Sounds of Hope

I’ve been thinking about my strange life.   I wrote a blog last summer reflecting on all the “famous” and “notable” people I’ve met throughout my life.   I was sitting next to the guy that inspired that blog by saying he’d met Ronald Reagan.   You can read about all these people here . Yesterday in class our professor mentioned The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan .   It was interesting to watch the clueless look come across most of the faces of my class mates.   Made me realize how old I am.   He mentioned it because one of the women in the class is looking at gender bias in higher education.   I had just talked with her about it during the “mixer” exercise that started the class.   I mentioned how I thought it was so odd that when we as a cohort had our chance to elect class leaders there was not one female name nominated with enough support to be on the first ballot. Interestingly, two men are now arranging lunches for us and in charge of...

If you were ever in Girl Scouts or a similar type of group, you may know this song. Make new friends but keep the old One is silver and the other gold I wasn’t in Girl Scouts but I learned this song in Sunbeams at my local Salvation Army Corp.   I thought it was a cute song.   I wondered which one was silver and which one was gold.   It seemed the new friend was silver and the old gold but I’d still wonder about it.   I was sort of a weird kid like that. I’ve been thinking about friends a lot lately.   People talk about Facebook friends and how many people have.   They say these folks aren’t really friends.   I’ve gotten so caught up in this discussion I’m working on a dissertation on Facebook, community and Christian development.   I do think about this stuff a lot. Last week in preparation for a two day journey south, I thought about who I should visit with in Columbia Missouri.   Columbia Missouri is home.   It’s not home in the s...