In 1937 Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared October 12 a federal holiday. I grew up knowing it as Columbus Day in honor of Christopher Columbus. In recent years pushback from the Native American community has led numerous communities to rename it as Indigeneous Peoples’ Day, now noted on calendars as the second Monday in October. I have a vested interest in this issue for two reasons. I now live in the city named […]
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Land of the Free?
Tomorrow is Earth Day 2023. We need more than one day a year to remember the impact homo spines have made on the earth, but a day is better than nothing. I’ve been away this week with a few friends on a getaway to Ohio’s wonderful Amish Country. This blog is from Phoebe Morad, Executive Director of Lutherans Restoring Creation. Her passion for caring for creation is contagious and worthy of a large audience. She […]
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Independence Day 2021
I first published this in 2021. It seems more relevant than ever given the contentious political, religious, and actual climate climate this summer. Do we really value liberty and justice for all? Or only those who can wield the most financial influence? I wonder how much longer we’ll be the land of the free and home of the brave. I’m rerunning this so I can spend some time with my family. This Sunday we celebrate […]
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Pilgrim Hall
As I revisit Plymouth this week to soak up the history of the town’s role our country’s history, one important stop is Pilgrim Hall. Today Plymouth is a thriving community of around 60,000 people. In 1620 the population had been reduced from 102 Mayflower passengers to the fifty-one who lived through the first grueling winter. These English survivors established their new Plimoth Plantation on the site of an abandoned Patuxet village. A pandemic had swept through […]
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