Early last December, when fall still held sway, a strong wind stripped our trees of many of their leaves. A sixty-foot liquid amber, a broad fruitless pear, and a neighbor’s trees all contributed to the mass of leaves covering the ground cover on our south slope and driveway. Wanting to avoid the debris from choking out our ice plant and from drifting onto our neighbors’ yards, I grabbed my leaf blower to blow them off the slope and pushed them into a pile…
Read MoreNo Masks!
For over a year now, we’ve battled COVID, with a variety of strategies. One of the more controversial one deals with wearing masks, should we or shouldn’t we? If we’ve been fully vaccinated or not? Yeah, it’s partisan and often judgmental. But perhaps we can use COVID masking, which many of us disagree on, as a metaphor for a deeper spiritual truth. One I suspect we may also disagree on. However, this one…
Read More
image from Nora Carol
Fake News
This post may be my most politically relevant and unyieldingly nonpartisan. A few weeks back a commentator, who’s been around since Watergate, expressed that he is more concerned about the future of our country now than at any time in his life. Why? We can’t agree on truth. We don’t seek truth. Partisans, on both sides, decry as “Fake News” anything that doesn’t match what they already want to believe. We accept, as gospel, rumors with no evidence. The divide between left and right grows. And I’m not sure electing more “people with our values” will help…
Read More
image from dw.com
Appearances Deceive
Dan Hicks, the NBC announcer for the Olympics women’s super-G, declared, “It’s Anna Veith of Austria who repeats as Olympic super-G champion!” After a commercial, NBC went to figure skating. The result pleased me; that made four consecutive gold medals in that event for Austria. I appreciate talent, hard work, and diligence, and Austria’s alpine program shows that. At least, it appeared that way—NBC said so. But...
Read More