Quiet places

7/16/2025 This marks the fifth day in downtown Milwaukee. Counting today, we have three more. The connections have been good and so has the training. Very helpful, encouraging, and enjoyable. But the constant city noise is beginning to wear me down. There is this constant hum of car and trucks and compressors and exhaust and it is exhausting. People everywhere. Buildings as far as the I can see, which is often only a couple hundred…

The tension

7/15/2025 These National Staff Conferences come around every couple of years, and including travel, take just short of two weeks. And they always seem to cause some inner disruption. Let me explain… Heather and I joined staff mid-career just about fifteen years ago. We were going down one pathway that made a lot of sense and included a good job, good service in the local church, and a new house that would be great for…

Volume

6/29/2025 I know, it’s still June, and we have a month and a half before the Fall semester starts, but I have a feeling that the next six weeks will fly by. So I’ve been thinking about it, and have determined that the one word theme to focus on is volume. In order to become good at something, it seems like, in addition to studying and learning how to do the something, one needs to…