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At a recent medical appointment, the tech covered the silence while prepping a procedure by asking if I had big plans for the day. “Just headed for work.” “Oh; where do you work?” “I’m one of the pastors at St. Paul Lutheran in Davenport.” <long…
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A few weeks ago, we lost the internet at our house. To fix it, we needed a technician to come out, and so for five days, we lost our connectivity. Like so many of us, we have become utterly dependent on those fiber cables that bring us our music, ent…
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Two of our four worship services this weekend at St. Paul are jazz services (9:00 & 11:15 a.m.). It’s the 26th consecutive year (minus two for the pandemic) that our distinguished group of jazz folks from Chicago will lead us in worship. It’s als…
I have a special music playlist on my phone titled ‘Amen.’” It’s a list of songs I compiled that help me better understand who God is and who I am to God. Some of these songs fit the “spiritual/religious” genre, like “How Can I Keep from Singing?” by…
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One of the joys of parenting, I’ve discovered, is watching your child learn. Sometimes I swear I can actually see the wheels turning as our one-year-old figures out a new skill or realizes he’s capable of some new physical action. I’ve particularly e…
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The World Games opened in Birmingham, Alabama today – all those sports not included in the Olympics but that players wish would be. Everything from Ju-Jitsu and Sumo to canoeing and waterskiing are part of the Games. Orienteering is the one that fasc…
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Maybe you’ve heard before that the most repeated command in the Bible is “Do not fear.” By some counts, those words are spoken as many as 365 times—enough to hear it once every day of the year. Everyone from God to Moses to the psalmists to choirs of…
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On Sunday, the carillonneurs from Iowa State worshipped with St. Paul at the 11:15 am Open Spirit service before unloading their instrument from a large freight truck and setting it up on the North Lawn for the 3 p.m. concert. When they greeted me as…
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While driving across the western half of Wisconsin earlier this week, a Department of Transportation sign caught my attention: Over 19,000 deer were killed on Wisconsin roads last year. Yikes. That’s an average of 52 deer per day. Extrapolating from…
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I bought a bouquet of peonies from the grocery store last week. They were tight balls of green with a hint of bright pink, about the size of golf balls. I trimmed the stems and put them in a vase of water. My kids called them our “boring ball flowers…
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My dog sits on me… Not in a “Let’s-cuddle-up-for-a-movie” kind of way, nor in a “You’re-home-and-I-missed you” kind of way, either. In fact, my dog is one of the least snuggly pups I’ve ever met. But she sits on me sometimes when she senses anxiety i…
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Earlier this month, as my daughter and I were hurrying out after Sunday services together, the rain started to fall and our trusty golf cart driver Dana pulled up and offered us a ride. We were in a hurry after receiving a phone call that our dog had…