By Meghan Olsen Biebighauser It’s looking like this will be the summer that my daughter Frances will be ready to ride her bike without training wheels. She takes after her Mama -- overly cautious, not much of a risk-taker -- and so her cycling journey has been a slow but steady one, like my own [...]
By John Mai In my experience with small-talk, it helps to have a fun fact about yourself. The more interesting it makes you seem, the better. For the past few years, my fun fact has been that I grew up near Portland, Oregon. Living in Minneapolis, that fun fact tends to be a pretty good [...]
By Bob Hulteen This was the time of year that my dad would pull me out of school to spend the day with the North Dakota state legislature. As the State Supervisor of Property Tax Assessments, he worked on the seventh floor of the State Capitol in Bismarck. It was his calling (in a very [...]
By Bishop Ann Svennungsen Two of the hardest jobs I’ve had were working at the Wee Care Day Care Center and waiting tables at the Toole County Fair. I was exhausted after trying for eight hours to anticipate another activity to engage a two-year-old. And, after an evening shift at the food tent, I was [...]
By Pastor Craig Pederson While our locations are on opposite sides of the globe, our experiences over the past several weeks are remarkably similar: Some communities feel like they may be islands of respite from COVID-19, but then the first case is confirmed and they realize life is forever changed; Travelers from one part of [...]
By Bishop Ann Svennungsen We know the instructions from the cockpit: In the unlikely event of a loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will drop down from the panel above your head. … Secure your own mask before helping others. For the past few weeks, congregations have been focused on securing their [...]
By Pastor John Hulden A friend of mine asked for laments on her Facebook page last week. All day Good Friday, while in quarantine, she fasted and prayed those laments aloud. This was her way to be in community while physically apart. John's writing his thank you notes by hand, ... and in [...]
By Bishop Ann Svennungsen Thirty years ago last month, I was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer. I was scared to death, a mom with three kids, ages 8, 5, and 2. I had no idea what the future would hold. The day of my mastectomy – 4 o’clock on a cold Friday afternoon – the [...]
By Bishop Ann Svennungsen In all my readings about being a “non-anxious leader” (ala Peter Steinke and Ed Friedman), I don’t recall any reference to anxiety as “unanticipated grief.” But that’s one description used by David Kessler, co-author with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross of On Grief and Grieving. “Unhealthy anticipatory grief is really anxiety,” he notes in [...]
By Bishop Ann Svennungsen How long, O God, how long? When can I leave my house? When will there be enough COVID tests; enough n95 masks? When will this pandemic be over? How long, Oh God? And, how can we make faithful decisions with so many unknowns? How can we find peace and serenity in [...]
