Steve Mathonnet-VanderWell

“I wish you would tell my pastor that ‘the love of money is the root of all evil.’ Money is not the problem!” This woman and her comment pushed about every button I have. A pinched, haughty, know-it-all. “Cow of…

So Little Women didn’t win the Oscar for Best Film. It’s only win was for costume design. I’m in no position to claim it should have won. I liked the film. I think I appreciated the 1994 version more, if…

Football season is at last over, but imagine this scenario. Your team is ahead by a point or two. Your defense holds and the other team’s only hope is a long, long field goal. But wait, they appeal to the…

I’d never heard the phrase before -- “Crabs in a bucket.” Robert Leonard, affectionately known around here as “Dr. Bob,” used it to describe these final days before the Iowa caucuses. When I googled it, I discovered it suggests chaotic…

This story doesn’t have a beginning. I lost it. Maybe you can help me find it. I thought it began at the post office, a few Decembers ago. I’m a stodgy traditionalist who still buys the “religious” Christmas postage stamps.…

Not that long ago, I didn’t know the word meme. Then, if I recall correctly, when I first encountered it, I didn’t know how to pronounce it or really what it was. Times have changed. Those simple, crazy internet postings.…

I’m a pretty regular blood donor. At a recent donation, I ran into an acquaintance. Not really a friend, but a good guy--genial, jaunty, exuberant. A thorough-going secularist. Somehow in our encounters that always comes across. Not in an aggressive…

“Why stop at three?” This was the question a Jewish religious scholar raised about a set of essays on the Trinity. It’s been many years now, but if I remember correctly his contention was somewhat akin to Gerard Manley Hopkins…

You may wish to read my earlier post, God is/is not Conservative It’s only fairly recently that “liberal” became a bad word in the United States. After all, the US is the ultimate liberal experiment--born of the Enlightenment, about freedom,…

Conservative. It’s such a loaded term these days. Every blog. Every sermon. Every prayer. Every comment. Every word is run through the conservative-liberal detecto-meter. We get tired of hearing how polarized and irate today’s America is. Red-blue. Republican-Democrat. Right-Left. Conservative-Liberal.…