The Last, Best Hope

In recent weeks thoughtful, distinguished journalists and scholars have been suggesting that the era of American global leadership is coming to an end. For the last three and a half years I have watched in dismay as a president and his administration systematically dismantled, one by one, the elements of American global influence and leadership. […]

Love Has Good Manners

Among the voices I rely on to be honest, intellectually stimulating and morally grounded is David Brooks’. In addition to reading his New York Times editorials, I try not to miss the “Shields and Brooks” segment of the PBS News Hour on Friday evenings. Brooks is a thoughtful conservative who regularly drops references to the great […]

On Birthdays and Growing Older

I just celebrated a birthday, my 78th, with my wife and two of our children and their spouses at one of my favorite restaurants, The Marine Room, in LaJolla, California. The restaurant sits directly on the beach and huge spot lights illuminate the waves breaking seemingly just outside the wall of floor-to -ceiling plate glass […]

Mother of Exiles

There is a lot I love about this country and at the top of the list is that the United States of America, from its inception, has been a nation of immigrants. One of the least attractive dimensions of my country is the way it has treated the only truly native Americans. But what makes […]

In Support of Planned Parenthood

My wife, Sue, and I support Planned Parenthood. We have been financial donors for years and Sue has served on the Board of Planned Parenthood Chicago. The work of this organization is critically important. Planned Parenthood provides family planning consultation, birth control, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections (STI’s), 500,000 breast exams and 400,000 […]

I Don’t Know Everything & I Wish I Knew More

Star gazing not only invites but almost insists on serious reflection. Years ago, lying on my back at the beach with a young son, looking up into a brilliant star-filled night sky, he broke the long silence I was enjoying by asking, unbidden, the ultimate ontological question: “Daddy, who made God?” The June 10 edition […]

A Church of Human Beings

Frederick Buechner has been my companion and mentor over the years without even knowing it. I have learned much from him and have enjoyed thoroughly reading his graceful, uniquely descriptive and imaginative writing. I suspect that I have read almost everything he wrote and published and continue, now and then, to pull one of his […]

A Season of Waiting

O, You better watch out, You better not cry, you better not pout,  I’m telling you why: Santa Claus is coming to town. “Christmas Creep” has been happening around here since before Halloween. The great engine of American retail commerce has been operating at full speed for weeks, urging us to shop and purchase in […]

Every Human Life

It is easy to forget what it was like in the days and weeks after the terrorist attacks and the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center falling on September 11, 2001. Americans were afraid. The church I was serving at the time sits directly across the street from the 100 story John Hancock Building, […]

The Virtue of Hope

We have to offer our apologies for failing to post this lovely reflection on hope, baseball, and the social politics of our beautiful city of Chicago. John penned these words several months ago now, in the midst of the dog days of summer. We hope it will remind you of those warmer times and the fact that […]