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Two small nails – that’s all it was. And neither one went into the wall easily. One resisted but finally settled in with just a bit of a bend in it, nicely positioned to hold a memorial plaque. The other bent more dramatically and stopped penetrating…
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It was one of those heart-stopping, stomach-dropping, ‘uh-oh’ moments. I had just moved to the Quad Cities and was taking advantage of a rare 15-minute window of time to speed home and let the dog out. I was in a hurry, so I rushed in, put the dog on…
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In my next life, I want to be a paleontologist. Not that every day is stimulating for them. They can work beside archaeologists for years, poring over the same rock terrain, only to come up with nothing. But when a fossil of significance is found, th…
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A few weeks ago, my dad and I took a quick road trip to Chicago. I dropped him off at O’Hare International Airport where he caught a flight to visit my sister in Baltimore. That doesn’t sound like anything exceptionally noteworthy, I’m sure. While ai…
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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…