Advent – Season of Hope Their two preschoolers were sound asleep in the back as they drove home after a long day at grandma and grandpa’s. It was a welcome relief from the bickering, poking, pinching and whining that usually accompanies such trips. “Mom, he’s looking at me!” “Dad, he’s touching me!” He gazes through […]
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Advent – Season of Hope “You promised!” my children protest. How did “I’ll think about it” become a promise? How did the merest suggestion that I would consider their request take on the trappings of an oath? The answer eludes me. To them, a suggestion is as good as a promise. They believe in that […]
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Advent – Season of Hope “Soon,” a voice whispers in the night to the woman in prayer awaiting the birth of her first child. “How soon?” she responds. She hears no answer. “Soon,” the dying man hears. “But when?” he asks. No answer “Soon,” the voice says to troubled parents waiting for news […]
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In a world of hopelessness and despair, in a world filled with false hope based on fleeting promises and false gods, true hope often eludes us. Hope is more than an abstract concept concerned with some distant future. Genuine hope must be connected to everyday reality yet grounded in the confident assurance that these things […]
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The farmer is intimately acquainted with the seasons of nature. His livelihood depends on it. He knows when it’s time to plant, the growing season, time to harvest and time to let the land lie fallow. He reads the signs of the time in nature to know when to reap, when to sow. His life […]
Read More As a much needed diversion on this cloudy election day, I’m sending you the fall color report from my bike ride along Falling Waters Trail yesterday. There’s still plenty of color around. Get out and vote then enjoy the leaves.
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The main criticism I’ve heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is that it encourages quantity over quality in writing. Writers are spurred on to spew out words as quickly as possible without regard for the value behind the words. And then, thanks to the ease of self-publishing, there is a glut of poorly written […]
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Halloween, the celebration of all things that go bump in the night and make our stomachs jump into our throats, is over and gone for another year. On Monday, as we celebrated the day, I found myself thinking, “What is my greatest fear?” This is a good question to ask ourselves now and then. Our […]
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It had been a beautiful fall day and I was determined to get in a bike ride along Falling Waters Trail to Lime Lake before going to New York to babysit my new grandson later that week. When I noticed my back tire was pretty soft, I thought, “No problem. I’ll use the pump at […]
Read MoreIn 1921 the Anglo-Irish war ended with Ireland achieving freedom from Britain except for six counties in the northern part of the country that now make up Northern Ireland. This had not been the goal of the war. The goal had been a united Ireland, free of British interference. However, the predominantly Protestant counties of […]
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