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Good Friday

On April 12, 2022

Every body tells a story.

Holy Week is an interesting time to visit a cadaver lab. I had called upon the one that is tucked into the rear of Western’s health and human sciences building, itself backed into the slope of a mountain, there to meet the dean for an introduction and tour of the 160,000 square-foot behemoth that houses our healthcare programs.

As we encountered the back of the building, the dean pointed out a trio of dogwoods blooming and a pair of park benches. “That’s our donor garden,” she noted, and I, being the fundraising professional that I am, immediately wondered why someone would site a donor garden at the back of a building where no one could find it.

It took me a moment before I realized which donors the dean was referring to.

All Quiet on the Christmas Front

By James D. Hogan

On December 26, 2020

In writing

There was a time for everything.

It needs no further explanation to say this was our first Christmas in the midst of a pandemic, and it was certainly different. Surprisingly, it might have been better.

Christmas days of years past were often filled with family merry-go-rounds, sprints between relatives’ roosts, packing up a car with presents, then unpacking them, wishing folks well, eating, unwrapping, repacking, driving, and repeating ad infinitum. Coming back home at the end of a multi-family quest was a gift in itself.

The Christmas Day race course had grown shorter in recent years. Family trees thin at the top and grow at the bottom. The trips to grandparents’ houses are now memories; with kids of our own to tow around, we move around less and less.

Before and After

By James D. Hogan

On April 16, 2017

In writing

FAITH

Facebook is like a party, only everyone’s invited.

Whenever Lent rolls around, I look for something I’ll miss and choose to give it up for awhile. There were always a handful of things I considered third rail Lent items, chiefly coffee (I drink two or three cups a day) and internet things, like Facebook.

My hesitation about giving up Facebook was rooted in hobbies like this one–writing for a blog. Publishing online, after all, requires one to have a well-sourced distribution network. Facebook is king. How could I give up the biggest readership group for forty days? (Irony duly noted.)

But this year, particularly after a political season that hounded my news feed like an abused dog, I felt more than ready to try the experiment. I changed my profile over to an ashen cross and turned the Big Blue F off.

I learned a few things along the way.

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