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Open Mind
I've written a religion column for the Southeast Missourian for seven years. I am executive director of the Chateau Girardeau Foundation. I am a retired United Methodist pastor with more than 20 years service to churches in Missouri. I teach part-time in religious studies at Southeast Missouri State University. I am married to my college sweetheart, Lois (Ford) Long, a realtor with Realty Executives, and we have two teenaged daughters, Emily and Rachael. Lois and I are natives of western Pennsylvania. This blog will focus on senior and religious issues.
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A Fitting Memorial to Fields
Posted Monday, October 13, 2014, at 1:21 PMThe late Roger Fields, assistant police chief of Cape Girardeau, was remembered October 13 at a ceremony in Cape County Park North with the unveiling of a bench and rock monument to his memory. Chief Fields, a 26-year veteran of the Cape Police force, died at age 50 on March 30. ... -
Today's Most Critical Epidemic
Posted Tuesday, September 2, 2014, at 1:49 PMI've just returned from a Jackson Rotary meeting, where I heard the speaker - Jason Wray, who organized an extreme home makeover for a dying Scott City Marine, say - "The largest epidemic today is apathy." His points were so well-taken and hit me where I live. ... -
The Way Words Are Used
Posted Tuesday, August 5, 2014, at 2:25 PM2I listen to a lot of Cardinal baseball on the radio. I take it in while doing other things, like staining a deck. It passes the time well. There are two commercials, one for a wrecker service, another for a car dealership, that are starting to bug me... -
A Great Voice Isn't Everything
Posted Tuesday, March 18, 2014, at 3:26 AMI cut my teeth in the radio business. As a young man, I worked as a radio news broadcaster in three states. Having a pleasant voice, a voice people find easy on the ear, was considered quite important. Well, since 1998, Diane Rehm has had quite a difficult voice for a listener to enjoy - yet an estimated 2.4 million people listen to her everyday on NPR. ... -
Ice - A Shared Fear
Posted Thursday, December 5, 2013, at 6:58 PMSo many of us have stories about driving on icy roadways. Just bring up the subject on a day like today - "Snowmageddon," some wag called it, and the anecdotal stories come out of the woodwork. My own ice story is simple and to the point. Driving a Ford Escort station wagon on a very early Sunday morning three decades ago, my vehicle began to cross an elevated roadway. ... -
Why I Like Cape
Posted Friday, October 11, 2013, at 11:18 AM1The other day, I was coming through the drive-thru at Chick Fil-A to get a fruit cup for breakfast. As I handed my debit card through the window to the attendant, she dropped it and the card fluttered to the pavement in front of my rear wheel. It's a tight fit in a drive-thru, so I managed to reach back and grab it with a little effort and as I straightened up in my seat again, hit my head on the ceiling. ... -
Andy Warhol - Daily Bible Reader?
Posted Tuesday, October 1, 2013, at 8:18 AMI see that SEMO's River Campus will be holding an exhibition of Andy Warhol photographs in the Crisp Museum beginning November 1. I intend to go. I can't say I'm a Warhol fan - I'm not a fandom sort of person. When I think of Warhol, I think weirdness - pardon me, eccentricity. I think of dozens of Campbell Soup or Coke cans all lined up neatly for a photograph. That's art? Someone thought so... -
"Attractional" - the Trendy Church's Unfortunate Affinity for Made-Up Words
Posted Wednesday, August 28, 2013, at 9:03 AMPeople I otherwise respect have attended, I imagine, just enough church growth conferences and have read too many of the latest trendy postmodern non-fiction books. They're starting to use made-up words, just as Stephen Colbert ("truthiness") does on his nightly show on Comedy Central. ... -
Buckling Pavement - Good Metaphor for Stress
Posted Saturday, June 29, 2013, at 10:42 AMFriday on my way back to work at midday along Independence Street in Cape, a police car was parked with its lights flashing. No other vehicles were around, so it wasn't a traffic stop. In looking closer, the pavement had buckled in one spot, pushing upward and forming a small teepee in the roadway. ... -
The SCOTUS ruling on DOMA
Posted Thursday, June 27, 2013, at 8:57 AMI must confess that I can't work up about alot of passion one way or the other about the SCOTUS ruling yesterday on the Defense of Marriage Act. I do have passion about spousal abuse, about kids with no real paternal figure in their lives, about people who can't find work, about seniors who have no one to visit them. ... -
Upcoming Supreme Court Ruling
Posted Friday, June 14, 2013, at 12:00 PMOn June 26 or 27, the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to issue long-awaited rulings on the Defense of Marriage Act and California's Proposition 8, in which citizens of America's most populous state (and the 5th largest economy in the world) voted to ban same-sex marriage. ...