Real Life Matters

Our church camp is situated on Portage Lake in Onekama, Michigan. I started attending camp in the summer of 1974. Within minutes of arriving, my buddy, Jack, landed wrong after jumping off of the swing set and suffered a compound fracture of his arm. The swing set remains in use to this day, along with the tether ball pole and many of the original buildings, including the main bathrooms, which are known affectionately as the White House.

From my youngest days as a camper, the absolute pinnacle of life for me was to work on summer staff of camp, which I did for four years, beginning in the summer of 1982. The staff that year consisted of about a dozen college kids, a few adults and a gaggle of teenagers. It was a summer of firsts. My first summer crush, first time at a drive-in movie theater (Rocky 3 was showing), first time away from home^[1]My mom worked on staff as the camp nurse, so I wasn’t really out of her orbit for a couple more years, first time working outdoors as a maintenance worker (which you already know I hated) and first time up front in chapel, playing my guitar.

On an evening staff outing during the summer of 1982, I remember speeding down Lakeshore road to a place known to us simply as Olson’s Spot. Billy Joel was blasting on a car cassette tape player:

They say that these are not the best of times, but they’re the only times I’ve ever known.
And I believe there is a time for meditation in cathedrals of our own…^[2]Summer Highland Falls

Olson’s Spot is an abandoned house on the top of a dune overlooking Lake Michigan, just south of Onekama. Our group made a campfire that evening at the top of the dune. I remember stepping away from the fire to see the twinkling lights of a freighter heading north on Lake Michigan. It was a magical moment in my life. I didn’t know about lake freighters, or much about anything else. It was all new.

Over the years this area has become more and more sacred to me. It is as if nothing has changed. In my heart I’m still a sixteen year old boy enamored with the natural world. My roots are planted deep here in northern Michigan. Whenever I’m here and the wind blows through the pines and the aspens, my heart whispers to me, “welcome home.” I smile.

I spent the summer of my junior year in college on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, volunteering with an organization called “A Christian Ministry in the National Parks.” As a part of the deal, I got a job working as a host in the grand dining room of the Grand Canyon Lodge.^[1]Tragically, the Grand Canyon Lodge was destroyed by a wildfire in 2025. The Lodge was built in 1928, destroyed by fire once before in 1932, and subsequently rebuilt. It appears that some of the Lodge … Continue reading

My summer in the Grand Canyon reinforced my belief, among other things, that I was destined for a desk job. Work in the dining room, where I was promoted to bus boy and occasional confused server, was physically and mentally demanding. To this day, I have mad respect for restaurant workers. They put up with difficult customers with a smile and a can-do spirit (that is, until they reach the kitchen, when so much profanity is unleashed that the devil himself would blush).

During non-working hours, I hiked the north rim of the canyon nearly every day.

I also spent time preparing for interdenominational worship services, which were held in the campground down the road. Us volunteers were set loose upon the park visitors with little training. One volunteer opened their talk at a family campfire event with the following teaser: “Satan. Who is Satan?” I have never seen moms grab their kids so fast and scurry back to their campsites!

I reached into my roots as a pastor’s kid and led talks that I considered to be enlightened. Thirty-nine years ago my faith was far simpler than it is today. These days I would be tempted to respond as a “none” when taking a survey about my religion.^[2]Of course, this is highly theoretical as no marketer really cares about my views about religion, or anything else. Indeed, I heard once that car makers categorize people in my age group as “50 … Continue reading

I’m not an atheist, but I have lots of doubts about the gospel in the form I preached about selectively from the pulpit of my youth. I have so many questions.^[3]For example, if God is all loving, all knowing and all powerful, why would he create anyone if he knew that they would end up in Hell? If God is a loving God, why does Hell exist in the first place? … Continue reading

I wrote this several years ago and it continues to be mostly true for me: “I believe there is a God and that each of us is very much loved by God. Beyond this, I have lots of questions and very few answers. And that’s fine with me – maybe even a good thing.” ^[4]https://realifematters.com/2021/05/21/ten-speed-grace/

I listened to Dan Fogelberg on cassette tape as I sat on my favorite perch, watching the last rays of the sun slowly darken the walls of the canyon below. I thought about how insignificant I am and how quickly I will return to dust. I guess I’ve always had a dark streak.

