Originally posted on Minnesota Prairie Roots:
PICKING UP MINNESOTA WRITER Rachael Hanel’s We’ll Be the Last Ones to Let You Down—Memoir of a Gravedigger’s Daughter, I wonder how I can possibly relate to a book focused on death. But I can, in many ways. I am, like Hanel, a native southern Minnesotan. That is telling.…
Health Day News reports that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration late Tuesday (April 30) approved the over-the-counter sale of Plan B One-Step, a version of the so-called “morning after” pill, for use as emergency contraception by girls and women aged 15 and older. One thing that struck me about this decision is how it…
Bird flu is a dangerous thing. According to Yahoo News, “China’s premier on Sunday (April 28, 2013) urged authorities to be vigilant against a new strain of bird flu that has killed 23 people, while saying that efforts to tackle the virus have so far been effective.” According to the CDC web site: “Usually, “avian…
If anyone had any doubts about how well things have been going for farmers the last few years, they only had to go to the North American Farm and Power Show in Owatonna March 14-16. Looking over all the equipment on display I realized that farming is big business and definitely not for amateurs. You…
The fourth Sunday of Easter is Good Shepherd Sunday. Here is what Martin Luther has to say about Jesus, the Good Shepherd. “When he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.” Luke 15:5 There is scarcely any more precious illustration in the whole Gospel than when the Lord Christ compares himself to…
The day before Palm Sunday is known in the church calendar as Lazarus Saturday, the day Christians commemorate Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, as recorded in the 11th chapter of the Gospel of John. There are many notable things about this miracle. First, though he was not one of Jesus’ 12 apostles, Lazarus was…
At a recent pastors’ conference someone threw out the question, “Why does God often refer to himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?” (See Exodus 3:6, I Kings 18:36 & Matthew 22:32) Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were the three patriarchs who got the Jewish nation, God’s chosen people, started. When you refer to God…
The preacher in Ecclesiastes 1 says, “Vanity of vanities! all is vanity The poet Ogden Nash puts it this way The prophets chant and the prophets chatter But somehow it never seems to matter, For the world hangs on to its ancient sanity And orders another round of vanity.
No matter where you go in this county, if you walk into a Wal-Mart or Target, you know you are in a Wal-Mart or Target. That is because these companies work very hard on their corporate identity and the uniformity of their stores helps maintain their identity, which is good for business. Sadly, in most Christian…
Another tragic shooting occurred in our country on December 14, 2012; 20 children and 6 adults were shot to death by Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. This follows other shootings at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, a movie theater in Colorado and a shopping mall in Oregon. These shootings all involve guns…
Mirror Neurons 