My Meeting With Ian Smith

by | Nov 23, 2007 | Opinion

Ian Smith, the former white minority president of Southern Rhodesia, has died. Smith and his supporters unilaterally (and illegally) declared independence from the United Kingdom in 1965 and ran a white minority regime for 14 years, until an insurgency led by Robert...

Yellow pencils and matching socks

by | Nov 22, 2007 | Opinion

During the Thanksgiving season, I often recall reading about a delightful young girl named Barbara Ann. She was a happy child, much of the time, because she had the special ability to find happiness in little things. When the skies were cloudy, she found joy in the...

Keeping Perspective When Things Go Wrong

by | Nov 22, 2007 | Opinion

Sitting around the dinner table with friends talk turned to the war and our frustrations with so much that is wrong with our world. Someone said they were tired of politicians who kept up the shell games of half-truths. Another volunteered that they were tired of...

Arlo Guthrie, Thanksgiving and a Yarmulke

by | Nov 22, 2007 | Opinion

Thanksgiving may not be a “Jewish” festival, but each year one of its rituals stirs in me the memory of a moment when my puzzled, uncertain exploration of the “Jewish thing” took on new power for me. And when I came to understand the power of a...

Being in God’s Place and Time

by | Nov 22, 2007 | Opinion

The nurse who greeted us in the emergency room was pleasant and efficient. I could not help noticing, however, the colorful tattoo on her right forearm. Below the tattoo were two additional figures, which looked like Chinese characters. Things were rather quiet and...