News & Articles
Mourning and Memory
Mourning the death of someone whom one has loved can take many forms. Take the recent passing of the songwriter and singer Gordon Lightfoot. Some of us who love Lightfoot’s many songs and the unique quality of his voice will find it too painful to listen for a while to even one of his creations. …
Facing the Crisis
I will pick on my own ethnic background to offer the following example. If ninety-five percent of violent crime in this country—murders, gun violence, sexual assaults, trafficking of minors, school bullying, hate crimes, and road rage—were committed by Swedish-Americans, wouldn’t we demand to know what’s terribly wrong with Americans of Swedish ancestry? Wouldn’t we investigate…
Spoiling the Moment
There is a scene in Archibald MacLeish’s play “J.B.” that wouldn’t be so sad if it weren’t repeated so often. “J.B” is MacLeish’s modern retelling of the Biblical book of Job, and, In this scene, J.B’s family is enjoying Thanksgiving dinner. Joy is the emphasized word. J.B’s children are really into the festive spirit, laughingly…
The “What If” Game
A favorite game of history lovers is the “what if” game. A version of the “what if” game is currently being played on a popular TV program, a show that imagines what America would be like if Germany and Japan had won WW II. Another popular program imagines life in our country if Russia had…
The Antidote to Boredom
Many Christmases ago, a relative of mine received what was then a new toy. The toy was an oval track with a battery-powered booster on one side that propelled a Hot Wheels car around the track. The car would be shot out of the booster at high speed, then slowly decelerate as it made its…
Say What?
I suspect that everyone who loves sacred scriptures, no matter what scriptures that person considers sacred, has experienced something similar to what I experienced thirty years ago. After decades of reading and studying the Bible, my tradition’s sacred text, I came across a passage that I never noticed before. When that happened, I was stopped…