After the pandemic: We’re seeing why we’re willing to invest in live concerts, the need to be part of the show — DETROIT — Bob Dylan and Darius Rucker bookended pre and post-pandemic concerts, showing the two ways we still crave live performances. In late 2019, Dylan, one of the greatest singer/songwriters of his generation, was still bucking all tides by doing his concerts the “old school” way, telling audiences to sit…

We hire talent to solve problems: So start with the trick only you know how to handle — inspire us — For four years, I sat next to a newspaper legend. Bob Ankeny was 61, and I was 32 when we joined Crain’s Detroit Business. His beloved Detroit News was on strike, and he refused to cross the picket line. So we were both reporters. …

One potato chip is a gift from God — eating a giant bag of potato chips is the sin of sloth: Did Catholics invent intermittent fasting? — You’re born hungry, so food and faith are roads. The original meaning of diet? A way of life. The first Christians were similarly called The Way. Catholicism and diets are both roads you follow — or try to follow. But we get detoured (sin means “missing the mark”). You are…

A house divided: Orchard Lake Regents split 16–13 on removing the Polish Seminary, Michigan’s oldest place of Catholic formation — Forty-one years ago today, an assassin aimed and perfectly struck St. John Paul the Great with four bullets. The trained killer — who eventually became a Catholic — was shocked that the Polish pope would not perish. Today, 16 Orchard Lake, Michigan Regents — opposed by bishops, priests, nuns, alumni…

My knapsack on my back: I now love the fantastic liberation of packing everything you need into a 12-pound backpack (next time, I’ll pack less) — My need to avoid baggage fees made me learn to love air travel again. How did we get here? Twenty years ago, I loved flying from Detroit to Chicago for $45. …

Even in moments when we have it all, we still want more, to understand the Trinity — We always want more. So even with Jesus right in front of Him, Phillip asked, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Jesus, of course, answered that “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Father and Son are united but different: Jesus describes…

We don’t know how to handle disasters as they occur, but four decades later, the whole story emerges — I was in a plane flying straight toward Three Mile Island the first time I saw the site of America’s worst nuclear disaster. I gasped and thought, “oh no.” Three Mile Island and Harrisburg International Airport are both in Middletown, Pa. …

Praying your children back into their faith: Given your own mission but don’t know where to begin? — On the second Saturday of every month, our parish focuses on lost sheep. Invoking St. Monica, we pray to: “bring them back to the practice of Faith.” St. Monica (who lived from 332–387 AD) believed that we must always become a bridge rather than a wall or a weapon. …

There is no cross to bear that Christ has not already borne for us and does not now bear with us — Everyone wants to go to Heaven, but no one wants to go through the Cross. So when churches closed in 2020, Rory Clark invited us to hike and pray. Then he surprised every man with the gift of a wooden cross to carry for three miles. …