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Growing up, I took piano lessons for the better part of seven years or so. And yet, if you sat me in front of piano today, about the only melody I might be able to produce would be one half of the Heart & Soul duet. Or maybe, if I had enough time…
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On my car radio on Monday afternoon, I heard a rabbi from Pittsburgh interviewed. Rabbi Moishe Mayir Vogel is the director of a humanitarian agency, the Aleph Institute. He lives and works in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, the site of the latest act…
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On a United flight to Denver last year, I ordered my customary cranapple juice to sip while reading a book. The napkin beneath my drink struck me as worth saving. So I did. It reads: “Planes change. Values don’t. Your priorities will always be ours.”…
Shatter the Stigma – A Public Screening of “Don’t Talk About the Baby” Don’t Talk About the Baby is the first documentary to explore the cultural stigmas surrounding pregnancy loss and infertility. Join us for a screening of the film, followed by a W…
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What can I do? I ask myself this question every time I learn about a different need in the world, or hear another great speaker bring an issue to light. At first I get fired up with great momentum, knowing I want to help fix the problem and bring abo…
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This year the theme for St. Paul’s Vacation Bible School is Shipwrecked: Rescued by Jesus. It is a fun way to get young people thinking about their faith. Imagining that we are all stranded on an island for the week, we have been reflecting on our re…
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I am what you call a “cradle Lutheran.” I grew up going to the same Lutheran church in Lebanon, PA until after I finished seminary and moved to the Quad Cities. I was baptized, confirmed, married, and overall raised in the faith at Holy Trinity. I at…
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Every year I look forward to watching the NFL draft on television. I love college football, and I’m eager to see the reactions of some of my favorite players when a team selects them. What an emotional moment to finally realize that their dreams of p…
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Over 50 years ago, Ezra Jack Keats helped a lot of people to see. It was simple, really. He wrote and illustrated a book called The Snowy Day about a child waking up in the city to a snowy day. Peter, the little boy, bundles up in a red snowsuit and…
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Some of the most beautiful transactions in the world occur without money ever changing hands. We all know this since we’re regular participants in such transactions. I find it inspiring to remember the particulars of different encounters, if for no o…
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Europe and America are experiencing a high level of tumult and anxiety in the last 24 months, thanks to a number of deranged people and terrorists who have a killing impulse. Amateur and professional analysts alike wonder if this ugly turn of events…
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My high school did not offer a class in cosmology. It’s a good thing it didn’t. I wouldn’t have survived. I barely passed math, struggled in physics, and to this day do not understand what a mole in chemistry is. The only mole I know is the one that…