The late John Prine, in his song, Pretty Good, offered a clever response to all the people who ask, “How are you?” He says, “Pretty good, not bad, I can’t complain; but actually everything is just about the same.” To ask, “How are you doing?” (How’s it going? What’s up?) is to share in a […]
Mother Teresa once said, “At the end of life, we will not be judged by how much money we have made, how many great things we have done. We will be judged by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, taking in the homeless—hungry not only for bread but hungry for love, naked not only for […]
Everybody benefits from a break now and then. Though ancient Greeks enculturated a multi-day springtime “awakening” tradition, our American custom of spring break began in the late 1930s when a coach from frigid upstate New York took his Colgate swimmers to Florida to gain Olympic-style training in warmer climate. Similarly, professional baseball teams from Philadelphia […]
March often enters like a lion and exits like a lamb, for it is the month in which winter officially turns to spring. The transition is played out as atmospheric pressures and gravitational pulls bring forth weather that vacillates between cold and warmth while air can gust into strong winds or burst into storms. As […]
In the mid-1980s, when Eric Clapton was going through dark personal struggles and loss, he wrote a beautiful song, Holy Mother. It is a prayer of surrender which expresses his conversion from being self-centered to being centered in the mystery of life, God, and connecting to others in efforts that contribute to society’s good rather […]
In late November our nation invites us to pause in gratitude for the numerous blessings we receive and share. The ritual began over 400 years ago, before the country was even born, when pilgrim-people from across the Atlantic sailed to the unchartered land we now occupy. According to tradition, colonists gathered with indigenous Pokanoket people […]
Billie Joe Armstrong, lead singer of the American rock band, Green Day, wrote a famous song called Wake Me Up When September Ends. It is a lament about his father who died when the boy was only ten. Released in 2005, it was adopted by the citizens of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast after […]
A mother of four young children recently reminded me that a primary task of parents is to teach children to get along without them, to succeed on their own, to develop skills so that they can take care of themselves, interact well with others, develop talents, solve problems, and achieve goals. I wonder if the […]
On Valentine’s Day, 1929, in Chicago, when tension between organized crime gangs and city police exploded, there was a bloody massacre that is still talked about today. Four years later in June, at Kansas City’s Union Station, another bloodbath occurred when local mobs and what later became the FBI tangled in a similarly notorious shoot-out. […]
The victory parade route in downtown Kansas City is becoming well known, much like the Mardi Gras parade route in New Orleans each year. This week they are on back-to-back days as the Chiefs accomplished the rare feat of winning back-to-back Super bowls. This time, the mobile celebration falls on Valentine’s Day which also happens […]
UPON THIS ROCK 