2
A few weeks ago, I was on my way back to Davenport from a wedding in Wisconsin. It was a beautiful drive, but I was too busy mulling over new responsibilities to take much notice. The to-do list that comes with starting a different life was weighing…
1
Tucked away behind a garage next to the St. Paul Community Garden is a round circle of wire fence, just a few feet high, shaped by wooden stakes in the ground. The fence is a composting area, built by 12-year-old Collin Burnett, for a Boy Scout garde…
4
Muslim leader Dalil Boubakeur had an idea for addressing the shortage of mosques for Muslim communities in France – convert some unused churches into mosques. It’s not hard to see why the idea occurred to Boubakeur, a Frenchman. Many of the 45,000 ch…
1
Lace up your sneakers and join the St. Paul crew who walk each year to support programs and research for people who struggle with mental illness. The 2015 NAMI Walk (NAMI stands for National Alliance for Mental Illness) is Saturday, Sept. 26, 10 a.m….
1
The 17th time Leslie Hunter moved was when he went to college as an 18-year-old. He was the oldest of four, the son of teen parents who grew up around the corner from each other in Chicago. His parents were alcoholics. Step-fathers were physically an…
Fall Start-Up is when we return to the fullness of our Sunday-morning learning and worship life. Sunday worship returns to 8, 9:20, and 11:45 a.m., with Saturday worship at 5:30 p.m. Learning classes begin for all ages, 10:45-11:30 a.m. There’s no ne…
They met at Iowa State. She was studying child development, he was studying science. On August. 24, 1950, Jeannine Ahlgren and Darwyn VanGorp were united in marriage at the church Jeannine grew up in – the old St. Paul at 14th and Main in Davenport….
5
The guy in front of me at Brady Street Stadium was dressed in full Davenport Central gear with a blue and red cap on his head and a blue and red sweatshirt keeping the late-evening chill at bay. If the concession stand would have been selling those b…
Words have gravity and power. We contemplate them and “chew” on them because at a deep level they contain our feelings, aspirations, and thoughts. In many respects, words are the currency of living. They make meaning for our lives and help us order o…
As a 15-year-old, Larry Minard asked his rather unapproachable pastor if he could come and practice on the church’s organ. The pastor offered to turn on the organ, and Larry sat down to play. He played for worship at church at 17, the old Lutheran li…
3
It happens nearly every morning. After quite an effort, we are all ready to go and I open the back door for our three-year-old daughter. I hold the door open with my left arm, heavily laden with my work bag and a diaper bag filled with bottles, extra…
1
The ticket agent with the neatly tucked-in blue neck scarf never deserved the abusive language thrown her way. It was bad. The guy in front of me chewed her up like a smoothie blender gone haywire. I watched the nastiness unfold from only three feet…