Södra Vätterbygens Folkhögskola (SVF) is a small Swedish folk college, situated in the hills overlooking Jönköping, Sweden at the south end of Lake Vättern. It’s a breathtaking spot where I spent the majority of my junior year in college.^[1]The “college-line” students were together for the entire year, as our Swedish classmates accompanied us to Chicago in the spring, where we all finished our studies for the academic year … Continue reading

My time at SVF was turbocharged by Swedish coffee. We joked among ourselves that SVF was short for “ska vi fika” (shall we have coffee)? Academically, study at SVF was a breeze, leaving us with loads of free time to build friendships, goof around, and, in my case, practice my trumpet and guitar. Even as a young man I felt the introvert’s instinctual call to solitude.^[2]Today, my life is slow and quiet, and that is just fine with me. If it weren’t for Jennifer and some close friends, I wouldn’t leave my house except to go cycling, to the gym or to … Continue reading

I remember so well the thrill of arriving in a country with a language that I did not yet understand spoken by people I did not yet know. For the first time in my life, I was also completely out of the orbit of my mom, which was absolutely thrilling.

Sweden was a place where I could figure out who I was without being tethered to her. As they say, “the best defense is to stay out of range.” FaceTime, email and even faxes were not yet invented. If you wanted to communicate, sitting down and writing a letter was your best option.^[3]Sadly, letter writing has now mostly gone by the wayside.

During the fall of 1986, the “college line” kids visited Greece as part of our studies. Studieresa is the name of this field trip program, which included, in our case, practical experience in how ride a minibike on the island of Aegina and drink Ouzo.^[4]When I studied law a few years later in Lund, Sweden, for example, we took a study trip to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France and to the International Committee of the Red Cross … Continue reading

In the winter of 1987, the Americans in the college line visited the Soviet Union, which included stays in Moscow and Leningrad.^[5]Leningrad’s name was changed to St. Petersburg in 1991. The region of St. Petersburg is still referred to, however, as the Leningrad Oblast.

We met some Russians at the Hermitage museum in Leningrad. Later, we visited their 1950’s high-rise apartment to drink vodka and trade western stuff for Russian stuff. We drove to the apartment in a beat-up Russian Lada. I sat on a milk carton in the front passenger area. There was no passenger seat.

The next day, some of us were picked up by the local police while seeking to trade with another group of locals on the street. We were eventually were brought involuntarily to an interrogation room in the basement of our hotel. I’ve never been so scared in my entire life. I was devastated because I believed that an arrest in the Soviet Union would be fatal to my political aspirations. Of course, I never pursued politics, which, believe me, was a good thing for everybody!

Our Russian friend, Alex, tried to convince the police that he was an American. He kept pointing at himself, shouting “Amerikanski, Amerikanski!” Sadly, this didn’t work, and Alex remained in detention after we were released.

I’ve often wondered what happened to Alex. He just wanted to get to know Americans and practice his English. The Soviet Union eventually collapsed, and, for a few years, there was hope for lasting peace across Europe. I hope Alex made it through and continues to live his best life in Russia.

To my fellow SVF students from the fall/winter 1986-1987 college line, many of whom remain dear friends to this day, please know that I often think about our year together, which was one of the best years of my life. I owe each of you a debt of gratitude for your grace, love and affection.

Also, I would like to give a special shout-out to my lovely extended family in the Alvesta/Grimslöv area of Småland, who were gracious hosts to a quirky, high-strung boy from Michigan, who told them that someday he would be President of the United States of America!^[6]I don’t remember this, but it sounds like me. I have no reason to doubt my mom’s dear cousin, Dagmar Jansson, who told me about this years later.

Finally, I offer my heartfelt thanks to the director and head teacher of the SVF college line, Hans Nilsson.^[7]Sadly, Hans passed away on January 1, 2025. He led the college line program for 35 years. He was a remarkable person – both knowledgeable and highly sociable. I can hear his voice today in the classroom teaching us how to speak properly in Swedish: “Redan i trappan hörde Gunilla telefonen ringa.“^[8]Already in the stairway, Gunilla could hear the telephone ringing.

