Author: James Hogan
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There’s a one hit wonder – with a one-word title – from the 1990s by a woman named Meredith Brooks that starts, “I hate the world today.” Some days that sentiment resonates with me more than I like to acknowledge. So many things are difficult from inflation to war to social and political divisions that…
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Some weeks are odder than others. Two Thursdays ago, I was sitting on a hospital bed in the pre-surgical prep area at AHN Wexford about to go in to have surgery on my right hand. I had my phone with me, and it chirped. It was a text from one of our deacons, Sean. “Pastor,…
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In most areas of life, we don’t use the term rudiment anymore. We use other words and concepts to describe what makes up the rudiments of a particular function, discipline, or vocation – words like “fundamentals,” “basics,” and “foundations,” instead of rudiment. I like both the word and concepts of rudiment because it’s not stained…
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“Why get involved in that?” “Is that really a role for a minister?” “Shouldn’t you just stay in your lane?” These questions come up often in my life. Some of my neighbors don’t like that I’ll be standing in front of my house telling the police what I heard or saw when gunfire erupts or…
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Life on Earth was a hard, mostly rural, wearying slog for centuries, and technological advances were made at a stately pace of one or two major changes in any given field during the average person’s lifelong career. Then the Industrial Revolution hit, starting around the time of the Civil War, and change came faster. Advances…
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I was recently pursuing a regional online news site and noticed a bold headline about a homicide in McCandless. A 38 year-old man was shot and killed in the lush community bordering the county’s North Park. Scrolling down, a reader would find a much smaller headline announcing another homicide, victim not yet identified, that took…
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When I was approached about Allegheny County Housing Authority proposing a broad new, nice, mixed-income, mixed-retail/residential plan to rejuvenate the dilapidated area around what should be a thriving retail area at the Carson Street ingress to McKees Rocks, I listened. I heard the shimmery vision of progress, coupled with the threat that if we didn’t…
