Category Archives: Culture

How Grandchildren Save the World and Our Souls

I am convinced that grandchildren save the world. No matter how cynical, skeptical, and jaded we senior citizens become, our hearts still melt when a grandchild slips their hand in ours, places a kiss on our cheek, or squeaks out, … Continue reading

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Gone, Forgotten, and Remembered

One of the platitudes slung about at funerals is that the dead person will live on in our memories. It is mostly, or eventually, a lie. The people with the memories will soon die too. Of course, there may be … Continue reading

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The Silence and Absence of God: Every man a Job

We are most familiar with Job as the guy that lost everything, complained a lot about it but didn’t curse God, and then got twice as much back. His example can be, I suppose, a useful example to good people … Continue reading

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Stanley Harmon Wilson: A Life Blighted and Blessed

Stanley was born in Vallejo, California in 1943. He was the first child of Beatrice and Archie Wilson and was surrounded by love. As a boy, Stanley moved a lot as Dad pastored one Nazarene church after another. The first … Continue reading

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Death (and Life) by Suffocation

I wish I had paid more attention to a section of Perelandra when I was a kid growing up in the church. Perelandra is the second book in C. S. Lewis’s space trilogy. In it the hero, Ransom, is transported … Continue reading

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Do Dat Again!

“Do dat again!” is often the joyous plea of my Ari, my four-year grandson. It may be in response to me catching him and giving him “an uggy kiss” or chasing him while singing, Teckla says, a wrong version of … Continue reading

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Watch Me, Pa!

“Watch me, Pa!,” is the frequent cry of my four-year old grandson, Ari. Occasionally, this makes sense because he really is doing something new or dangerous, but often he really isn’t doing much at all. And sometimes I am pretty … Continue reading

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Every Man an Addict

With his pants around his ankles and hands clutching his chest, he staggered down the sidewalk along Highway 101 in Coos Bay. Driving home from the college, I often see the homeless and the addicts that camp in the woods … Continue reading

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The Leaky Pool

Our swimming pool leaks, badly. It is an in-ground pool, fifteen by thirty with a vinyl liner that has been replaced multiple times over the years. We are losing at least an inch of water each day. The end where … Continue reading

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Nudge, Nudge

Along many Oregon beaches creeks run across the salt and pepper sand into the ocean. Recently, my grandson, Ari, and I were floating his toy boat on the small stream at the Kitchen Beach in Bandon. In most places it … Continue reading

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