In my mind’s eye, I will always be able to picture looking out over the City of Jönköping from hills of SVF – truly a school with a view.^[9]En skola med utsikt.

From July 1996 until June 1997, Jennifer and I lived in Wuppertal, Germany. I worked that year in the Legal Department of a German automotive paint company.^[1]Herberts GmbH was eventually bought, sold and merged into Axalta.

For a young couple, living in Germany was a thrilling experience, though it was not without challenges. My dad died unexpectedly less than a month after I sent this postcard. I’ll never forget racing home to see him before he died. We were all in the hospital room when he passed and he told us all that he loved us. When he died, he was two years older than I am now, which reminds me that life is both unpredictable and precious.

Getting back to Germany, it was fascinating to work as in-house counsel in a global business. Jennifer coached German executives in English, sang in a local chamber choir, and took painting classes. I worked around the clock (as usual), juggling projects with a laptop (cutting edge tech at that time) and a fax machine. Email was brand new.^[2]Before moving to Germany, I came back to Michigan from a trip to Sweden. I announced to everyone that someday we would all have email, and one of my colleagues laughed it off, saying that, in his … Continue reading I had a weird, numeric email address from CompuServe, but I was not able to send or receive any attachments.

My boss in Germany, Hans-Gerd Ebel, was a delightful, intense fellow.^[3]Sadly, he has since passed away. I tried every day to not disappoint him (as any good co-dependent would), while learning German and doing my best to be a transactional business lawyer. On most days I commuted to work with my colleague, Frank, in the Legal Department. We regularly ate together at the company canteen for lunch. We would wait for the entire team to be seated before picking up our utensils together, saying “Guten Appetit” and looking at each other’s eyes, smiling politely. How different things were when I stepped down from the practice of law in a big law firm in 2019, where people ate lunch mostly À la desk. Now it seems many lawyers hardly go into the office at all.

In the summer of 1997, Jennifer’s sister and brother and their spouses visited us in Wuppertal. We made plans to drive to Paris and meet up with Jennifer’s brother, and his wife, for some sightseeing. On the way to Paris, I stopped to check the oil. I put the dipstick back into its little sleeve (at least, I thought I did) and we resumed our travel.

Soon after, we were speeding along the French autobahn and a sudden popping sound came from under the hood. We pulled over to the shoulder, got out of the car and opened the hood, only to find motor oil everywhere. We called a tow truck from a phone box on the side of the highway. Almost no one had a cell phone at the time. Eventually, a tow truck appeared and whisked us off to a hotel in the French countryside. The hotel did not have any human staff until the next morning. One simply swiped a credit card, which dispensed a room code. I’m sure you can find things like this in big cities today, but in 1997 in rural France, it blew my mind.

Things were a bit awkward as the dealership leasing our Toyota to us was owned by the brother-in-law of my boss. I remember adamantly trying to convince everyone, including myself, that I was not responsible for our car’s engine dying on the French autobahn. I kept saying, over and over, in my best German, “I have seen with my own eyes that the dipstick was put back in the engine before I closed the hood.” I was, of course, deluding no one about the truth. I had messed up the dipstick somehow and caused the engine to seize up on account of a lack of oil. I just couldn’t admit it.

It started early with me. Indeed, I cannot remember a time ever in which I was not trying to be perfect at school, at work, and in life. You know, Type-A personality and co-dependent to the core. I project confidence, and yet below the surface I sometimes still have huge imposter syndrome, a mess of insecurity hiding under a thin veneer of success.

This makes for a sometimes tortured existence. I heard Kirk Gibson recently say words to the effect that he doesn’t want to be here to exist – he wants to be here to live.

Now, I couldn’t agree more!^[4]Kirk Gibson is a fellow PWP (Person with Parkinson’s). He founded the Kirk Gibson Center, which I attend whenever possible. It’s like Cross-fit for PWPs.

