Sunday Inspiration: “Literacy is a bridge…”

“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against poverty, and a building block of development, an essential complement to investments in roads, dams, clinics and factories. Literacy is a platform for democratization, and a vehicle for the promotion of cultural…

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Somewhere Between Luck and Trust: Georgia Ferguson

For an author, part of the fun of a series is choosing which characters to feature in upcoming books. With the Goddesses Anonymous series (debuting in 2012 with One Mountain Away) a handful of women are introduced in book one, each to theoretically have her own story as time passes. Almost immediately after One Mountain…

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Sunday Inspiration: Kwan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy

If you’re just beginning my Goddesses Anonymous series, you might wonder where the title “Goddesses Anonymous” comes from. In One Mountain Away, the first book of the series, Charlotte Hale, the major character, tells her minister Analiese Wagner how meaningful the legend of the Buddhist goddess Kwan Yin has become to her. In Somewhere Between Luck…

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How I Spend My Summer Vacation: The Joys of Chautauqua Institution

Some of you have asked about the place where I spend my summers, so today a photo essay. Chautauqua Institution, in Chautauqua, NY,was founded in 1874 as the Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Assembly, an experiment in out-of-school learning. Although the Assembly was founded by Methodists, other denominations participated from the beginning. Now the Institution is an…

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Sunday Inspiration: Let Us Praise

A Father’s Day Prayer Rev. Kirk Loadman-Copeland Let us praise those fathers who have striven to balance the demands of work, marriage, and children with an honest awareness of both joy and sacrifice. Let us praise those fathers who, lacking a good model for a father, have worked to become a good father. Let us…

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Sunday Inspiration: Serenity

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. Reinhold Niebuhr There is such deep wisdom in this simple prayer.  Participants in Alcoholics Anonymous have used these words for many years…

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