On the Western liturgical calendar, April 1 marks Palm Sunday, which leads us through the darkness of betrayal and suffering to the resurrection. Reflections on the end of Lent and the beginning of life in awareness of a new reality.
One of the most diverse and ancient art forms is music. Demonstrating its centrality to human culture, we have car radios, home stereos, live performance outlets in every church and town, and conferences dedicated entirely to exploring its connection to life lived faithfully in God. So what about faith and music?
On February 23, 1983, the Environmental Protection agency announced plans to buy out and evacuate the town of Times Beach, Missouri due to high dioxin levels in the soil. The town was founded in 1925 as a result of a newspaper promotion—buy a lot, get a six-month subscription. Check out this issue for more of the Times Beach story, as well as other strange-but-true tales of humanity's impact on the earth and its creatures.
Hobbies can be so much more than entertainment—the mind and the body fuse to help us paint, work with wood, sculpt, garden, run, knit, play the guitar, fix cars and more. On the activities that have captured our leisurely imaginations and the things that promise to in the future.
For folks in certain parts of the world, January is a time when weather can force us to slow down, stay indoors. What happens when we stop? Stop running, stop speaking, stop being afraid, stop hating, stop smoking, stop…?
A re-visitation of last year's odd assortment of top ten lists. Create your own theme and then fill in the blanks—what's made your top ten list in the past year? In the past ten years? In your lifetime?