The Pastoral Grind

(Originally written for The Baldwin Bulletin: Pastor's Column September 8, 2021) The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity; there is none who does good. God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one. (Psalm 53:1-3). A couple years ago I wrote about remembering 9/11/2001 on my personal blog, so if your read that and some of this sounds familiar, that’s why. 20 years ago, I was 12 years old, a 6th grader in South Holland, Illinois, and on my way to school when I heard the first news on the radio of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center. I didn’t know anything about that building other than that it was a skyscraper in New York City. Knowing what skyscrapers in Chicago looked like, I tried to picture that in my mind—it seemed crazy. 2001 was a time before social