Bookmark it now and subscribe… https://walkingwithalimp.substack.com/ . I am not renewing the domain and it will probably be gone by October 26th. I started this blog on WordPress in October 2017.  I spent a lot of time here and readers from around the world visited this blog over the past six years. I know, for a time, my content will be harder to find and I will lose subscribers. Some of my most popular posts still show up quickly on Google searches for people who are looking for particular topics, and I have no idea if those same posts will pop when they migrate to Substack. So why mov ..read more

My family’s summer vacation this year was a road trip to the east coast, with the highlight of the trip being several days on the beach in Ocean City, Maryland. Driving from the Chicago area meant that we would drive through many types of areas, but a big chunk of it would be rural areas. I have so little experience with rural towns that I needed this trip to be reminded of just how little I know about rural life. I saw signs of abject poverty everywhere. Not only have I never lived in a town that would have been considered “rural”, I very rarely see representations of the concerns and needs o ..read more

Regular readers of Walking With a Limp know my primary musical interests. I have played blues and rock guitar since I was a teenager. When it comes to Christian music, my main bent is toward Gospel music, but over the years, I learned that in much of modern Gospel music, the guitar is not necessarily the feature instrument. In worship styles that are more in the “CCM” camp, the guitar tends to be pushed more to the forefront, with even some lead lines becoming a featured hook in some songs. But as for the bass in CCM-style music… let’s just say beginners can hold their own with the rest of the ..read more

Image source: Wikimedia Commons My family recently completed a road trip vacation, in which my family drove from our hometown in the Chicagoland area to the east coast and back, with several stops for activities along the way. It was a wonderful time, albeit a lot of driving, and I may tell some stories in a future blog. But in this post, I want to focus on a particularly bizarre series of events during our drive home. Our last activity was a cave tour in Virginia, and we split our last leg of the drive home into two, with a stop at a hotel near Columbus, Ohio for the night, before completing ..read more

I struggle with taking seriously the recent battles within the country’s largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). I did in recent years, knowing that its decisions and issues impacted a large number of believers, and trends set in the SBC would impact many other spiritual circles that have similar beliefs and polity to the SBC. But losing interest is inevitable when upcoming meetings and votes are proceeded by highly visible leaders crafting narratives for social media, peacocking for the spotlight, and backroom strategizing with allies to influence various commi ..read more

If you ask a group of people to name some of Jesus’ most well-known miracles, a list will develop that will probably include Jesus’ feeding of the 5000 in the top 5. The story shows up in all four Gospels, which is not something every famous Jesus story can claim. But with all four Gospel writers offering their unique research and choices of what details to include, there is a detail that is unique only to John’s Gospel, at the very end of the story, that should stand out more than it does. Imagine a Jewish audience, as the Passover Festival was approaching (John 6:4) with the Exodus story in ..read more

Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) is intriguing. Everyone from scientists to computer programmers, to movie makers, to video game makers, to writers have been dreaming about the possibilities for decades of more powerful and more intelligent processing in computers and robotics. Technology already has mind-blowing power. If I were to time-travel 100 years in the past, and tell people that one day we would be able to talk to anyone in the world through little handheld machines, and not even be wired to anything… hardly anyone would believe that it would be possible. Technology has pushed to make p ..read more

Regular readers know that I am a musician, and that I do not fawn over the CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) sound. And we know the sound, popularized on Christian radio like K-Love, with a very tight formula and musical ensemble and arrangement, having taken cues during its early development from anthemic bands like U2 and Coldplay. Admittedly, it is a sound and style that is extremely popular within spiritual circles that tend to be white and evangelical. A study was released recently, and reported in a number of Christian news outlets, that documented the top 38 songs that were consistentl ..read more

One of the truest tests of Christian humility and meekness is how we respond when someone who has wronged us (or angered us) admits wrongdoing, or defeat, or apologizes. We have choices from a position of power. I think of times when I am watching a basketball game, and two opponents are trash talking throughout the game. One team pulls away from the other late in the game, and the outcome pretty much is determined. Then the trash talker throws down a dunk over the opponent trash talker, and we all know what happens next. The dunker gloats, mocks, and celebrates. What about an occasion when so ..read more

I watch very little television. When I am with friends or co-workers and the topic of discussion is what everyone is watching, I never have anything to discuss. But when a popular game from 2013, The Last of Us, was going to be adapted into a TV series, I was intrigued. I played the game back then and the story has always stuck with me. I have never been able to get that story out of my head, and games typically do not have interesting stories to tell. The Last of Us was, and is, different. I even would tell my wife about how captivating this journey is, and I never spoiled the plot for her ov ..read more