Monthly Archives: October 2015

Loss: My Whole Life

Posted on October 8, 2015 by Bob Patrick

Recently, pondering some rather minor situations that were disappointing to me, I had what I can only call a moment of clarity.  I was sitting there mulling over the situation, and these words formed within me:  “I’ve been living my … Continue reading →

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Loss–For This Moment

Posted on October 7, 2015 by Bob Patrick

“My practice is teaching me to embrace imperfection: to have compassion for all the ways things haven’t turned out as I’d planned, in my body and in my life; for the way things keep falling apart, and failing, and breaking … Continue reading →

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Loss: Our Pets–Holding on and Letting Go

Posted on October 6, 2015 by admin

This past Sunday we celebrated St. Francis of Assisi who was an Italian Catholic friar most associated as the Saint of the Animals and the Earth. He is believed to have been able to communicate with other species and was … Continue reading →

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Loss: Losing the Conversation

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Bob Patrick

I watched several social media conversations unfold this past weekend about the mass murder at Umpqua Community College in Oregon.  They went something like this: Person A:  If those students had all had guns this wouldn’t have happened. Person B: … Continue reading →

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Loss: A Lose-Lose Situation

Posted on October 4, 2015 by admin

As a transition from our last theme, Justice, to our current theme, Loss, I offer  words from Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book “Between the World and Me.” In this book, which is written as a letter to his teenage son, Coates shares … Continue reading →

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Justice: Shared Compassion

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Bob Patrick

We wake today in the United States to another mass shooting on another school campus. We will wring our hands.  We will, some of us, call for laws to control guns. We will, some of us, chant the refrain that … Continue reading →

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Justice: One More Step

Posted on October 1, 2015 by Bob Patrick

As we come to the end of our month focusing on the many issues surrounding justice and social justice in particular, we are certainly not coming to the end of our social justice involvement. Perhaps our worship, study, storytelling and … Continue reading →

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