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Lifestyle

This category gathers together blogs that deal with daily life matters. Sometimes generic, other times challenging and always positive, this category embodies the nitty-gritty of fullness-of-life.

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Good Fridays ahead

Along with Holy Cross Day (September 14), each Good Friday is a good time to contemplate the meaning of the cross in our lives. That reflection includes remembering with both sorrow and gratitude Jesus’ redemptive death by gruesome torture—nails in his wrists, thirst/hunger, exhaustion and his slow death by asphyxiation. In his suffering and dying we are granted forgiveness and salvation—aMORE...

Maundy mandates

  A few days ago, I re-read the red-letter chapters (13-17) of John’s gospel. Jesus is talking with his disciples on the night of his betrayal, after the Passover meal and after Judas’ exit towards treachery. Jesus knew what was coming, so this was his last opportunity for transferring his heartfelt instructions and observations—even some *mandates—to the folks who would carry on after himMORE...

Frailments (Revisited)

Previously I wrote about coming frailties, from the viewpoint of someone not-yet-there. Today a few additional observations about this eventual part of aging, from perhaps other points-of-view.   It’s probably useful to push back against imagined frailties. Giving up on God-given strengths and capabilities doesn’t feel quite right. But that might be more difficult to consider when there areMORE...

Warning: Flammable contents

One of the possible benefits of growing older is the ability to see what might not work. A lifetime of experience can also hone our sense of possible danger. Today I take the risk of offering a warning about the (pressurized, flammable or explosive) expansion of society’s fascination with artificial intelligence. Forgive me for temporarily muting the significance of theological truth in thisMORE...

No pro forma here!

At worship a few Sundays back, it struck me that Faith Lutheran Church isn’t a pro forma place. Although we work within the boundaries of Scripture, sound doctrine and Christ-centered behaviors, we try not to get caught in ruts that can mire us in stifling ordinariness. We don’t go through the motions just to get by. To stay grounded and balanced, we dig into the core of conventional, customaryMORE...

Norbert’s lament (Postscript)

  There’s more to Norbert/you/me than our lamenting. We’re also hopeful folks, whose insistent searching also keeps us positive. Today a postscript that might move us beyond mourning about the future. Those of us who are older may find our insights, our work or ourselves sidelined or shelved. Giving in to mournful outlooks doesn’t help much at all, so many of us have figured out ways to keepMORE...

Blurred reality?

A *recent article in The Atlantic caught my attention. Its title, “We’re Already Living in the Metaverse,” is striking. The subtitles are even stronger: “Reality is blurred. Boredom is intolerable. And everything is entertainment.”  Some reactions….. What Atlantic staff writer Megan Garber observes about our society—about each of us?—is that we may be so thoroughly immersed in a culture ofMORE...

Redeeming love

Tomorrow’s reminder: God’s love redeems us. We’re saved not only from eternal punishment, but also made useful for God’s purposes. We experience that love in our love for each other. Lives bent toward loneliness, despair or self-doubt are turned around by the tangible evidence that someone else cherishes us. When love finds us, we’re rescued, retrofitted with hope and reinforced for purposedMORE...

Playing in the dirt

A couple of weeks ago, my ESL student and I discovered that as young boys we both spent a good share of our summer days playing in the dirt. He grew up in rural India and I spent my early years in a Los Angeles suburb. We both remembered how enjoyable it was to dig and build things—roads, dams, structures. How we added water to transform dirt into mud, streams or ponds. How sticks, rocks andMORE...

Errand joy

Over my lifetime, I’ve thought about *errands in several different ways. When I received my driver’s license in high school, I would volunteer to take the Dodge station wagon out for the simplest family tasks. As I matured into adulthood, the amount and complexity of necessary errands—encapsulated in TO DO Lists—shaded my feelings in a different way: I had to squeeze these chores into the inMORE...

Bob Sitze

BOB SITZE has filled the many years of his lifework in diverse settings around the United States. His calling has included careers as a teacher/principal, church musician, writer/author, denominational executive staff member and meat worker. Bob lives in Wheaton, IL.

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