Right now I’m reading Tim Blanning’s The Pursuit of Glory, a history of Europe in the early modern period. It covers a great many areas of life across a wide range of countries. For those who think of Europe as somehow one big culture, that’s not true now, and it was even less true back then. This is a period where modern nations are just starting to form, often by the will of one ruler who has enough power to start uniting the lands around him. Even once they were politically united, there was often a great difference from one region to the next, and from one city to the…

A few months ago, I heard that a childhood friend of mine passed away. His name was Andrew. I met Andrew through his dad, who was one of my leaders in Stockade at my church. For those of you who don’t know, Stockade was the 3rd-6th grade program from Boys’ Brigade, something like a Christian Boy Scouts. It was great time: singing loud songs, camping, playing in the gym, woodworking projects, a pinewood derby, and of course Bible verses, lessons in Christian character, etc. Perhaps I’ll reflect more on that another day. Andrew was half a year younger than me, and because of where his birthday fell, he had been…

It was 2018. I was coming out of a low point. Months of struggling at church in 2017 resulted in starting over somewhere new. I was holding my new daughter, who an an infant was already one of the most determined people I knew. I had turned the corner on another big trial, one only my closest friends knew about. And I was listening to the new version of a song from my favorite band which had recently broken up (as all my favorite bands seem to do), performed this time by the band leader by himself. With the song playing on the laptop there in the kitchen, I danced…