Mike Hansen is a unique individual, something of a hero to me as well as a friend. You might not think it when you first meet him, because he’s humble and unassuming, but the dude is a stud. He’s a graduate of West Point and a combat aviation veteran, and he has a master’s degree from an Ivy League school. But his first adventures started when he was a kid. Michael recently put it this way in a reflection he posted: “I was raised a third-generation commercial salmon fisherman. Grandfather, father and great uncle all owned and were captains of fishing boats. I learned at a very early age how to lace and mend holes in the net. Drive skiff. Splice. Change hydraulic lines. Purse the net and much

I spotted him early on in the service. He was just sitting there slumped back in his chair. Because of the distance between us, I couldn’t quite tell whether his eyes had completely rolled back into his head or if they might have actually been closed. In either case, it appeared that the robust worship going on around this young man must have sucked most of the oxygen out of the air. The resulting shortage obviously did not leave him an allotment sufficient to hold his head upright, let alone stand and sing with everyone else. The bad news was that the young man was my son. The good news was there would be a tremendous opportunity ahead on the drive home to deposit yet Worship is active — th

Let me confess right up front: I spend a lot of worship time at Grace Church looking out of that window over the baptistery. Whoever thought that up was a genius. And that tree! Regardless the season, it's been a delight to behold. Until now. Because we had no real fall, the leaves morphed rapidly into drab brown and began to fall en masse. Each Sunday I watched the leaves disappear, until finally just one lone leaf clung stubbornly to the barren branch. I was rooting for it to survive. Easter is coming. And nothing — nothing! — can stop it. It didn't. The experience reminded me of O. Henry's short story, "The Last Leaf." A young woman, desperately ill, sees in the leaves falling outside her