Editor’s Note: The following article is reposted with permission from Episcopal News Service, where it first appeared on April 15. The Rev. Robert Pace is a former McMurry University history professor and former rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Amarillo. Abilene and Amarillo both are in the Episcopal Diocese of Northwest Texas. By EGAN MILLARD Episcopal News Service When
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By NATHAN DRISKELL Abilene filmmakers Nathan Driskell and Timothy Palmer this week released their debut documentary Where Is Palestine? online for free, at whereispalestine.film. While the filmmakers had originally intended to submit the film to festivals this year, they said the coronavirus outbreak had changed things. “We decided the right thing to do was to release this film as widely
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By LORETTA FULTON Looking for a good excuse to get out of the house without endangering anyone’s health? Jay Moore, Abilene’s favorite historian, has the solution. He has put together a drive-by tour of historic churches for the Grace Museum. Moore will compile several historic tours to keep us sane during the coronavirus shutdown. The first tour was of historic
Read moreBy JIM NICHOLS These are perplexing times for a scientist, at least they are for me. First, we have lived through a decade when a few otherwise perfectly logical people have questioned the value of childhood vaccinations. To virtually every medically connected scientist, vaccine availability has been one of the top two or three most important and, frankly, wonderful historical
Read moreBy Marianne Wood Like many, I’ve read lots of books and essays on prayer. Writers have definitely taken on this task for good reasons. And they have been helpful. Right now I’m enjoying Paul Miller’s A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World. I’m learning that “prayer is meant to be the conversation where your life and your
Read moreBy NANCY PATRICK Weird! Weird! Weird! That word describes my world during this pandemic. I thank God that danger, exhaustion, sacrifice, and life-threatening do not describe my daily life. This period of COVID-19 isolation, illness, shortage, and death has invaded my life in an unprecedented way. The closest similarities, World War II and the Great Depression, differed greatly from the
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The Abilene Interfaith Council has canceled its April and May programming due to the coronavirus pandemic. The 2020-2021 programming will begin in September. Details will be released when programs are finalized. A tour of the Hindu Temple on North Mockingbird Street had been planned for April 18, led by Om Ghimirey. The annual National Day of Prayer Interfaith Observance had
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Members of First Central Presbyterian Church, being mindful of the proper distances and numbers, flowered a cross in the church’s meditation garden on Easter Sunday. It is a beautiful reminder that not even the coronavirus pandemic can take away the hope of Easter.
Read moreIDLE AMERICAN Commentary by Dr. Don Newbury It is a good thing that we have memories to sort through while we shelter in place. Grammarians or not, we’re given to making the present tense, and the past, perfect. As we take stock of what used to be–while greatly shaken by “what is”–we think back on happenings faced hurriedly the first
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Spirit Of Abilene 