it’s taken me a while to put the Israel conflict in perspective. After several days of wall-to-wall media coverage, my mind and the world’s is saturated in its horror and utterly dismayed by the coverage it’s received in full color and disgusting reality of barbarism beyond belief. And the prospect that hostages, if they’re still alive, have already been tortured, probably starved, and suffering intolerable conditions for five days already, s alarming as the world waits, and they wait for…..
Sorry, blog followers, I’ve been absent for a while. I chose today’s title on purpose: New Creation. I’ve needed reminders of that this past week. I’ve longed to just be back to normal. Ev and I have had severe colds the last ten days or so, and we’ve had responsibilities during that time we’ve just barely accomplished. I hate to think it might have been another COVID visit. We didn’t test, but we’ve been hacking and coughing, and just plain…..
Once more we see the videos and hear the names read. Once more we remember where we were on that fateful day twenty-two years ago. I remember thinking I was glad my parents never saw it. Now, I am happy our grandchildren never did.
I was teaching a class at Kennedy High School in Cedar Rapids. I was “firing up” the computers in the media center. My class was about to enter the room for a lesson I had prepared…..
One of the things I struggle with in my faith is to not judge others, a natural tendency for sinful people. The Bible warns against judging others, since we too will be judged. As a teacher, I judged my students’ abilities sat in numerous forums where awards were being decided, judged competitions, and was called upon to evaluate curricular materials, vote for or against major deciding issues, and, as a citizen, I evaluate (judge) candidates for office.
I admire those…..
Where has 2023 gone? It’s almost fall, the beginning of September, and I’m thinking back to our 54th anniversary last Christmastime and facing the holiday season (at least according to Cracker Barrel and Lowe’s) with all that entails. Where has the time gone, I’m wondering.
Here we are at the end of week three of school already,…..
School canceled today. Housekeeping canceled today. Why?
The hurricane has long since passed us without even a drop of rain. The sun is shining, there’s a calm tropical breeze, and they say we may have some rain this afternoon. So what’s new? We usually do have a cooling-off rain in the afternoons in summer.
What a blessing. No hurricane damage here, and from what we’re seeing, less than expected damage to the north of us. May it be so, and…..
Yesterday, a “time” ago, I imported part of Ecclesiastes 3 into the newest book I’m writing, and thought–seriously thought–about the passage’s words and meaning. Just so you know what I’m writing about, here are the verses written so very long ago, yet so relevant to today.
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,…..
Well, the first debate if over. Presidential hopefuls talked over each other, tried to get their points across, and all proved they could express themselves better than the current President is able to do. But after all the hoopla, and all the preparation time, and all the money spent on the set and the production itself, what does it all prove? Simply this. Just as in Jesus’ time, people “run around like chickens without their heads” chasing after one idea…..
Birthdays are great times for reflection. Birthdays for our children are even more so, because we remember the beginnings, the small steps, the first accomplishments, the hugs, the times watching the little ones sleeping contentedly, and the scrapes and bruises of body and spirit. And we never count the cost of unconditional love.
I’ve discovered that our “babies” are always our babies, even when now, especially in our recent move, our “child” becomes the leader and we, living in our…..
Even after packing and unpacking untold items, many of which we brought only because we thought we had to, today Nancy and I went shopping for things we “need.” You’d think we’d learned our lesson.
I remember when we moved seventeen years ago, downsizing big time, we decided that for everything new we brought into our little 1600 square foot house, something had to “go.” Obviously, we didn’t follow that rule for very long, and now that we’re in a…..