July 4th picnics are long over and the last firework cinder has settled to earth days ago. Yet, it is still easy to recall the flags and the bunting, the apple pie and the sparklers, the patriotic songs and the pledge of allegiance. But …we might not all recall those events in just the same way...

“Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it is still dark.” ~R. Tagore Sinkholes. What could be more frightening? On Memorial Day, Americans awoke early, to make treks to cemeteries across the nation. To decorate graves, unfurl flags, kneel in prayer, and listen reverently to the reading of lists of the names of fallen soldiers (from the civil war to the current Middle East conflicts). ...

“Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it is still dark.” ~R. Tagore I do not have a green thumb. It’s not exactly black, but it is a dark moldy grey. Yet, every spring I vow that this will be the year I do something with the small strip of land on the east side of my house. ...

Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it is still dark.” ~R. Tagore Summer is just around the corner. Although Covid-19 is curtailing Church camps, Scout camps and 4-H camps, they are still distributing brochures, cleaning cabins, and gearing up for a smaller than usual invasion of antsy, wildly energetic people under four feet tall. The camping season is almost upon us...

“Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it is still dark.” ~R. Tagore Chicago may be the “Windy City,” but in Nebraska. . . From the sand hills of the north, across the central flat lands, to the deep canyons of the south; March is the windy month. ...

Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it is still dark.” ~R. Tagore 1-31-2012. The long dark arms of night held tightly to the wee hours of the crisp January morning. In the ebony predawn, two families fell sobbing to their knees. One with keening grief as a strong heart was gently lifted from a now lifeless body; another with prayerful tears of thanksgiving as that same heart brought new life to a mother’s dying son...

“Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it is still dark.”   ~R. Tagore The earth rotates around the sun, not in a circle, but in an elliptical orbit. Oddly enough the earth is closest to the sun in January (91.3 million miles) when it is the coldest in Nebraska and farthest from the sun in the searing heat of July (94.4 million miles). ...

“Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it is still dark.” ~R. Tagore December is the busiest time of the year. It is the tail end of the calendar year and the beginning of the Church’s liturgical year. It is the time when commercial enterprises find themselves in the “black.” With yearly expenses covered, December sales are profit – pure profit. ...

“Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it is still dark.” ~R. Tagore The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye – and a very tall elephant at that! It doesn’t seem all that long ago that the by-ways of Southwestern Nebraska were flanked by endless fields of green corn fingerlings, brown earth at their base, waving gently in the summer breezes to all who passed through their domain. ...