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Last Friday more than 500 people from throughout the Quad Cities gathered in Bettendorf around tables set with delicious meals and vases of sunflowers. But it wasn’t the food or the decorations that brought us there. The elected officials and police…
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I led a class on religious pluralism last Sunday in our congregation. In the days that followed, several people came up to ask, “What did you mean when you said, ‘God is not a Christian?’” Here is a more thoughtful reply than I may have provided thos…
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Sometimes on Sunday mornings I take notes on my bulletin. I try to be subtle, but inevitably it is visible. Occasionally people ask what I’m writing. The answer is always some form of to-do list; a to-do list of people to call or visit. Sometimes it…
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It’s confirmation season at St. Paul! The confirmation ministry of any church has several goals, but put most simply, we want to these kids to know that they are loved, so they can love God and love their neighbors as part of the community of faith….
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Every year at Carrie Busey Elementary School, my classmates and I would take part in the Presidential Fitness Test. I don’t recall all the specifics (perhaps because I’ve tried to block it out of my memory), but here’s what I do remember. The Preside…
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Earlier this week my sister texted me about a shark attack on kayakers in the Boston Harbor. We’re planning a trip that direction and the idea of kayaking had came up. I expressed disbelief about the attack and her immediate response was a decisive “…
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France is a complicated country. Often credited with making the bikini swimsuit a norm for the world’s beaches, France is now clamping down on Muslim women who show up on French beaches wearing burkinis, full-body swimsuits designed to accommodate Is…
When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait for school to start each August. One year, my twin sister and I rehearsed our morning routine for several days before our first day back. We got up early, ate breakfast, packed our lunches, and stood in our front yar…
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Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past week, you’ve likely heard at least a bit about the Olympic Games currently taking place in Brazil. Or, like me, perhaps you’ve stayed up late each evening, fascinated by the incredible skill and ath…
Race is in the news, and not for the first time in human history. All of us wrestle with, or should at least contemplate, what it means to be clothed in a skin color we did not choose for ourselves. The reason to wrestle is for the sake of gaining de…
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There’s this photograph that I can’t stop thinking about. Photographer Emad Nassar took the picture last summer in Gaza, Palestine. In it, we see Salem Saoody playing with his daughter and niece in all that remains of their war-damaged house – their…
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Europe and America are experiencing a high level of tumult and anxiety in the last 24 months, thanks to a number of deranged people and terrorists who have a killing impulse. Amateur and professional analysts alike wonder if this ugly turn of events…