All Posts by From the Heart

The soil was cultivated and ready, the weather just right. We had made our plans and purchased the appropriate packets knowing which vegetables would thrive in the warmed soil. I grabbed a couple kids and we headed to the garden. The rows were outlined and the seeds, small in my children’s hands, were thrown in […]

Recently my attention was drawn to something said by the great German biblical scholar Rudolf Schnackenburg. Commenting on St. John’s First Letter, he says, “The love of God has been ‘revealed,’ that is, become open to experience through God’s sending of his only Son into the world” (The Johannine Epistles: A Commentary, 208). The nature […]

My weekend off. So I get up at my usual 6 a.m. I read a quote a long time ago that farmers, if they want to loaf, get up early to do it. I guess I’m in that league. Both days I got up and made a cup of Earl Grey tea and sat on […]

Having recently retired from my duties as chaplain at a St. Cloud nursing home, I have found an old saying to be true: “When people find out you’re retired, your phone will start ringing off the wall!” Well, the phone is actually still on the wall but one of the calls I received was to […]

  “No greater love is there than this: to lay down one’s life for a friend.” This post is so hard for me to write because it has to do with one of my closest college friends, and his death this past Saturday. I met Ben (his real name is Brian Bergkamp, but he introduced […]

To live in a new stage of marriage, we all need to let ourselves be changed by marriage. The reluctance to change denies the possibility of being happy and can lead us to very difficult and painful conflicts that could lead to separation. Keeping the old behaviors that we had before we got married will […]

Performance Art is alive and well right here in Central Minnesota; in the city of St. Cloud, in our own Cathedral Church. I was reacquainted with the term Performance Art about 12 years ago when my daughter, Audrey, enrolled in a Masters Program at NYU. Her field of study: Performance Art. Richard Schechner was her […]

When the middle of April rolls around, I start anticipating the annual return of hummingbirds to our house. And, by early May the Ruby Throated males begin to arrive to claim their feeding territories. It’s always exciting to spot the first one scouting out his familiar “fueling station” by our kitchen window. Throughout the spring […]

The Visitor gets a lot of story ideas from readers. Sometimes we get a great idea but, for whatever reason, we can’t pursue it. Many times space is an issue — which was the case last week when one of our long-time readers, Rita Reker from St. John Cantius Parish in St. Cloud, called to […]

We have a story to tell!