Category: Reflections
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Forgiveness Muscles
A little over a week ago, Mim and I and my sister-in-law Bonnie went to a half-day conference on the subject of forgiveness. The title of the conference was “A Time to Forgive.” The speaker was Dr. Robert Enright of the Department of Educational Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison and founding member of the International Forgiveness…
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Abraham Lincoln – as Mim’s Grandfather remembered him
Last summer Mim spent many days systematically going through boxes and boxes filled with old papers, photos, and books that had belonged to her parents and grandparents. One yellowed newspaper, carefully protected in a waxed paper-like envelope was the Decorah Public Opinion from Decorah, Iowa, dated Wednesday, February 10, 1909. That is the year Abraham…
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Learning from Another Mistake
At least I’m trying to learn from my latest mistake. It happened last Thursday. As usual, I went to Messiah to practice the organ for this weekend’s worship service. Mim came along and went to visit a friend who was recovering at home from a recent surgery. When I finished practicing we had a quick…
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What did you do yesterday?
“The Monastic Way,” a monthly brochure written by Joan Chittister, one of my favorite authors, has rejoined my short stack of materials that I pick up to read first thing every morning. This year, Chittister has chosen a single word or a short quote to reflect on every day for a month. “The Monastic Way”…
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The Good Samaritan turns 75
In just a few days, on August 5, 2022, Mim Jacobson will have been accumulating knowledge, wisdom, memories, and all kinds of things for 75 years. In honor of reaching our mid-70s, Mim and I have begun the process of sorting through all our stuff. In one of our boxes in our basement store room,…
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God winked at me again!
Author Squire D. Rushnell defined the term Godwink as ”An event or personal experience, often identified as coincidence, so astonishing that it could only have come from divine origin.” Rushnell has written several books where he tells the stories of amazing Godwinks that either he has experienced personally, or that other people have experienced and…
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Music Appreciation 101
More than 50 years ago, at Wheaton College, I took a 2-credit requirement during my sophomore year, just to get it over with – “Music Appreciation 101.” Although I had grown up learning to play the piano and organ, I had been exposed to little more than lesson books and hymnals. (I also listened to…
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One of My Best Failures
For those of you who have followed my blog for a long time (I started blogging in April of 2011), you may remember that for several years I chose one word each year to be my special word to think about throughout the whole year. In 2014, I chose the word JOY as my special…
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52 Years ago…
About this time of year in 1970, I was a senior at Wheaton College, just about ready to graduate, and I was thinking about what I should do next. Should I find a job as an English teacher? Should I take off with a friend on a traveling adventure? What else could I do? I…
Whispering Winds Blog 