I am so grateful that through the miraculous grace, love and support of Jennifer, my family, my friends, and tons of therapy, I have been able to find some peace and live mostly in harmony with myself, which has made it possible, in turn, to live mostly in harmony with everyone else in my life.

“When perfectionism is driving us, shame is riding shotgun and fear is that annoying backseat driver.” – Brene Brown

We celebrated the marriage of Malin, to Sevrin, at the end of January. It was moving and breathtakingly beautiful. Jennifer and her father, Ralph, officiated the ceremony, surrounded by friends and family. I even got to play my trumpet! Everything was so green and fresh at Planterra.

Going into the reception, I was a bit nervous. It’s not a secret that I am having more trouble speaking lately, so I practiced my toast over and over in the days leading up to the wedding, projecting my voice as loudly and consistently as I could. During the reception, the time finally came for me to stand up and make a toast to the happy couple. I was able to be heard and understood, which was a huge relief. I was able to focus completely on Malin and Seve. I started by reading a brief excerpt from my diary of Malin’s childhood:

The date: Saturday, March 3rd, 2007… 

Malin, today was your seventh birthday party.  lt was quite a day! You woke up at 2 am and wondered how long it would be before the sun came up.  Of course, I slept through this experience, but this is what momma told me this morning! 

The theme was horses (the usual theme for your birthdays) and we had a grand time with all of the games that momma planned out for you.  We ended the day cuddling as you fell asleep in your bed.   You said “I love you more than you will ever know,” which is what I usually say to you.  

Fast forward to today, January 31st, 2026…

Seve, I knew you were special from the very start. We sat together in our living room drinking coffee. Your phone was tucked away somewhere so that you could be fully present with me. 

In the six years we have known each other I have learned so much from you, including how to live in the moment, how to appreciate the simple things in life, and how to cook delicious vegan dishes from scratch. 

We often joke that you were born in the wrong century. But right here in 2026, Jennifer and I could not be more pleased to welcome you into the family. We truly couldn’t be happier having you as our son-in law. 

Now, as we all raise our glasses together, I say to you, Malin, and you, Seve: We love you both more than you will ever know. Skål!

I smile whenever I think about the wedding, how lovely Malin and Seve are to each other, and what a gift they are to their families and to the many people in their lives.

If you have ever talked with me for more than five minutes you know that I love coffee. I’ve been drinking the stuff since a friend introduced me to it at summer camp in high school. During my freshman year of college I recorded the “Coffee Song” on my roommate’s four track tape recorder.^[1]The first lines of this little ditty were:
“Coffee works well for everyone.
Take three sips and experience fun.
Coffee. Coffee.”
Yes, I know! It’s so bad. And I still love it.

The coffee machines I have used over the years cover a spectrum from the most basic (a 1984 Proctor Silex machine featuring a rudimentary circular basket) to the most elaborate (a Flair hand-pulled espresso maker, which I still sometimes use. It pulls delectable double shots).

You could say that I am obsessed. But here is where things get interesting. I am – or was – thinking about upgrading my current Kalita pour-over system to a Moccamaster machine made by Technivorm. I returned to the link on Amazon over and over. I nearly ordered it several times. But the thing is expensive. Also, the more I read about it the more doubts I began to have, like: what about the negative reviews online? And do we really have space for another device to worry about and clean? And what’s wrong with pour-over coffee, which not long ago was all the rage? Now, after testing my desire, I am content with the status quo. The urge came and went. Problem solved.

Isn’t this true? By avoiding the urge to get a dopamine hit buying something we want but do not need, the urge to buy it eventually goes away.

“The best measure of wealth is what you have minus what you want.”^[2]Housel, Morgan. The Art of Spending Money: Simple Choices for a Richer Life (p. 35). (Function). Kindle Edition.

