Dear Graduates, chart your own course
Caps and gowns everywhere! Smiling faces. Proud parents. Adoring Grands and even congratulatory hugs from siblings. It’s a great occasion and we mark it with well-deserved fanfare. Pomp. and. circumstance. So many graduates! I imagine each of them bouncing on their own personalized trampolines, springing giddily into the air, paying no heed to the creaking complaints […]
Every Mind Matters: What are you feeding yours?
Bet you can’t eat just one! Remember that slogan from the Lays Potato Chips advertising campaign? They knew that if they could just get us to try one, we’d find the rest of the bag hard to resist. These days, satisfying our cravings has gotten more complicated; we feed not only on a steady diet […]
The Reason for Christ: Seven Words
The vulnerable fetus Mary was carrying, whose conception was not completely science-based but entirely evidence-based, was born to humanity in all its diversity, so that we — no longer Jew or Gentile, no longer slave or free, no longer male or female, indeed without gender — we without right or entitlement but by grace through faith, could […]
Is it sad? or am I sad? can we be honest?
It’s interesting how language lives. It upgrades. It downgrades. It takes to the streets and to the wires and the wireless: it is news, radio and late night tv. Who would have ever imagined there would be an urban dictionary? Who could have predicted that words today would have such different meanings than they did […]
Out of the Dust There is Life
When my girls were small, I had magical healing powers. I could kiss a scrape or bandage a cut and presto! It would be “all better.” They would smile and go back to playing. Today, these girls are young women, and I no longer have that power. They spend their days working hard in places […]
We’re Just a Pile of Change
They’re no different from me. They who now don’t have houses, don’t have water, don’t have cars, are missing pets, lacking livelihood, have lost loved ones. They’re no different from me. Oh, but I want to make them the object of judgment the image of wrath, victims of poor planning, poor execution, poor choices, I […]
Activism or Love in Action?
I was an activist way before is was trendy. Today, an activist is: “One who takes vigorous action or pursues involvement as a means of achieving political or other goals, sometimes by demonstrations, protests, etc.” If you are taking action toward your cause or your goals, you’re an “activist.” It seems like everyone in America […]
There’s been an explosion, but there is no bomb
Shell-shocked. I’m flattened, literally, thrown to the ground by the hand grenades being heaved in my land. There’s been a bombing, but there’s no shrapnel, no visible debris, just many, many injuries. Bodies strewn everywhere, writhing in pain. Bandaging their wounds, wrapping their torn limbs. Some, sitting motionless on the cement, with hands pressed to […]
How Could Someone DO Something Like That?
How could someone DO something like that? This is what we ask ourselves when events like the recent crash of the German passenger plane happen. Or bombings at a marathon finish line. Or shootings at numerous schools. Or museums. Or places of worship. We are faulty, we humans. But are we at fault? Can we […]
The Wisdom of the Stop Sign, the Ignorance of the Overpass
One at a time. Let’s all take turns. You, first, then you. We’ll alternate. We can be nice and wait our turn. What’s a little backup at the stop sign? First come, first served. All good, until we had servers. Computer servers, that is. Now, everything downloads at once and I am frantically sifting and sorting, […]