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Here Try Some of This Ointment

April 17, 2024 by Watt Childress 4 Comments

Imagine life where everyone pitches in with a mix of chores and creative leisure. One barely sees this balance from today’s towers of ranking prey.
[Read More]

Filed Under: Culture, Featured Writing, Poetry, Spirit, ULE Tagged With: Al-Eizariya, Appalachia, Bethany, Falafel, Isabel Wilkerson, Israel, Jesus, Knoxville, Mary, Nard, Origin, Palestine, Solomon, Spikenard

Old Goat Plunges into Another Year

January 6, 2023 by Watt Childress 7 Comments

Fifty winters after my emergence on earth I climbed up a dune and surveyed the beach below. Over a hundred primates were reveling near the frothy hoof of Neah-Kah-Nie Mountain.
[Read More]

Filed Under: Culture, Featured Writing, Spirit Tagged With: Capricorn, Jesus, Lamb Chop, New Year, Pan, Polar Plunge, winter rituals

Ave Chingada

December 23, 2020 by Watt Childress 2 Comments

Trained up in the Bible Belt, I’ve heard many righteous hellfire sermons rebuking the Whore of Babylon. I don’t recall much mention of the Pimp. [Read More]

Filed Under: Culture, Featured Writing, Poetry, Spirit Tagged With: Andrew Johnson, Annunciation, Babylon, Chattel Slavery, Christ, Condor, Constantine, Eagle, Francis Ellen Watkins Harper, James Henley Thornwell, Jesus, Malinchi, Mars, Mary, Octavio Paz

Message, Moo-Cow, Messiah

December 26, 2019 by Watt Childress 6 Comments

It seems absurd on the surface that anyone who brandishes the word “Christ” would feel more affinity for the ways of plutocrats than the teachings of our compassionate rabbi. Yet when the Word becomes flesh, it is a socially-conditioned reflex for humans to fixate on the box rather than the contents. [Read More]

Filed Under: Featured Writing, Spirit Tagged With: Christ, Dairy, Holiday, Jesus, Mariposa, Milk, Perry Como, Red Danish, Red Heifer, Simon Diaz, Tillamook County

Christmas for All Mankind

December 23, 2014 by Rick Bonn 2 Comments

We all have our favorite Christmas films, the ones that stir good cheer and remind us of family and home. But what of Advent, the season that culminates in that celebration? What films capture the painful waiting, struggle for peace, and desperation for change that often accompany this period before the joy? Alfonso Cuarón’s violent, R-rated Children of Men (2006) […]

Filed Under: Entertainment, Movies, Spirit, ULE Tagged With: Advent, Alfonso Cuaron, Children of Men, Christmas, Clive Owen, Greg Russinger, Jesus, P.D. James, Portland Foursquare

Grieving for the Green

April 22, 2012 by Watt Childress 6 Comments

On the morning of the first Earth Day a seven-year-old boy seached for salamanders in a creek. He didn’t know adults were launching a new holiday to encourage care for creation. His heart and mind were filled with amazement at the critters who lived under the damp mossy rocks. After lunch he climbed one of his favorite trees.

Filed Under: Books, Culture, Feature, Nature, Spirit, ULE Tagged With: Earth Day, Jesus, Spring, The Giving Tree

Let’s do keep Christ in Christmas

December 21, 2011 by Sue Skinner 2 Comments

At this ancient Solstice time, when the great trees are honored (with the conifer in the living room), and the power of fire and return of the sun is invoked (with the burning of candles and the splashes of electric lights on our houses), the birth of Jesus, great dissident and rebel, is celebrated by many. In our present era of mind-numbing consumerism, […]

Filed Under: Culture, Feature, Politics, Spirit, ULE Tagged With: Christmas, Jesus

Surfing Pop Culture: Fairy Tales and Hope

November 15, 2011 by Rick Bonn 4 Comments

Can stories help us remember who we really are? Can they offer fresh hope for our lives? ABC’s new series Once Upon A Time thinks so, agreeing with some of my favorite storytellers: Jesus, Charles Dickens, and Walter Brueggemann.

It was Jesus who once said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ That came to mind while watching Once Upon A Time last week because the whole premise of that series hinges on a child.

Filed Under: Art, Culture, Spirit, ULE Tagged With: Brueggemann, Dickens, Fairy Tales, Jesus, Once Upon A Time

More Gleanings

Here Try Some of This Ointment

April 17, 2024 By Watt Childress 4 Comments

We are the Luminaries

August 8, 2023 By Watt Childress 2 Comments

Open Letter for Creation’s Caregivers

June 19, 2023 By Watt Childress 5 Comments

My November 2022 Ballot Choices

November 6, 2022 By Rabbi Bob 1 Comment

One Cup of Tea

November 15, 2020 By Lila Danielle 1 Comment

Additional Wisdom...

Readers’ Comments

  • Watt Childress April 28, 2025 at 11:48 am on Uncle Zech’s Amphibious GestaltAlso, you inspired me to insert a sentence crediting Hoyt Axton with the song's genesis. Many thanks!
  • Watt Childress April 27, 2025 at 10:55 pm on Uncle Zech’s Amphibious GestaltThank you kindly Jim for reading this and commenting. I enjoyed your review of "Sun House" by David James Duncan,
  • Jim Stewart April 27, 2025 at 8:26 pm on Uncle Zech’s Amphibious GestaltNice! Hoyt Axton wrote the Jeremiah song and sang it with great gusto. Life wanders on and I'm still glad
  • Watt Childress April 26, 2025 at 3:51 pm on Uncle Zech’s Amphibious GestaltDuring spring I think of you, and all the May Pole celebrations you've organized over the years. So grateful for
  • Watt Childress April 26, 2025 at 3:18 pm on Uncle Zech’s Amphibious GestaltIn my dreams I sing to the multitudes, with a voice as clear and sweet and churchy as Lou Reed.
More Comments...

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