On Christmas Eve, my father gave me the most wonderful set of baseball cards I’ll ever own. These cards are also the most valuable in my collection. “Priceless” is a word used too often, but these cards, individually and as a set, just might fit that description.
Continue reading “The Most Valuable Baseball Card Set Ever”
As we progress through life, our priorities change – sometimes dramatically. As we age, we gain wisdom and make decisions, big and small, placing different values on things that we determine to be important. Some things that might have seemed important at one time no longer are. As life changes, priorities change.
And this is good and necessary and important.
Continue reading “The Greatest of All Time!”
Words matter.
Kindness matters.
Love matters.
This evening I received a message, just a few short sentences, that made my day.
Continue reading “Words Matter. Kindness Matters. Love Matters”
As a school administrator for 27 years, I had the good fortune to see great teaching on a daily basis. I supervised and evaluated some of the best teachers who ever lived. There is something special about a great teacher… a person who can inspire children and bring out the best in them.
Continue reading “The Greatest School Teacher”
I had the privilege of serving as the minister at Grace United Methodist Church in Wyckoff, NJ on Sunday, April 23, 2023.
The following is the sermon I delivered:
THE CHOSEN…
Have you ever looked at a common word and thought that it was spelled incorrectly? You see the word, you can read it but it just doesn’t seem…correct.
I remember being in high school, probably not paying much attention to the teacher, and noticing the word “exit.”
I simply didn’t look right.
But it was, of course.
Sometimes words, properly spelled, don’t look right.
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Continue reading “He Chose…US!”
My retirement from public K-12 education began today.
I was fortunate that there weren’t too many people there to see me as I left the building. I must have been a sight to see. A grown man, a guy in his mid-50’s, face full of tears and sadness, walking away from a school… my school; the school I led for 14 wonderful years.
I was, it is, it will always be, a special school – a magical place for kids and adults. It is a magical place even for the principal. It’s a special school, a school defined by caring and love and respect and kindness. It is a school where the teachers truly care about kids. And it is a school where the teachers find and create innovative ways to teach the children.
Continue reading “Today I Said Goodbye To The School I Love”
Please see my other site, Start Spreading the News, for the story of the day Darryl Strawberry came to my school to have a catch with me.
On February 27, 2022, I was the guest preacher at Grace United Methodist Church in Wyckoff, NJ. The following is the sermon I delivered.
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Continue reading “Pizza and God”
On July 11, 2021, I was asked to deliver the sermon at Grace United Methodist Church in Wyckoff, New Jersey.
The following is the transcript of my sermon.
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God asks a lot of us. All the time. He wants us to be reverent.
He wants us to love him.
He loves us…
He asks us to pray. He even had Jesus teach us how to pray.
God wants us to follow the Golden Rule.
He wants us to be kind, to be generous, to love… to love one another as he loves us.
He asks us to honor our mothers and fathers, to not lust, or want, or use his name in vain.
Or take false idols.
Or to kill.
He asks a lot of us.
Because he loves us.
Continue reading “Closing and Opening Doors To God”
I am so please that so many people are loving my novel Scattering the Ashes. If you have not read it, I highly recommend that you do.
I was recently interviewed on KSJE’s “Wrire-On Four Corners” program.
You can listen to that interview here: Write-On Four Corners- June 2, 2021: Paul Semendinger, Scattering the Ashes
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