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The Other Side of the World
I had been here on my post for a week before I saw that we were right near the river. From inside the barriers, on this flat plain, it’s hard to see much of anything beyond the camp walls.
Read MoreTwenty Inches
2014-10-20 Twenty inches isn’t all that high. It’s less than two feet. My daughter was 20 and ½ inches long when she was born. But when you are staring at a black box twenty inches high and you’re supposed to jump on top of it and land on your feet and you’ve never done anything…
Read More“The” Indefinite Article
2012-07-02 Do you remember the Schoolhouse Rock cartoons and songs from the 1970s? Even my kids watch them today on DVD and reruns. There was a series about math, about politics, and about grammar. My favorites were “Conjunction junction, what’s your function,” “Interjection,” and “I’m just a bill, sitting here on Capitol Hill.” I think…
Read MoreMore, More, More!
2012-07-17 As a New Yorker, I should be accustomed to the fact that the annual Fourth of July hot-dog eating contest held in Brooklyn is local news. I should be, but I still cringe whenever I turn on my evening newscast only to see a line of people stuffing frankfurters and buns into their mouths…
Read MoreSpending Your Values
2012-07-31 There’s been a lot of controversy lately about chicken sandwiches. Specifically the fact that the family that owns the fast-food chain Chick-fil-A has donated millions of dollars to groups opposing marriage equality for same-sex couples. Suddenly, supporters of marriage equality are calling for boycotts of the chain and opponents of it are feasting there…
Read MoreViolence Begets Violence
2012-09-13 I’m sure you’ve heard the aphorism, that violence never solves anything. It is a good line, one I have previously used myself. In the long view it even has some truth to it… violence often does lead to more and more complicated problems over time. The problem with it is that in the short…
Read MoreOn Building Bridges
2014-01-03 “We build too many walls and not enough bridges.” Isaac Newton About five years ago, I sat in church one cold and dreary Sunday morning while our pastor, Jennifer, talked about bridges. I came into church that morning a little lost, a little frustrated, and utterly exhausted. I didn’t really want to be there…
Read MoreA Summer Memory
2014-09-30 for Maggie and Lewis As the dimming fall welcomes me back, a summer memory feeds me still. We have risen with the sun, the smell of toaster waffles, and the demand that I read to you. Last night’s bedtime story put me to sleep too soon. So we clear legos from the couch,…
Read MoreMissing God
For many of us, it proves impossible to limit religious thought to a narrow creed. The more we learn, the more difficult it becomes to restrict ourselves to the definition of ultimate reality, or God, that we grew up with, or held when we were young.
Read MoreMy Grandparents are from Ferguson….
2014-08-15 by Susan Maginn, guest blogger My white family has been in St. Louis, Missouri for six generations. My grandparents met attending Ferguson High School in the early 1930’s. My grandfather’s childhood home was in Ferguson which back then was a bedroom community with a train stop leading to downtown St. Louis. After my grandparents…
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