Category: Family
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Dreamy Hearts, Steady Warmth
Happy Valentine’s Day from Knoxville, Tennessee – the city most often ranked by Amazon as “America’s Most Romantic”! To be clear, Knoxville doesn’t currently hold the top spot. That honor goes to San Antonio, Texas, in the most recent Amazon ranking I can locate. That was the 2017 listing. Even after scouring Amazon and Google,…
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My Prayer for 2018
May each one of us be happy, healthy, and fully engaged with others (especially those whose views and experience may differ from our own). May our country stand as a beacon for racial healing and harmony, for interfaith understanding, for economic justice, for gender equality, for commitment to science, and for borders open to all…
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May Your Nights Be Merry and Bright!
Merry Christmas, dear friends. Plus the happiest of whatever other holidays you may be celebrating this time of year, or any other time. This is a photo I took a couple of days ago of a house just down the street from the East Knoxville home Cheri and I inhabit. A fitting tribute to the…
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Valentine Anagrams — 2017 Edition!
Happy Valentine’s Day 2017! To all our long-time readers, and to a host of new subscribers: We love you all! Today you’ll see plenty of heart-themed features in the mainstream media. They’ll tell you the history of Valentine’s Day. They’ll tell you funny jokes and sentimental love stories. What they won’t tell you (but I…
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Our 30th Ana(versary)gram!
I can’t let 2016 escape without noting that this was the year Cheri and I celebrated our 30th anniversary. Three adventure-filled decades ago, we committed ourselves to making our union “as a fortress for well-being and salvation”. That’s how Baha’u’llah describes it in the Prayer for Marriage. That, for us, has been the way it…
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The Healing Power of Anagrams
Cheri and I benefit from the work of two exceptionally gifted healers: Dr. Rocio Huet, our primary-care physician; and Dr. Craig Hennie, our chiropractor. I’m therefore pleased to note that the letters in “Rocio Huet, healer” rearrange to spell “Hoorah! Elite cure”. And that those in “Doctor Craig Hennie” also spell out “condition recharge”. In…
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The Most Romantic Valentine City
Happy Valentine’s Day from America’s Most Consistently Romantic City — Knoxville, Tennessee, home of “Notes from Stonehaven”. Â Okay, so I had to weasel-word that (with “consistently”) in order to justify the “most” boast. Technically, Knoxville was bumped this year from first to third place by the new champ, Alexandria, Virginia. Congratulations, Alexandria. Don’t get used…
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One Word: Solitude
Some words I love because of the way they sound. The way they feel when I write them. Their playful ambiguities. Their spelling quirks. Others I love mostly on account of what they mean to me. “Solitude” is a word I love for many reasons – but mostly for its meaning. I love to be…
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One Word: Orthotomeo
Guest post today from Joel Smith, responding to my article about the word “epistemology” (how we know stuff). Joel writes: “The Apostle Paul, writing about correctly interpreting his letters, said that they need to be ‘rightly divided’ (2 Timothy 2:15). The term rightly divided is translated from the Greek word ORTHOTOMEO. “Ortho = correctly. Tomeo…
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The Gary Matthews Anagrams
Wordsmith.org quotes a supposed sage as saying, “All the life’s wisdom can be found in anagrams. Anagrams never lie.” Is this so? Can we really learn hidden truth by rearranging the letters of a name or phrase? I had to find out! For me, a natural place to start was with my dear departed mom. Her…
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Crock-pot Turkey: Best Ever!
For the juiciest, tastiest, tenderest turkey you’ll ever enjoy — bake it in a crock-pot! Here’s how. Cheri and I taught ourselves this trick, this past Thanksgiving. We acted on pure impulse. Nothing wrong with turkeys we’ve baked before, for ourselves and family. But we were in a mood for something more. We ransacked the Internet for turkey…