Month: February 2018

  • Good Days and Better Days

    Good Days and Better Days

    [caption id="attachment_3881" align="aligncenter" width="768"] View from outside my window at the Portland hotel.[/caption] It snowed this morning. The blowing, blinding kind of snow. It might have been a blizzard if it hadn't stopped, but it did. By noon the sun was breaking through blue sky.[..]
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  • A Message for Stoneman Douglas Students

    A Message for Stoneman Douglas Students

    I told Tim last night that if the students from Parkland go to march in DC I want to be there with them. When my father died in Vietnam I was only nine, which was old actually. I have friends who are visiting Vietnam this[..]
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  • The Problem with Evil

    The Problem with Evil

    The problem with evil is that it absolves good people of responsibility. Decrying society's ills as the result of "evil" in the world renders us helpless. What power does a good person truly hold in the face of "evil"? We can pray. But that's about[..]
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  • Let Us Pray… Again

    Let Us Pray… Again

    The following is a prayer that Roger Fuchs wrote to use in a prayer service he conducts weekly. It is, I think, the most fitting prayer of all in response to yet another mass shooting: Let us pray: Dear God of creation, compassion and redemption,[..]
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  • Swapping out Food Stamps: It’s about more

    Swapping out Food Stamps: It’s about more

    [caption id="attachment_3863" align="aligncenter" width="960"] Photo by Julie Utterback[/caption] It's about choices. By now you've likely heard that part of Trump's very bad, awful, not even realistic budget plan is to gut the food assistance program. Trump and Ryan are lock-step in their efforts to punish the[..]
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  • House-On-Fire Stench

    House-On-Fire Stench

    [caption id="attachment_3855" align="aligncenter" width="960"] Photo by Julie Utterback[/caption] It should have been a peaceful Sunday. Tim was grading papers. I was reading Tayari Jones's latest novel - An American Marriage.  I don't think of our marriage as American or European, although it is probably some[..]
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  • Make Good Flourish

    Make Good Flourish

    [caption id="attachment_3846" align="aligncenter" width="960"] Photo by Julie Utterback[/caption]   Church was hard today. I woke this morning with a prayer on my mind, or maybe praying outright. Who can know for sure when one is woken? It was a prayer for Pastor Ken and his[..]
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  • Looking to Unseat Rep. Greg Walden: Jim Crary

    Looking to Unseat Rep. Greg Walden: Jim Crary

    Democrat Jim Crary is not the only person looking to unseat Representative Greg Walden (Or-R) come November. There's handful of folks, women and men, hoping to take the top spot in the upcoming primary, but Crary has an edge others don't - he was on[..]
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