An article in this morning's newspaper is headlined “Mennonite college drops U.S. anthem.” The article goes on to state that Goshen college in Indiana is dropping the national anthem in favor of “America The Beautiful.” The school had never played “The Star Spangled Banner” before sporting events until last year, saying the image of bombs bursting in air was too violent for a college whose motto is “Healing the World, Peace by Peace.” At that time the college opted for an instrumental version of the song, with a review after one year. The year is up, the “Star Spangled Banner” is out and “America, The Beautiful” is in at Goshen. Of course, this decision is not very popular with many people, who consider it unpatriotic. But I don't understand why this is so. Regardless of the song played primarily at sporting events, I still love my country; I see no re...
My alarm clock goes off every morning at eight, except for the few times when I have a breakfast date. Usually I wake up about an hour before that, or at least I partly wake up. It is important that I remain in a “not quite awake but not quite asleep” state, because I consider that time as the germination period for whatever seeds happen to have blown into my head.