Chewing the Cud

December 06, 2013 Two lanes, hot weather, and apricots are of summer memories.  One memory pulls in each year with the apricot harvest.  As I migrated north from the southern California canyons of my youth, the season of memory has shifted, but not much.  West coast apricots all seem to ripen sometime from mid-June to…

Reblogged from Faith and Values in the Public Square: Prompted by our “Insert Catchy Title Here” debate between Dr. Michael Trice and Rabbi Anson Laytner, David Bell responds to the topic discussing the idea of nation and what it means to be the United States, what it means to be America, and what it means…

November 24, 2013 I walked off the plane and through two security doors leading to the public area of the airport.  Being one of the last to exit the prop plane that flies between Seattle and Yakima, my friend’s spouses and partners were already hugging and kissing them.  I’ve seen this many times after folks…

November 17, 2013 Martin Marty wrote an article for Sightings called Mormons and Native Americans.  He uses and article by Fernanda Santos, in The New York Times, where she talks about Navajo people reclaiming their roots thanks to the Mormon Church.  Marty concludes saying, Non- or anti-Mormons, who regard the Book of Mormon as fiction,…

Doug Smith does a wonderful job of giving us a bit of history on the great Indian advocate Bartholomew de las Casas. I find the text (Eccl:34) de las Casas chose for his birthday text appropriate in a modern context when mineral extraction has become a central issue of hurt upon indigenous world tribes.