Carl Kline

I struggled with Latin in high school. I don’t recall why I took it. Maybe my grade was a C, I don’t remember. But if I learned much of anything, it has long been forgotten. Friends took Greek (as written above in a public domain image posted on wikimedia commons ) in seminary, bet

When I was in campus ministry at SDSU, we had what we called “Soup and Service.” Every Sunday a few of our students would arrive at the kitchen to prepare an evening meal of soup and bread for our gathered community. We would then have a meal together in the lounge of our campus ministry center

For a long time I’ve puzzled over the preference many have for former President Donald Trump. Did he do something in his first term in office that was particularly endearing to the MAGA audience? What is it about the American past that his supporters want to “Make Great Again?” What is it about

My latest before-bed reading is the first novel of Lancali , pen name for Lou-Andrea Callewaert. The title is, “I Fell in Love with Hope.” It’s a story of several young friends in a hospital for the terminally ill. One has just a single lung. Another has a broken spine and an abusive father.

For three years we lived in New York City while I attended graduate school. Our home was a residence hall with other married couples, just a few blocks from a large public housing project. As I was working with the Youth Department of Riverside Church as my field work, I would often visit young

Brookings is fortunate to have the Festival of Books come to town now and again. It’s not often a community can be flooded with books and authors from all over the country, with something of interest for almost everyone. As a book addict, the only problem with this occurrence is, I come home wi

We had a couple of friends with us earlier this month. They were with us for three days and four nights. They had been in Brazil doing some nonviolence trainings and decided to come visit us before returning to their homes. Mathai comes from India and Fernando lives in Mexico. They have been compan

I’m sure it was in elementary school that I learned about a singular element in our democratic system that made it difficult, if not impossible, for some dictator or king to take charge. I learned we had a system of checks and balances that would serve our democracy well, and they have, for all

This past summer we had the good fortune of a visit from our daughter and two of our grandsons. One grandson brought his work with him, as he edits material on his computer. He would take his work to a local coffee shop for hours at a time. The other wanted to use his free time playing me games of

A video appeared on my computer screen the other day that I found most intriguing. It was a man with a guitar out in a field. He was playing for cows. As soon as he began to play, all of the cows would come quickly to where he sat, seeming to listen intently, and eventually nosing him and the i