just enough light

While sitting in my favorite study place a few years ago, a campus coffee shop, I overheard one side of a phone conversation between a student and a parent.  I wasn’t trying to listen in, but the student’s volume and intensity made it unavoidable.  The young man had apparently overdrawn his bank account and a […]

“17…18…19…20.  Ready or not, here I come!”  With those words, a new round of “Hide and Seek” began.  Children scrunch into their hiding places, giggly with excitement.  They become as small as possible behind a stump, up in a tree, under a bush.  The one who is “it” stalks carefully around the yard, watchful for […]

I was leading a panel discussion in front of about 200 parents of incoming freshman students.  The mood in the room ranged from bored (it had already been a long orientation day for them) to highly anxious.  The topic of the moment was “Move-in day” and one of the parents on the panel had just […]

Your son or daughter is about to leave for college.  At some point, you will say “Good-bye” and drive away.  You have said good-bye to your child before, but probably not on this scale.  You said, “Good-bye and call if you need to,” the first time they left the safe confines of your house to […]

I knew I had to turn around and walk away.  The time had come.  I could have prolonged the moment.  I could have hung around to be helpful or supportive or something, but I knew it would just be delaying the inevitable.  I knew the time had come to say good-bye, to entrust my child […]

I was one of four people being interviewed on a radio program a few years ago.  The topic was homosexuality in our culture in general, and in the church specifically.  The panelists represented several different Protestant denominations.  Two panelists were lesbian; the other two were heterosexual who were affirming of gays and lesbians.  It was […]

Several years ago I woke at 2:00 a.m. in a cold sweat, filled with the certainty that I had ruined my life and the lives of my family members.  My mind began darting around like a scared squirrel, but I did not know where my distress was coming from.  It was a couple of hours […]

One of my favorite forms of emotional self-abuse is to engage in long musings of “What if”.  This is the futile, tail-chasing exercise of running mental scenarios of what’s ahead if this or that happens.  I have been holding this game at bay for the past couple of weeks.  I can hear my inner sinister-self […]

I’m writing this on Father’s Day.  I just spent a week with my two young adult children, ages 29 and 22, who live in Illinois. I am now visiting my 85 year-old father. I am experiencing multigenerational paternal whiplash. I think my father was able to semi-retire from fatherhood within a few months of his […]

A genuine apology seems a rarity these days.  There’s plenty of poor behavior and opportunities for apologies, but few seem to come.  A middle school girls’ softball practice a few years ago provided a lesson in apology I won’t forget.  I was one of two dads willing to help out as assistant coaches.  While putting […]