Ken Frantz

A family member completed her PhD requirements this week, successfully defending five years of reading, research, and data gathering while suffering the occasional indignities that accompany any gr…

No doubt about it, many of us are entering the ‘ology’ time of our lives when days are measured by medical appointments, future appointments, and mileage markers. Aside from the costs of travel and…

“How can such tiny seed produce such beautiful results?” It is a question we ask multiple times each year as bedding plants move from the catalog pages to peat starter cups to transplanted wonders.…

Spirituality and numbers make for uneasy companions when it comes to relative importance in the life of the church. Most people disavow a dependency on numbers as a reflection of how well a church …

On the isolated plains of Eastern Colorado are found homestead windbreaks, shelterbelts that protect property in high winds, reduce erosion, and drop snow in the form of moisture-granting drifts. T…

It will never be said of me that I am a coffee snob. Is it black, hot, and at least lightly roasted? Good enough. I take some modest degree of pleasure, having waited in line as others’ coffee vocabulary is tested, in simply ordering the core components mentioned above. One would think that at least one or two thank yous for my promptness would be forthcoming from those remaining in line, but the mental pressure can be acute in laying out coffee particulars. It’s usually best to let them work it out on their own.

An oft used small group exercise inquires of participants the characteristics they find most meaningful in church settings, the elements that hold the most meaning for them as a friend or a member of the church. Those present are tasked with winnowing out a hierarchy of responses. As the number of requisites are reduced, people find it near impossible to sit still and come up with a final short list on which everyone can agree. But, as hard as it might appear, most groups are reluctantly able to reach a conclusion, usually accompanied by a multitude of disclaimers. Often, the sole remaining element indicates that people are most drawn to church based on relationships.

Like burning fuses for the upcoming Fourth of July, our garden delights in the moment are foxtail lilies. Sturdy stalks support tall conical blooms of bright yellow flowers. What most amazes, however, is the way the plant reveals itself. Over the course of ten days or so, vibrant color explodes from the head, but only in a particularized manner starting at the base of the bloom. The blossoms open sequentially and upward. It is that disciplined but fleeting nature that endears the plants to us.

Recent political conversations have once more drawn national military conscription into the light, albeit reluctantly. Count that as no surprise given today’s geopolitics, but know also that it is nothing that has not been visited before. Thomas J. ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, by most a brilliant Civil War strategist of his time, acknowledged the roles that were to be played.

One of the most intriguing items in our kitchen/household junk drawer (c’mon, you know you have one) implicates an iconic office necessity, the embossing label maker of old. It’s the one that uses stiff plastic tape and sports a rotary alphabet and number wheel atop a hand-held grip. No batteries for this baby. If you wanted to label something, you had to live with the hard work of squeezing a handle before moving on to the next letter or symbol. It was best not to allow interruptions while creating labels, for misspellings were uncorrectable, usually occurring just as one ran out of plastic tape, long before business supply stores being open into the evening or across weekends became the norm.