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The View from My Ship
The Dog Park
Everyone is glued to the television, or to your computer, or tablet, or cell phone, or whatever serves to transport you away from the humdrum existence of home. We want breaking news—the latest tweet from the President or perhaps the newest hammer and knife attack somewhere in European metro or underground (what we call subways) […]
Cell Phones are Killing Off Conversation–and Civility
July 13, 2017
What has happened to civility? By “civility” I mean several things: ‒ politeness; ‒ the ability to listen to a contradictory opinion without knocking someone unconscious with your riot baton because they don’t agree with you; ‒ the simple human activity of entertaining different points of view from your own as possibly being valid; ‒ […]
Posted in: Life in America, Politeness and Civility
July 13, 2017
The most famous back-channel negotiations in modern history occurred in October 1962. They far surpassed in importance the recent hoopla on Jared Kushner and the Russians, and, furthermore, underscore the commonplace of it all. Kushner was just following some tried and true trails blazed over the centuries by others who got involved in diplomacy. To […]
July 13, 2017
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them. — poem by Robert Laurence Binyon, 21 Sept., 1914 There are several categories for those who died in service. Many are buried in foreign lands and cemeteries across the world, especially […]
Learning Life Lessons While in Jail
July 13, 2017
Now, before you jump to conclusions, I’m not in jail, confined or committed or sentenced. I go into the Tuscaloosa County Jail every Tuesday night with a bunch of Christian men and women to speak and pray with the prisoners about our faith. We are, I guess, evangelizers and witnesses in “church talk.” Going into […]
New Symbol of Status is ‘Being Busy’
July 13, 2017
In this age of being overwhelmed by information, some true, some not, some fabricated, and some perfectly inane, one needs to decide what is important and what is not. One way to do it is to determine what people “think” is important. And status symbols come to mind as indicators of where our culture is […]
Posted in: Life in America
The New America
July 6, 2017
I’m in a hotel/motel, the Comfort Inn, in middle America. Well, not quite Kansas, but in Franklin, Tennessee, tucked in right under Nashville, and that will do, both geographically and symbolically. Our room service folks are typically Hispanics. Our maid is short and has long, black, braided hair. We spoke in Spanish this morning. Since […]
Posted in: Uncategorized
Bible Gateway’s Verse of the Day
- Hebrews 12:1“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,”
July 13, 2017
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