Eden and I are doing homework. He does a lot of it out loud because he has the family trait that he is brilliant verbally but writing things down is almost impossible. Sage has the same thing. I think I did, too. We are highly verbal, abstract, creative and terribly [...]

It is Christmas. Jude and I are not eating with family and friends, because it is a little too noisy and a little too bright. Someone is saving me a plate, they always do, because I spend many holiday meals with Jude. I don’t mind that much. Jude wanted to [...]

Jude is excited as we move along the sidewalk, towards the underpass and the lakefront. I am glad we live near the lake. Trails and trees, beaches and sailboats right there whenever we want them. It’s a blessing. I have been counting the blessings lately, cataloging them, sorting through them [...]

Jude wants to go to the park. Don and the boys are at church, where I would like to be, but Jude tends to yell at whoever is preaching to go get him a bag of potato chips. A friend suggested I should just provide the pastors with snacks to [...]

We are at family counseling, and Eden and I are coloring while we discuss the events of the week: Sage’s mysterious broken foot, Jude’s public meltdown that ended in an altercation between myself and a security guard (and how I won said altercation, decisively). Typical Hill week. Wendy the Counselor [...]

New evidence of just how dangerous the sexually transmitted Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) can be continues to pile up. A recent National Cancer Institute study (to be released this week) points out the linkage between HPV and a rise in certain types of throat cancer. Among men, this rise is [...]

Neil Taylor talks about his experiences in a Spiritual Direction Counseling course he took at North park Seminary

Let’s stand back a sec and review what the Christian story is about. God created everything (Genesis) and it was good; all creation interrelated in perfection. Brokenness (sin) entered the world through human transgression, and with that brokenness came hierarchy (man over woman, master over slave) and relational loneliness and [...]

The Dylan Thomas poem, “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night,” has always deeply affected me. So, this past February in the moments before my father died with his wife and children there beside him, I spontaneously quoted the title of the poem and its refrain: “rage, rage, against [...]