Letters On The Page

Lende, Heather.   Find the good: Unexpected life lessons from a small-town obituary writer . Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2015.   A positive, upbeat, delightful read.  Heather lives with her family in isolated and remote Haines, Alaska. Haines has a population of two thousand.  Heather has for years served as the obituary writer for the local newspaper.  In this book we learn of her special way of interacting with the family of the deceased and what she hopes to convey through the written remembrances of community members.  In a town of two thousand, she may not know everyone personally, but chances are that she has met them or their family and friends at some point.  There are not many degrees of separation in a town of that size.  If nothing else, she probably has heard of them. Whether the stories or information she has heard is accurate in entirely different matter altogether, but there is a closeness in a small town that is not possible in larger cities.  Whenever possible she

The July/August 2023 issue of Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity arrived recently and is filled with the usual high quality, thoughtful, informative articles that it always brings.  One brief article has me thinking about future wedding gifts to the newly married.  In an article entitled Homeward Bound Books, Just Hall explains why he purchased these particular twenty books for a newlywed.  Giving books for newlyweds? While I think books are appropriate for all occasions, celebratory or not, I had not thought of giving books to newlyweds. In my experience, books are never on the wedding register for suggested gifts.  Mr. Hall begins his article with this explanation.   “I recently gave a friend a wedding gift of twenty books as a cultural contribution to his new home and personal library.  I wrote a letter explaining why I chose them.  What follows is an edited version of the letter.”  The books he gave cover the breadth of western literature.  Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey begi

 I was asked to teach the youth Sunday School this morning.  I continued the lesson which was being used.  The teacher is using the video This Changed Everything to introduce students to the Reformation.  Today's segment focused on Luther and Zwingli.  At the conclusion of the class I read them the summary statement that Luther and Zwingli signed at the conclusion of the Marburg Castle Colloquy concerning their agreements and disagreement.  First the Video, then a link to the article which has the summary statement in the appendix.  Good class with good comments and questions. Marburg Colloquy: A Textual Study