of people – small and large – who swarmed through the variou…
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This week I found myself in a variety of conversations about health with different St. Paul people. In these conversations, I realized something about the way my own approach to healthy living has changed. When I was a kid, I would go to the d…
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Tell us about your family/where you grew up/went to college. I grew up in Bloomington, Minn. with my parents and my younger sister, Emma. I attended Mount Olivet Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, Minn. all my life. I especially loved participating in V…
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We have one place in our house where we let our kids write on the walls. Every 6 months or so, we grab a Sharpie (yes, a permanent marker!) and head to the door to our pantry. There, on the door frame, we write little lines getting increasingly furth…
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High school graduation parties in our community are a big deal. Garage interiors get a spiffy new coat of white paint. Band mementos, sports ribbons, and grade school photos go public for a few hours before landing back in the keepsake box down in th…
It’s a nearly 3,000 mile journey. The voyage of a butterfly is a long, remarkable trek. The first generation of butterflies mate in Texas and go through a month-long maturation process. Only the second-generation females make their way north to lay t…
Tell us about your family. I was born to Eleanor and Frederick Winter and raised in Clinton, Iowa, baptized and confirmed at Zion Lutheran Church, Clinton. I have an older brother, Charles, who lives in Littleton, Colo. with his wife, Priscilla. I at…