Blood Money

Quill and Ink

By now you’re aware of the revelations made in Bob Woodward’s new book, Rage, based on 18 interviews with Donald Trump, and have probably heard the most damning excerpts from those interviews regarding COVID-19.

That Trump knew how deadly the virus was, and chose to lie about it, claim the virus would magically “disappear,” and that young people were “immune” to it, or that it was the Democrat’s new “hoax,” even as disease spread was filling hospitals to capacity and claiming lives, shouldn’t be a surprise. Anyone who can proudly boast about being able “…kill someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it,” molest women with impunity, or call Nazis “…very fine people,” or separate children from their parents then cage them, among other acts too corrupt, depraved, and numerous to cite here, is showing an ethical emptiness that is bottomless. A person like that is capable of…

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Coronavirus is proof that creationism is a deadly worldview

Genesisfix's Blog

The Coronavirus pandemic is not just a medical and cultural threat. It is also a lesson in theology. The idea that human beings are “specially created” beings that stand apart from the rest of nature has been blown asunder, and forever, by the fact that this virus and many thousands of others are threats to human existence and known to jump from the rest of the animal world to infect us.

So much for the creationist contention that God spares human beings from such humble roots. Our gut bacteria was already proof that we’re biologically dependent and derived from the raw stuff of creation. But this novel disease has put an all-new face on the fact that human beings share our guts and DNA with every other living thing on earth.

Denial still rules

Yet despite this biological threat to human health, there are Christians in strong denial of the…

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Notice

Quill and Ink

So, COVID-19.

It’s enough to drive us out of our heads. I fully appreciate the need for hand sanitizer and soap and wipes and alcohol and hydrogen peroxide and pasta and rice and canned tuna and toilet tissue and and and…

We need to stock up, the experts have said, and I’ve taken them as seriously as everyone else who is freaked out by the virus, but….

Lately, against my own self-interest, I’ve ventured out of my head in a way that’s brought the number of seniors in my life into sharp focus, and I started wondering if they had enough hand sanitizer and soap and cleaning supplies and non-perishable foods and personal hygiene products to last for a couple of weeks, since I know, as I know for myself, spending time in a crowded grocery store, on line next to someone who is coughing or sneezing, would put them…

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Homelessness can be cured, but fixing selfishness comes first

via Homelessness can be cured, but fixing selfishness comes first

Profile: Kea Wilson

via Profile: Kea Wilson

Salt and Pepper

via Salt and Pepper

Salt and Pepper

Quill and Ink

I remember where I was on September 11th, 2001. We’d come back from a wonderful visit with family in California barely a week before. I was still in its afterglow, as I was still in the long afterglow of four months in Budapest.

Fall was approaching, my favorite time of year. It was a beautiful, mild, sunny Midwest morning. I was relaxed. I was happy.

I came downstairs early, made my breakfast, sat on the sofa in the living room, and turned on the news to see smoke billowing out of the first tower and gawked in disbelief. A few minutes later, the phone rang.

Mom.

New York.

Are you watching? Did you see it?  Her voice cracked. It always cracked. This time was worse.

Yes. I recognized the same crack in mine.

And we watched together, a thousand miles apart, as the second tower was struck, and gasped…

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Love Poems by Kathleen Lombardo

Quill and Ink

Kathleen Lombardo was a force — a phenomenally  talented poet, playwright, and librettist whose work is not only thought-provoking and innovative, but also deeply musical. My thanks goes to her husband, the composer and artist, Robert Lombardo, for allowing me to share some of her poetry with you. I hope you’ll share it with others.

Two Love Poems

I took a bath without water
wavelengths of longing
reached my chin-

while dressing
I dreamed up a light dry wine
of love poems
to have with dinner-

then I walked outside
sealed myself
to the sky

and dreamed of
drinking your feelings-

**********

my heart was full
of drunken spinning fish-
but I just couldn’t say why

when I noticed the sun
on its big red belly
swimming down the horizon

then the moon appeared
like an apricot

and I remembered the night
you took a bite
and shared it…

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Dad unplugged

We Run and Ride

It’s coming up on two years on October 17, 2016 that my father passed away. I served as his caregiver for more nearly thirteen years after my mother died from a combination of cancer and stroke in 2005.

No one figured my father would outlast my mother given the severity of the stroke he experienced back in 2003. But the day that my mom called to tell me that dad was in the hospital after collapsing the night before, I turned to my (late) wife and said, “Well, my life just changed.”

Role playing

Because I knew in that moment there would be a massive role for me to play in supporting my mother in her role as caregiver for my father. Two years earlier, I’d helped her through the period when dad went through multiple bypass surgery. That’s because I was the son who lived closest and had the…

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IN THE EARLY MORNING. . . .

chocofigbee

I enjoy my walks in the early mornings because it is so quiet in those early hours with so much to see.

This Summer, with its exceptional hot weather,  has given me morning walks throughout my neighbourhood and beyond. Walking seems to slow a person down so that little things are suddenly visible; delightful surprises that  pass unnoticed when you’re driving past.  Walking takes a person down roads that promises new adventures if you’re willing to travel a new path.

                                          

On the route I chose this morning, I recorded a few of the eye-catching things that captured my attention.

One was the unexpected “Fairy Door” built into the base of an enormous oak tree that stood on the corner of a family-oriented neighbourhood. It was a nice strong door, painted red with a sturdy handle and a tiny lock.

Another surprise were the unexpected “Free Lending Libraries”–cute mini-houses built…

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