Category: Current Events

After the Games

4/3/2018

I'm an adult figure skater and a major fan of the sport. I loved watching North Korean pair Ryom and Kim skate to a Beatles medley in the recent Olympic games. I cheered for South Korean Choi Da-bin who finished 8th in the ladies competition with a beautiful skate dedicated to her mother who passed away a few months ago. The South Korean short track skaters took home six medals (three gold) and their long track speed skaters added seven more to the country’s medal count. (I shared the ice with dedicated future short track competitors when I skated in Korea last spring.) South Korea was praised for the way the games ran and the beauty of the region. The closing ceremonies highlighted the South Korean love for technology and K-pop.

But now the games are over.

2 Comments

Let's #Meetathisfeet Again

3/12/2018

0 Comments

This Wednesday, March 14, 2018, thousands of students and teachers plan to walk out of class at 10 AM for 17 minutes to mark the one-month anniversary of the shootings at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that took the lives of fourteen students and three staff. The walk-out is also a cry against gun violence and a call for legislators to “do something” to protect our communities.

Let us make Wednesday a day of prayer for God to open hearts to honestly talk about this problem and seek solutions that will protect all without infringing on the legitimate rights of any.

0 Comments

Praying in Unison

2/22/2018

2 Comments

Did you join us in prayer on Wednesday, February 21? Maybe you didn’t choose to fast or dedicate the day to prayer, but I hope you spent some time holding up this broken nation before the God of the Universe.

I watched the morning news with the pause button in hand, so that I could stop and pray about individual news stories. My instinct was to curl up with a bowl of cereal or stick in a piece of toast as I watched; I wasn’t yet hungry enough to remember I was fasting.

I even found myself thanking the Lord for a stand by President Trump. He is calling for strengthening background checks and a ban on accessories that turn legal guns into assault weapons. So common sense that it should be bi-partisan.

2 Comments

Following the News in South Korea

4/20/2017

10 Comments

I am currently visiting my daughter and her family in Seoul, South Korea. When I called to say good-by to my dad before leaving the US, he said, “I guess you haven’t been watching the news.”

10 Comments

Christmas Bells

12/23/2016

1 Comment

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Christmas joy. That’s what this time of year is about, isn’t it?

1 Comment

The View from Inside My Body

11/30/2016

2 Comments

I am racist.

I think we all are racist. In this world we cannot help but be influenced by the color of our skin. Much as I love my brothers and sisters at Solid Word Bible Church where we worshipped when we lived in Indianapolis, my white skin has given me different life experiences than their black skin. I cannot help but view the world from inside my white body.

2 Comments

Scary Times

11/5/2016

0 Comments

We are a musical family. Of course we will drive two hours to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/Saint Paul for our granddaughter’s first orchestra concert (20 minutes in a middle school gym, but hey! she was great!) We drive regularly to one city or the other for concerts of the Minnesota Orchestra or Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. This week’s concert was fabulous: Max Bruch’s Concerto No. 1 in G minor for Violin played by the young Korean-American violinist Esther Yoo, and Antonin Dvorak’s gorgeous Symphony from the New World. Both were exquisitely done, but the most powerful piece on the program was Aaron Copeland’s Lincoln Portrait with Alan C. Page as narrator.

0 Comments

America the Beautiful, Part 2

10/11/2016

0 Comments

On our recent trip west, we were awed by the beauty of our national parks. We fell into bed exhausted each night with little time to catch the evening news. However, we were well aware of the political situation that dominates the airwaves these days. Katherine Lee Bates’s prayerful poem “America the Beautiful” ran continually through my mind, leading me to pause to pray for this country even as I admired the beauty of its scenery.
     America! America! May God thy gold refine
     Till all success be nobleness,
     And ev’ry gain divine!

0 Comments

America the Beautiful, Part 1

10/10/2016

0 Comments

My husband and I have recently returned from a road trip to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Usually on road trips a favorite praise song runs through my head, becoming a sort of theme song of the journey. This time the song that kept returning to my mind was “America the Beautiful.” We saw no shortage of amber waves of grain and purple mountain majesties, but it was not the familiar first verse that ran through my mind so much as the later verses.
America! America! God mend thine ev’ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

0 Comments

A difficult Read

4/11/2016

2 Comments

I recently read American Sniper by Chris Kyle. It isn’t great writing, just an ordinary soldier (make that an extraordinary soldier) telling about his experiences. I’m American, but let’s just say this was a cross-cultural experience for me. The book showed up as available on my library app, and I had heard a lot about it when the movie came out, so I thought, why not? “It’s a really good book,” I was told, and I certainly can’t fault it for excitement. Kyle was definitely an adrenaline junkie.

But I found Kyle’s attitudes hard to comprehend. He is a brother in Christ according to his own testimony; we believe the same things about Jesus, see Jesus as the same highest priority in our lives and yet, Kyle finds war fun? He kills people for a living. How can that be?

2 Comments

<<Previous

Times and
Places

After the Games

Let's #Meetathisfeet Again

Praying in Unison

Following the News in South Korea

Christmas Bells

The View from Inside My Body

Scary Times

America the Beautiful, Part 2

America the Beautiful, Part 1

A difficult Read

AuthoR

Archives

Categories

Times andPlaces

AuthoR

Archives

Categories

Times and
Places