“Ya Know, Everyone’s Replaceable…”

May 14, 2024 By Ben Bongers KM

Many years ago, I worked in childcare at the local YMCA. I was going to school to get my teaching degree, and I thought it would be great to work with the kids I’d be teaching someday. As the Summer Camp Director and then as the School Year Childcare Director, it was my job to open the building at 5:30 a.m., Monday through Friday, go to school for my own course work, then return at 4:00 p.m. and lock up after the last child had been picked up. It was a great job. I’d plan field trips each week of the summer based on the week's theme. We’d have Pirate Week, where we’d watch a pirate movie, eat pirate food, and go to a local amusement park dressed as pirates. Or we’d have French Week, where we eat baguette and cheese for lunch, drink grape juice instead of wine, and go to a bakery for a tour (and samples) of French pastries. Read more

Anniversaries

May 10, 2024 By Ben Bongers KM

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Anniversaries are all around us every day. We celebrate weddings, births, and life’s milestones with friends and loved ones. We memorialize dates and times of tragedy, loss, and death with gatherings of like-minded people to grieve and remember. So why do we do it? Why do we remember things from the past with reverence and sometimes horror? Read more

A Story of Quiet Hopes and Dreams

May 2, 2024 By Ben Bongers KM

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We all have them—Mothers. We would not have been born into this world without them. Yet everyone has a different relationship with the person who gave birth to them. To some, Mom might be a best friend, a confidant, a person to be looked up to and admired. Others look at the person who bore them as a detriment, a judgmental enemy, a pariah. Then there’s a league of people who, after leaving home, never really think of their mother again until they receive that eventual call, “Your mother has—fallen/been hospitalized/died. Very few people are really blessed with getting to know their mothers well enough to know their hopes and dreams when they were younger. Fewer are ever allowed into the “Mommy shell” surrounding them. They will forever be the adult in the room, responsible for training and raising their child, even if the child is 20, 40, or 70. Read more

The Music of Life

April 25, 2024 By Ben Bongers KM

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Scientists and poets alike talk about the harmonies of our world. Pythagoras married mathematics to music in the vast jumble of the vastness of the universe. Based on some of Pythagoras’s theories, Copernicus saw the planets revolving around the sun. All throughout scientific history, we find that when things are in harmony—as they should be—we have fruitfulness, goodness, peace. It’s when something comes along to break that balance and creates discord in a single instance that things begin to devolve, to break down, to turn against themselves. Read more

The Bible says We, “Gotta Love, Not Like!”

April 21, 2024 By Ben Bongers KM

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Not too long ago, a dear friend complained about a sibling to me and a mutual friend. This dear friend's sibling drove them crazy and said, “I don’t know what they think! They think I’m an idiot! I mean, I know I’m making the right decision. It’s not the decision they would make, but it’s the right decision for me!” Our mutual friend—who also has a strong-minded elder sibling—sat back, crossed their arms, and said, “Ya know, the Bible says we gotta love ‘em; it doesn’t say we gotta like ‘em.” Read more

“Pay Attention!”

April 19, 2024 By Ben Bongers KM

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“I’m Not Your Personal Servant!” If you had asked me when I was a kid, I would have told you that I was a personal servant to my parents. No joke. I was born an only child to parents who were farmer-ranchers. There was always something to do. At the age of four, I still remember having particular jobs to do—collect the eggs, help wash them, and box them in cartons that would hold 144 (a gross), bring the laundry in off the line, and pick different produce from the track garden… These tasks weren’t given to me as a “teaching moment.” I was actually helping and contributing to my family. Read more

“Ah-ha!” Moments

April 14, 2024 By Ben Bongers KM

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Have you ever had an “Ah-ha!” moment? An “Ah-ha!” moment is that split second when you finally understand the conundrum you’ve been beating your head against for days, weeks, months, or years. For me, it was chemistry. I had a chemistry teacher, Stewart Miller, who worked on the Manhattan Project, and he knew all things chemistry like the back of his hand. Read more

Does God Make People Suffer?

April 11, 2024 By Ben Bongers KM

The other day, I was interviewed for Sean Kelley’s podcast Humble Faith and asked a question I’ve been asked many, many times because of the cancer I faced five years ago. “If God is all-powerful, why does God make people suffer?” Read more

You’re Just A %&#$!!!

April 6, 2024 By Ben Bongers KM

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Several years back, I had a run-in with some people I went to High School with. I hadn't seen them since the graduation party, and I had only recently reconnected with them on social media. It was a big election year and from the get-go, we were on the opposite sides of the fence. No matter how many well-reasoned arguments I gave, they were met with ever-increasing ire and hate. Eventually, there was a round of name-calling and actual threats to body and life delivered in a not-so-benign way. And, of course, I was completely innocent!!! Read more

Am I Waging a “Just War,” or Just War?

April 4, 2024 By Ben Bongers KM

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Other than taking over the nightly news and seeing really horrific scenes on TV and online, what does war mean to me? In today's world, there are any number of wars, actions, and skirmishes. According to the Global Conflict Tracker l Council on Foreign Relations (cfr.org) there are no less than 27 larger-scale and trackable conflicts today. So, are these wars “good” or “just” wars? Read more