Most of us have heard the engaging and revealing comment that goes something like this. “Ginger Rogers did all the things in dance that Fred Astaire did. Except she did all those steps backwards and in high heels.” Jesus is sometimes referred to as “Lord of the Dance.” We even have a hymn that describes…
Laureen and Willie are remarkable people. I know because for a number of years they were, along with their young son, members of our congregation in Cleveland. It was a privilege to know them. When professional opportunities called them to Minneapolis, while important for them, their move was a significant loss for our Cleveland congregation….
Chris Quinn is the President/Editor of Cleveland’s daily newspaper, The Plain Dealer. In a message to several thousand of us on his daily text communication regarding The Plain Dealer journalism focus, Quinn made the observation that President Donald J. Trump “owns the daily news cycle like no predecessor.” Setting President Trump’s actions aside and setting…
Advent is the season of expectation. Advent is the season of expecting that something great, wonderful, redemptive, fulfilling, and pregnant with promise is about to occur. We need such a season. Absent an advent season in our lives – absent a season of expectation that something great, wonderful, redemptive, fulfilling, and pregnant with promise will…
I just have had a conversation with a man whose wife of 65 years recently passed away. As he was in life, he was with her at the end. He told me that moments after her last breath the atmosphere in the room suddenly changed. The air in the room seemed to take on a…
This past March, with two procedures spaced apart by several weeks, I had cataract surgery on both eyes. The cloudy lenses were removed and replaced with clear artificial ones. The result has been, among other things, a renewed ability to see the vibrancy of color. When I returned home after the first procedure, it appeared…
Many people reading this blog will remember the enormously popular radio commentator, Paul Harvey. Harvey had a segment of his radio broadcasts called “The Rest of the Story.” He would always begin with this line, “You know what the news is. But in a minute, you will hear the rest of the story.” In these…
Consider the state we are in as a nation. National Guard troops have been deployed in two American cities; Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Our president has been planning and now threatens to send National Guard troops to Chicago. The reason the President gives for his efforts to federalize the National Guard and deploy soldiers in…
As President Trump and his minions of sycophantic enablers daily attack representative democracy and The United States Constitution, millions of us work to deal with our outrage. It is not an easy task. The list of Trump’s assaults on our government all supported by a complicit MAGA Republican majority in congress and a confoundedly permissive…
In 1969 Frank Sinatra recorded and released a Paul Anka song entitled, “My Way.” It spent weeks on the popular music charts of top ten songs. And over the many years since, it has been sung by a plethora of recording artists and many, many singers in all sorts of venues. One of the thousands…