Pastor Don's Ponderings

I love the photography of my friend and colleague, Fr. Jerry Schweitzer, who resides in Northern Indiana. He publishes a daily meditation which includes his photographs and, truth be told, most days I find myself just looking into the pictures he provides and imagining my place in each setting. Jerry, and so many others like him, have the God-given capacity to see with God's eyes, to intuitively capture a moment, an event or an environment, and then invite others to marvel with them at the sight. This scene holds me fast . . . On the shoreline of Lake Michigan, at a place where once someone sat and took in its beauty and power, where a fence divides the land to the place where the waters cannot be divided, and where under snow and blustery winds there still resides the vestiges of summers past: The windswept grasses tell their tales and shifting sands reveal their secrets. Here we meet ourselves. Here we see our reflections. Here we tremble, not for Winter's wind, but fo...

One day last Fall I had the opportunity to ride a few rounds in the combine with my brother, Larry, as he clipped off another field. For those who are not accustomed to such a sight, this is a soybean field and we are sitting in the cab of the farm's John Deere combine. What you see in front of you near the ground is the header of the machine, the reel turns in a forward fashion bringing the standing crop into the header, which then moves it back into the rotary separator in the largest portion of the combine. The soybeans, once separated from the stalk and pod of the plants, will then move by way of the clean grain auger into the hopper on top of the machine and the residue of the soybean plant will be chopped and scattered behind the machine. It is really something to watch, especially when you can do it up close from in the cab sitting next to the operator. A ride with Larry in the fields is seldom just a ride. The cab is his office for a large amount of time in Fall, so as...

And so it happened . . . I received a text from our son, Ray, concerning our grandson, Holden, and his upcoming Cub Scout Pinewood Derby car, "Dad, would you mind coming out of retirement and giving Holden a hand on his car? The derby is at the end of the week." Just the request made me smile, as I remembered back to all of the cars our three sons and I had made in my basement shop over the years. Though I am not certain of the final number, it would have to be around 15 cars . . . sometime I will have to count them, for they are all up on a rail on display in my shop in our home. Each car reflects a bit of the personality of the son who imagined it, worked on it, raced it and cherished it. Each car held a place of high value and esteem in their lives - until they left home and the car was left with Mom and Dad for 'safe-keeping'. Each car now resides near me as I work on other projects and, now, each car looks on as the next generation begins th...