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Oh, boy! Does the world ever need love now! “What the World Needs Now is Love,” a popular song from the 1960s, was written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach. The song is as timely today as it was during the tumultuous decade of the 1960s—a time of divisiveness, prejudice, hatred, and violence. Today, in the United States and in other countries, there seems to be an increasing culture of divisiveness, bigotry, hatred, and violence. Many people have become distrustful and fearful of those who are d...
“Summertime, and the livin’ is easy.” If you are familiar with the song “Summertime” from George and Ira Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess, you probably just sang those words in your head. Now that school is out for the summer, we have almost three months in which to enjoy the beautiful North Platte Valley summer, when the pace of life is less busy than it is during the school year and the weather is more conducive to relaxing pursuits. Summer is the perfect time to slow down, to enjoy the wonders of God’s creation, and to rest. In today’s fast-...
Vision has been very much on my mind recently. Vision problems have played a large role in the lives of my husband and me the last 18 months or so. Between my macular edema and his cataracts, we have made numerous trips to the Front Range to see retinal specialists and cataract surgeons. For those of us who have enjoyed relatively good vision all our lives, having vision problems can be debilitating and frustrating. Being able to see—even with assistance from eyeglasses—is something we often take for granted. We seldom think about the cha...
“If Candlemas Day be fair and bright, Winter will take another flight; If Candlemas Day be foul and rain, Winter is gone and won’t come again.” This saying, dating back hundreds of years, refers to Candlemas, a religious celebration held on February 2nd. But wait, isn’t February 2nd Groundhog Day? Yes, Groundhog Day does occur on February 2nd; it is an ages-old tradition that was brought to America by early European immigrants. The superstition, at least in the United States, is if the groundhog sees his shadow on a sunny February 2nd, winter...
Six years ago this week, on Saturday, December 2, 2017, I stood with a group of friends on the edge of a square in Bethlehem, Palestine. People from all over the world had journeyed to Bethlehem to visit the place of Christ’s birth and to witness the lighting of Palestine’s Manger Square Christmas Tree. Manger Square is located in front of the Church of the Nativity where, tradition holds, Christ was born. The tree had been set up in the square, which also held a small set of bleachers and a performance stage. There were performances by sin...
“Hope is a song in a weary throat.” These words, along with a picture of their author, the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray, will grace the reverse side of a quarter to be minted in 2024 as part of a series of quarters honoring American women. Anna Pauline Murray (1910-1985) was an American civil and gender rights activist, scholar, poet, writer, lawyer, and Episcopal priest. She was an activist for civil rights before and during the Civil Rights Movement and, as an icon for women’s rights, was a co-founde...