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Just after the Second World War, when trade routes opened and food returned to war-torn England, the country received a shipment of bananas. The government allotted one for each child, so they could experience the taste of a banana. At the time, the…
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How is it with your soul? This sort of question usually makes me recoil. It smacks, to me anyway, of some sort of religious piety so far from my own that it sounds forced. How is it with your soul?… Do I have any control over that? Maybe I was in a…
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At just about any given time of day, there is a distinct echo in our house. It comes from our two-year-old daughter, who is bound and determined to say and do everything just like her older brother. So, if Micah wants to play the piano, Mia decides i…
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The idea of making plans has been on my mind lately as I continue to ponder my summer plans. In May, the Tyler family begins to decide which destinations to travel to, which typically includes stops to play music with friends. In the old-time music w…
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I remember exactly where I was the day Jorge Bergoglio was elected Pope Francis. I was a sophomore in college and was finishing up lunch with my friends when the entire student union started to buzz. We faithful students and religion majors all cramm…
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The exact overlap of Passover and Holy Week that we are experiencing this year is not a frequent occurrence. Because of decisions made 1,700 years ago this year, the date of Easter always falls on a Sunday, while Passover can begin on any day of the…
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I have a friend who has a habit that I’ve never been able to understand. She’s a voracious reader of mysteries, and whenever she gets a new book, she flips to the last few pages and reads them first. This baffles me. It seems to me that knowing how a…
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A place for you. This has been the theme, the “red thread,” talked about as St. Paul fourth graders have worked on their Communion Milestone. The point is pretty simple. At God’s table (or in God’s church or in God’s heart) there is a place for you…
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When my boy scout troop went on camping trips, the top priority for us middle and high school boys was to find the nearest field. A wide-open field, preferably with tufts of tall grass to hide in, was the essential element to our favorite night-time…
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Daylight Saving Time has taken many forms and has been an on-again, off-again thing in countries around the world. Currently, about one-third of all countries have some form of it. What doesn’t vary across all those stories is the disagreement that i…
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My fourth-grade son began playing the cello this fall. Every week, he gets a lesson from a brilliant and dedicated teacher during his school day. It’s a remarkable and life-giving gift to form him and his Davenport Community School District cl…
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If you live anywhere near the Midwest, you’ve likely enjoyed some time outside over the past week or two. While this winter has been relatively mild, there have been some weeks of frigid temperatures, blasts of arctic cold, and a few snowstorms sprin…