It was 3:00 on Saturday afternoon. A giant knot stamped out its authority on my stomach. I sat with about 2,500 people in Skoglund Auditorium. 750 of them were incoming freshman class at St. Olaf College. They arrived the day…
I wish I could do it all over again. It started eighteen years ago in a hospital room in Sioux Falls. The baby wasn’t breathing. It couldn’t end this fast and it didn’t. With some help from a doctor and a…
Benjamin and I made pizza Sunday night. After 18 years we have it down. Brush an egg yolk on the crust. Put the pizza sauce on top of that. Then the pepperoni. Then the homemade Italian sausage. Then the cheeses.…
I remember when he was born. It was in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The pregnancy was complicated and the hospital room was full of medical people. Benjamin wasn’t crying when he was born. I thought it was peaceful. The doctors…
I got to see my mom last weekend. She usually visits us on Mother’s Day but came a week early this year. She watched David play lacrosse and saw Benjamin and the others from the Class of 2019 be recognized…
This letter is in Prayers from The Water’s Edge. It was the last of the one-hundred pieces I wrote and my favorite. I wrote it on a picnic table in a park in Copenhagen, Denmark early one morning. It was…
My mom has been in town this week. She is a tax accountant and is enjoying May. It is much better than March and April for her. She came down to watch David play soccer and lacrosse. I have some…
I’m a dad. Not a perfect one. I try hard. I think about the subject of parenting a lot. When the boys leave home and go to college—I pray they have two things: roots and wings. Roots remind them whose…
When I was a child, my Uncle Chris gave my generation of Finnestads a skammel. It’s Norwegian for footstool. I drew up the plans for a reproduction, a friend of mine did the woodworking, and I primed and painted the…
I’m at a family reunion this weekend. Not sure who plans a family reunion in Iowa in January, but it’s where I’ll be. The following is inspired by my siblings, but is more about America’s current condition and God’s persona.…
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