Veterans Day doesn’t lend itself to commercial attention like its twin, Memorial Day, probably because it’s squeezed between two other cash-registering holidays, Halloween and Thanksgiving, and it does not coincide with a car-cultural observance like the Indy 500 auto race….
Reversal of fortunes: Bake sales to support our troops
One recent slow morning in August, the grocery store circulars in the newspaper caught my attention. And I began to wonder how things might be different if certain fortunes were reversed. Instead of “back-to-school” it’s “back-to-basic-training” discount offers. Imagine the…
Eastertide: The outing of the church
We have entered Eastertide, the liturgical season beginning with Easter and ending 50 days later on Pentecost (also known as Whitsunday). The formulation of this season parallels the period in Judaism between the first day of Pesach (Passover, marking their…
Memory and mandate: A meditation on Maundy Thursday
Under the sway of Easter bunnies, chocolate binges and spring fashion sales, Holy Week and Resurrection Morning observances have shed almost all connections to the volatile political events in Jerusalem leading up to Jesus’ “triumphal entry” into the city. The…
Going public with Lent’s call to penitence
“Concealment makes the soul a swamp. Confession is how you drain it.” —Charles M. Blow They have treated the wound of my people carelessly. They acted shamefully, they committed abomination, yet they did not know how to blush. —Jeremiah 6:14-15…
Meditation on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
I can almost smell the acrid, thick smoke of diesel engines powering Russian tanks, personnel carriers and trucks hauling heavy artillery into two eastern provinces of Ukraine’s border with Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the two provinces as “independent…
Let’s put Herod back into Christmas
In 1936, with war clouds gathering in Europe, author E.B. White wrote the following for The New Yorker: “Shopping in Woolworth’s, in the turbulent days, we saw a little boy put his hand inquiringly on a ten-cent Christ child, part…
Angel wings and devil tails: Meditation on the Feast of the Holy Innocents
“This is no time for a child to be born, With the Earth betrayed by war and hate And a comet slashing the sky to warn That time runs out and the sun burns late.” —Madeleine L’Engle, “The Risk of…
Accountability for the execution of Ahmaud Arbery: More is needed
I pounded the arm of my chair as each of the jury decisions, nine counts in all, were read by the judge in the case of the Ahmaud Arbery murder trial. The triggerman was found guilty of all counts. The…
Veterans (Armistice) Day history and the prophetic import of red poppies
Veterans Day doesn’t lend itself to commercial attention like its twin, Memorial Day, probably because it’s squeezed between two other cash-registering holidays, Halloween and Thanksgiving, and it does not coincide with a car-cultural observance like the Indy 500 auto race….
How to read the Cuban street protests in light of U.S.-Cuba history
Medieval European maps traced the outline of the entirety of past exploration, and just outside the bounds of what was known they inscribed the words, “Here Be Dragons.” Here Be Dragons is an appropriate mythological metaphor for the United States…
Peacemaking about more than ‘funky t-shirts and Birkenstocks,’ Baptist says
Those stereotypes don’t do justice to a ministry inspired by the words and example of Christ, says Ken Sehested, a long-time leader of the Baptist peacemaking movement in the United States.