The Coffee Weed
For being dubbed invasive
when all you want to do
is take root where you’re planted
and grow, grow, grow,
strain with all your might
to the sky, open your flowers
to the heat and promise
of the same sun as everyone else.
Did anyone ask you
if where you are is where
you choose to be, said,
What about here? and you said, Perfect.
Most of us are blown backward
through life, buffeted by fate
doing the very best we can
with what and where we land.
Even then the grip is tenuous,
shifting soil and slope
that can be washed away
beneath us by turbulent water
we never even knew was there.
I watch the birds out my window,
remember the man who told me,
I don’t want any sparrows around.
And why not?
Just like the other man who said
his understanding was that
Beavers are destructive
and I can’t help but wonder
to whom, and to what?
Put me in the vicinity
of a beaver dam.
I’ll build my nest with
the sparrows, sing in
the morning over breakfast and
brew my coffee from roadside weeds.
– Chris La Tray^[1]Chris La Tray kindly gave me permission to include this inspiring poem in this blog post. Thank you, Chris!

Each of us has a place in this vast and fragile world that is our collective home. You belong. I belong. We all deserve to have a fair chance to thrive upon whatever ground we find ourselves, peacefully and without judgment, fear or shame.

I will push back against any attempt to exclude, impair or diminish the worth of any other human being based upon their physical appearance, economic status, or how they identify themselves.

I’m just as guilty as you in “othering” and judging others. But I am a human being. As such, my highest purpose is to respect everyone else on this planet in love and acceptance.^[2]As for people who are truly evil or sociopathic, I acknowledge that love must have boundaries sufficient to ensure the safety and protection of others. Everyone gets invited to the party. There are no exceptions.

“Our refusal to acknowledge grief and death has twisted us into a culture riddled with death. One of Jung’s more chilling observations was that whatever we put into the shadow doesn’t sit there passively waiting to be reclaimed and redeemed; it regresses and becomes more primitive.”^[1]Weller, Francis. The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief. (Function). Kindle Edition.

I follow a prescribed daily regimen of vocalizing to strengthen my voice, which is increasingly affected by my Parkinson disease.^[2]I used to deal only with hypophonia, which is a decrease in the volume of my speech. Now I am also dealing with dysarthria, which for me involves the slowing of my speech, some unexpected pauses and … Continue reading I also play the trumpet and my guitar and sing – anything to keep my vocal cords active and moving. This strategy seems to be helping. On days I vocalize, my voice is noticeably louder. This always makes me happy and relieved.

Not being able to express myself through speaking is unnerving! It does, however, have its benefits. No one would ever say that I talk too much!

I find it curious that the grief over losing my voice dissipates almost immediately after I simply acknowledge this loss. I say quietly to my grief: “Welcome. Make yourself comfortable. You can stay as long as you like.”

By the same token, whenever I take steps to avoid grief, I almost always end up making things worse – allowing the situation to be even more painful and distressing.

People always seem to have something to say, but it is also interesting to notice what people are not saying. Many of us are walking through life carrying unmetabolized grief.^[3]Francis Weller writes about the importance of metabolizing grief, and this resonates with me. Sometimes grief hides in plain sight as anger, bitterness, and resentment. These are cover emotions, concealing the genuine grief and hurt stuck just under the surface.

By leaning into grief – saying yes and welcoming it into the daylight – I actually bring myself into closer alignment with the universe and my truest self. I witness both the beauty and loss within and around me with a full, open heart.

“Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.” – Fred Rogers

In the early 1970s, my dad served as pastor of First Covenant Church in Cadillac, Michigan. My mom worked as a public health nurse for Wexford County and took classes at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to become a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner. If you yapped with my mom for more than ten minutes, you already knew this about her.^[1]They say that people tell you the most important thing in their lives in the first ten minutes after meeting them.

In October of 1975, I sat in our family room and looked carefully through the Sears Christmas gift catalog. In some ways, Christmas in the Anderson house was transactional. One would simply pick something out in the catalog, bring it to the attention of our mom and it would appear on Christmas Eve under the tree.

I had never heard of the Guns of Navarone novel, let alone the movie, but upon seeing the cutaway interior of the mountain fortress in the Sears catalog, I was awestruck. I studied the picture in the catalog like a student studies for an important test. Two mounted howitzers, dozens of plastic soldiers and a working elevator to move soldiers up and down the fortress – so many possibilities for hours and hours of death, destruction, and righteous mayhem!

