Northern Crossings

Toto wrote and performed a great song about rain down in Africa that was evocative to enough people that had never been to Africa to become a huge hit. For those of us who have been there it brings lots of memories and raises...

  When my father got sick he was unable to do much of anything around the house or in his yard. My mom and dad had a pretty good sized hobby farm. It had a huge yard that they kept like a golf course. When he couldn’t do...

If my memory serves, and lately that is iffy, my first adult baptism was a guy named Duane Robinson. I was impressed that he wanted to be baptized and really impressed that he wanted it done in public. In church. In those days...

Our Synod President recommends this post, and so do I.  Here is an interesting story.  I did a wrap song a few years back.  I’ll see if I can get it on.  In the meantime here – try this –...

  When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, so that they might come and anoint Jesus. Very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had...

On the Monday after Palm Sunday Jesus came into Jerusalem and cursed a fig tree. Much was made of that act when I was growing up. Atheists were making hay that Jesus wasn’t meek and mild and not the loving character that...

  John Bortulin wrote that Jesus went “from borrowed donkey to borrowed upper room to borrowed cross and borrowed tomb.”  That is a nice bit of doggerel but it hit me particularly hard.  It has to do with the...

  I call it the middle range stare. It’s not the thousand yard stare that most people think of as post traumatic stress syndrome. It’s not the furtive backward glance like I imagine Lot’s wife had before her pillarization....

Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas. As he piles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense of which...

Anyone reading this blog knows that I am fascinated by words; how they change meaning; where they come from; how they are transmitted and on we go. I am noticing some commentators getting sloppy with some good words....

One of the great joys of my life is baptizing a baby. I squeeze their legs against my left elbow and hip and they are resting on my forearm. Their head is cradled in my left hand and I can see their face when I pour the water...

  It has been several weeks now and I keep hearing the imperative that I “get some rest”. It is as if it’s a quest that I should be on; a search for something that seems to be elusive. It is, stated that way, a job to be...

“The custom of holding a crucifix before a dying person has kept many in the Christian faith and has enabled them to die with a confident faith in the crucified Christ.” By His prophet Moses God told the obstinate and...