All Posts By

James C. Schaap

Blog

Prayer for a Blessing

It was never an easy thing to do. . .heroic?—yes, but never particularly easy. Even though they had no idea where it was they were

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Blog

Not long ago. Not far away.

The copy on most of the exhibits was written in Dutch, so we missed out on a lot. I didn’t complain–then or now, thirty years

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Blog

Tearful Trails

For some time now, I’ve admired the life of a 19th century missionary, Sheldon Jackson, whose name I found on a monument up top of

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Blog

Emma Coger made a scene

“Let’s have a conversation,” or so my neighbor Brian Keepers suggested wisely on Monday. “Do you see patience as a virtue or a privilege?” It’s

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Blog

Elegy

We watched him shave–at least I did. I mean, I didn’t stand there gawking like some silly ten-year-old idiot, but when he was up beside

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Blog

Park Lane improv

Okay, this little story feels for all the world like urban myth, but some stories just beg to be told whether or not they happened,

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Blog

My neighbors’ stories

Men, women, and children huddled in covered wagons crossing endless prairie seem to beckon all by themselves some hovering, mounted Native war parties up on

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Blog

Of the Heart

Nobody gets paid. Let’s get that out of the way. A goodly number of us do commendable and even exhausting work on this now ten-year-old

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