Fall

Nov32015 by a quiet walkNo Comments

FALL

awareness, Blessings, Challenge, Change, Compassion, courage, Creation, Creator, faith, faithfulness, Fall, Family, Fear, forgiveness, gift, Grace, Gratitude, life, memories, Nature, prayer, reflection, remembrance, Rest, spiritual practice

Fall has finally arrived in the Northwest. The trees are shedding their leaves, my garden is clean all ready for winter, and the air has turned cold. The land is preparing to sleep until the earth shifts again and the warm sun returns. I took a walk through Yost Park with the dogs the other day and the air was rich with the scent of wet and rotting leaves. This is a time for animals to prepare for the coming winter when food is scarce and the land is cold and wet. Fall is also a time for us to slow down, to sit with a cup of warm tea, coffee, or coco and let the seasons turn. A time to pull out the afghans and a good book. It is also a time of reflection. It is a time to remember the joys of spring and summer and the many joyful moments. A time to ask ourselves questions: what have

Apr162015 by jrcowles2 Comments

When the Going Gets Tough, the Masochists Get Going

Challenge, Change, Church, community, conflict, conservatism, culture, Fall, Fear, hate, Ideology, Imagination, Jesus, justice, Minorities, overwhelmed, peace and justice, Politics, Religion, secularism, Spirituality, theocracy, Theology

I read Thomas Frank’s book What’s the Matter with Kansas? shortly after its initial publication back in 2007. Frank’s book uses the State of Kansas as an example of a puzzling phenomenon: the tendency in some States of the Nation for the electorate to vote into office people who are avowedly, professedly, and explicitly committed to policies that damage the interests, especially the economic interests, of the very people who vote them into office. Frank’s simple but powerful question: Why? Why does the electorate, in certain States, vote against themselves by cooperating with their elected officials in undermining their (the electorates’) own manifest interest? Frank himself offers only muddled hypotheses (at least in the original edition of his book ... I have not read subsequent versions

Sep232014 by a quiet walk1 Comment

Praying With Nature – Prayerful Tuesday

Blessings, Creation, Creator, curiosity, Fall, Gratitude, Holy Mystery, Imagination, Nature, prayer, remembrance, spiritual practice, Uncategorized

Last night was the Autumnal Equinox. The Sun crossed that imaginary line in the sky called the celestial equator from north to south. Spring begins in the southern hemisphere and fall officially begins here in the north. I don’t know about you but I’ve been feeling ‘fall’ for some time now. The nights are cooler, the air has that dried leaf smell to it and the light, well, just looks different, fallish you might say. But with all things human we have to have a point in space and time that defines what we already know to be. We humans can be silly. While summer is my favorite time I have to admit fall has its good points. There is nothing like taking a walk in the park, leaves crunching beneath my feet, red gold above my head and a blue sky the color of which you only see in fall. T