Taking the Roll in Colored Light

Imagine taking roll call with a beautiful stain class window in the hall. A window soaring up in color and brilliance.  Overwhelming the event. That is what I wanted this morning. It was not to be. 

 

A men’s breakfast discussion group found me silently taking roll call. We were all yet alive. At our ages, no small accomplishment. The stained-glass window would have been just right. Our attention was being taken by the price paid by pushing on in the 80s and 90s. 

 

We needed distraction. On the other hand, intimate conversation about mortality needs time. We needed both distraction and focus.

That is what a well done stained glass window can provide.

 

There is the window, silent. Yet it is a presence of blessing. The colors speak to the whole body and mind. There is a sense of music, both dissonant and clashing while at the same time harmonic and calming to the spirit.

 

The morning roll call in my mind revealed that 7 of the 10 men gathered were dealing with some aspect of Memory Loss in their mate or in themselves. It is hard to imagine anything more dissonant than Alzheimer’s Disease and other such enemies.

 

We needed an overwhelming stained glass window. Brightness and darkness. Even the dark shadowed glass glows in fine windows.  

 

Call to mind whatever impressive stained glass you have seen or have it searched out on the Internet. Let it shape your emotion.

 

 
2-21-17     Delton Krueger

 

Real Religious News in Short Supply

Real Religious News in Short Supply      2-18-17

The world of religious news is in a famine time.  Bad news is frequently set aside by religious journalists . However, the reader understands that if all the news is good then a considerable amount of information has been set aside.  If all the bad news comes from commercial secular press this shapes the culture.

For years’ my work in a Church profession involved writing information that was to inform people about actual events and ideas. Sometimes promotion took over. Slowly I learned the difference and some skills for making news interesting to the reader.

Good writing involves getting into the minds of the readers.  Then it becomes possible to draw those readers to come back again and again.  

 The writer does not have to pamper the reader with comfortable information that reflects already formed opinions. Some actual news is necessary along with limited interpretation.

The articles intended for a religious newsletter or journal in our time of political and social turmoil are blessed with opportunity.

 1.Keep your audience in mind.
2. Be aware of your own assumptions and personal party line
3. Major in questions relevant to the readers.
4. Limit the number of words in a paragraph. 

Delton

Aging as a Mountian Expedition

Even if you have never followed a trail into a mountain range, join me in this way of picturing ageing as an adventure. Think of every birthday as a new height of land. Each year involves climbing over and around obstacles. 

 Join with me at Glacier National Park in Montana, USA. The mountain trail going up and over Siyeh Pass begins on the Going to the Sun Road at Sunrift Gorge.

We begin the hike with Sun Mountain to our left. The trail climbs sharply through a grove of trees and then continues through open rocky flats to a water fall.  Up we go around the falls and then take some switch backs gaining altitude rapidly. Much of the climbing season we are in snow fields.

If the sun is hot there are occasional small streams coming down over the trail and cooling us. The air is getting thin and hikers notice stress of legs, feet and lungs.

One last surge of energy and we can see into the next valley and the trail down. Looking back, it is obvious how high we have climbed and what obstacles have been surmounted. 

 That moment of seeing the next horizon is much like a birthday. 

Each birthday a person is at a higher point in the mountain range of a lifetime.

 Delton    2-12-17