Peter Mayer playing his "Stars and Promises" concert in 2008 While I’m at it, my wife asked me the other day what my favorite Christmas album is. It got me to thinking, but I can’t pick just one

I recently saw A Serious Man , the Coen brothers new film, at the Tivoli . In between an opening prologue of a Yiddish folk tale and a truly stunning ending is the story of Larry Gopnik, a middle-class Jew living with his family in 1967 middle America

HeQi-Interviews – Video Interviews

The American Kantorei, under the direction of Robert Bergt Recent events notwithstanding, the arts?ج�?in particular, classical music?ج�?will continue to be alive and well on the Concordia Seminary campus.

Luther Tower, home to Concordia’s landmark carillon TOMORROW (Wednesday, Aug 12) at 7:00PM, Jacob Bodden, a 10 year-old boy from Amersfoort, Holland, will give a free carillon concert at Concordia Seminary . After taking carillon lessons for only a year and a half, Jacob has played concerts at the Belgium Monument in Amersfoort, the Munt Tower in Amsterdam, and the tower in Hilvarenbeek. Last summer, he was interviewed and filmed in Amersfoort for being the youngest carillonneur in the Netherlands

Photo credit: Evan Agostini, AP I’m watching the television tributes to the original news anchorman, Walter Cronkite. Growing up, the “CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite” was a nightly ritual in my family home. And I am remembering that night as a young child when I watched Cronkite sign off (and that’s the way it is) for the last time

That’s the title of a summer workshop I will be leading later this month (July 27-29) at Concordia Seminary. It’s a topic I’ve studied, talked, and thought about for a long time. Peter Mead, senior editor at Creative Communications for the Parish , will lead some of the presentations too

Simon Critchley, in action Philosopher Simon Critchley writes a thought-provoking reflection on happiness on the”Happy Days” blog on nytimes.com . The ancient Greek proverb above is his launching point into thinking about happiness, death, and the prospect of an afterlife

Giotto’s “Saint Francis preaching to the birds” This is my very first Father’s Day as both a son and a father. Other than the blazing heat that feels more like August than June, it has been a very good day. When we found out we were expecting, a good friend and fellow writer who is also a father urged me to write down thoughts and events as much as possible, as a kind of fatherly discipline.

Just one example: Chaplain Steve Lee, head of Peace Officer Ministries, at work, somewhere. The police called me from the house of a woman with a gun to her head. That’s the conversation I overheard in the hallway outside my office. (A workshop for chaplains, peace officers and pastors, focusing on effective Christian ministry to and through law enforcement is meeting at Concordia Seminary this week.) The rest of the story involved 16 cats, animal control, health and human services, and the woman ‘gun to her head’ shouting out the window, You’re not taking away my babies! The end of the story involved this particular chaplain talking the woman down, averting disaster, and restoring calm to the neighborhood.