In 1927 Balto, a Siberian Husky, was on display in Los Angeles. Clevelander George Kimble went there on a business trip. He stopped by at the sideshow where, for ten cents, patrons glimpsed through a small window at Balto and six other Huskies hooked up to their sled harnesses. These dogs were part of the Alaskan Serum Relay. Now they lived in a small dark room, looking sick and badly neglected. Two years earlier Balto […]
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Shakespeare Behind Bars
. . . I was in prison and you visited me. (Matthew 24:36) I used to be the walking definition of stage fright. I dropped out of a high school public speaking class, convincing my parents and guidance counselor it was because I couldn’t manage all the classes I’d signed on for that semester. The real reason was I got physically sick every time it was my turn to present a speech. I suppose it’s […]
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God, as the Divine Switchboard Operator
You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again. (Psalm 71:20) I sometimes think of God as the divine switchboard operator. Not all that long ago, switchboard operators connected us to each other through a system of cables they manually moved around on their enormous switchboards. I was reminded of this when watching an episode of “The Crown.” […]
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Thank Tisquantum for Thanksgiving
Before you carve into that turkey, pause to thank God for Tisquantum. You may have heard of him as Squanto. That’s his Anglicized name. Tisquantum was a member of the Patuxet tribe that lived in what is today Massachusetts. By whatever name you may know him, you probably do not know what a significant part he played in the traditional Thanksgiving story about the Pilgrims and Native Americans feasting together in the fall of 1621. […]
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500 Years Later – 1517 to 2017
In honor of the 500th Anniversary of the start of the Reformation, I am pausing from the post-Harvey blogs to reflect on the significance of that globe-changing movement that began October 31, 1517. Today we may rant and rail against political, religious, and business injustices and inequities, but at least we are we are free to do so. Five hundred years ago people in Europe were controlled by a complex system of royalty and religious […]
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