The Nazis were always the bad guys, even though the Korean War and War in Vietnam had been much more recent. One of our favorite outdoor games to play in the neighborhood in the summer was what we simply referred to as “war.” If you were shot during the game, you laid down, closed your eyes and counted to one hundred. After that, you jumped up and went right back into battle. It was like a childhood version of Valhalla.

On Christmas Eve, we ate Swedish meatballs for dinner and headed next door for the evening church service. I wore a white suit with a red shirt and was at the top of the world. Upon returning and gobbling down Swedish Christmas cookies for dessert, it was finally time to open presents. When it was my turn to open my first present, I zeroed in on the Guns of Navarone shaped box, ripped off the wrapping paper, and was thrilled to find that my dreams had been fulfilled.

On Christmas Day, I set up the fortress in my bedroom closet. I staged elaborate battle scenes there for hours, knocking over the plastic soldiers when they were hit by the good guys, or the bad guys.

Later that winter, during an arctic blast, it got so cold that all of the public schools were closed. My dad went to the local hardware store down the street, Gambles, and bought two ski masks. After loading our second-hand skis in the back of our Ford Gran Torino station wagon, we drove to Caberfae, where we skied all morning together. I remember my dad losing one ski somehow at the top of one of the runs. He hobbled down the hill with one ski, cursing as he went after the runaway ski. I smiled and laughed. So did he when he finally caught up with it.

Now that both of my parents have departed, my love for each of them seems to be entering a new phase. Their absence has allowed to soften some of the hard places that always seemed to get in the way when they were here. It is like the war I sometimes waged against them is finally over.

It is Christmas Eve. I’m in my white suit. Dessert is finished. I am waiting to open gifts that they got especially for me. Thanks, mom and dad! I love you.

“When dogs go to Heaven, they don’t need wings
because God knows that dogs love running best.
He gives them fields. Fields and fields and fields.
When a dog first arrives in heaven, he just runs.”^[1]“Dog Heaven” by Cynthia Rylant

The unthinkable, and inevitable, finally happened. On December 12, 2024, we said goodbye to Freja after fourteen thrilling years with her independent, active soul.

Almost our entire pack was with her when she departed. We gathered around her during her final moments. Jennifer pictured her in her mind’s eye, running after her beloved orange ball into the commons area behind our home. Malin then opened the sliding glass door, and Freja was gone.

As anyone with a beloved furry family member can tell you, losing them is heartbreaking. In the days since she has passed, we have continued some of our daily rituals with her, including walking to her favorite spots in our neighborhood. We love picturing her now running free, her sniffer guiding her wherever she wants to go.

I am convinced that there is a heaven, and that Freja is there, along with my mom and dad, aunt, uncles, grandparents and their grandparents. They will all be there, waiting to greet me there when it is my time to arrive.^[2]Who knows when this will happen? I often joke to my friends and family: “Live each day as if it’s your last, and one of these days, you will be right!”

Theoretical physics, and the field of advanced mathematics support the notion that there are many dimensions of reality beyond the four conventional dimensions of space and time. While the actual number of dimensions remains a topic of scientific debate, it does not take much imagination to postulate that time is merely a social construct. “In the worlds above this one, time simply doesn’t behave as it does here. It’s not necessarily one-thing-after-another in those worlds.”^[3]Alexander III M.D., Eben. Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife (p. 143). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.

We know only a tiny fraction of all there is to know in our galaxy, much less the entire universe. Acknowledging the limitations of our understanding provides me with hope in what awaits us all somewhere down the line.

A few days after Freja passed, I heard this song by Coldplay, which I often imagine Freja singing back to everyone in her pack:

We’ve been through low
Been through sunshine
Been through snow
All the colors of the weather
We’ve been through high
Every corner of the sky
And still we’re holding on together
You got all my love
Whether it rains or pours, I’m all yours
You’ve got all my love
Whether it rains, it remains
You’ve got all my love.^[4]“All my love” by Coldplay.

I picture Freja eagerly awaiting my arrival, sitting next to her orange ball with great excitement and anticipation about what comes next.