On Thursday, northern Utah was hit by a windstorm of historic proportions. Hurricane-force winds, topping 100 miles per hour, shredded the region, toppling semi-trailer rigs, ripping away roofing and tearing trees out by their roots. I got off the train two stops short to walk a few miles in the icy gusts, a mere 50-60…

To be a preacher’s kid in a Fundamentalist Christian/ Pentecostal home in the 1960s and early 1970s was to be engaged in a full-on “culture war,” even decades before that term came to define our nation’s current theological, ethical and political divides. For me, it was music that was the battleground. Back then, the veterans…

Perhaps my perceptions are skewed, but does it seem that as the 2011 holiday season gets underway there is a sense of desperate celebration? Stores opened for Christmas shopping earlier than ever this week, offering margin-cutting bargains to bring the throngs into their aisles, and queuing up at the checkout stands to fork over the…

Far more than a chance to gorge on turkey, stuffing, yams, pies, hams and mashed potatoes and gravy, Thanksgiving is a time for reflection, and the gift of perspective. We tend to look to the so-called “first Thanksgiving” as that 1621 get-together of Pilgrims and Native Americans at Plymouth. Really, though, it was a harvest…

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