The Pew Research Center has posted its most striking research findings from the past year. These 15 findings cover subjects ranging from extreme weather to the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing demographic shifts in the United States. You can also check out the center’s full list of research publications from 2021.
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By JIM NICHOLS Perhaps this might make more sense if I write it out; sometimes that seems to help. I am thinking about how it is possible to be by yourself even though you are surrounded by humanity. My scientific background combines with my social consciousness to cause me to recycle physical material when possible. My current community has not
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By LORETTA FULTON Each December, members of Religion News Association, including Spirit of Abilene creator and editor Loretta Fulton, choose the top religion stories of the year. Voted Number 1 for 2021 was the role that religion played during the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump insurrectionists. Some voiced Christian prayers, while others displayed Christian or pagan
Read moreBy MARIANNE WOOD Recently, a friend shared a long list of challenges from the past year. I know some of you could do likewise. I could, too. But while making lists of trials and disappointments can be cathartic, the optimist in me tries to live up to Greer Garson’s injunction to tilt the mirror up “toward the cheerful, the tender,
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Editor’s note: The following news release was issued Monday, Dec. 27, concerning the death of Sarah Ragel Weddington, a 1964 graduate of McMurry University. Weddington had a distinguished legal career following her years at McMurry and was best known for successfully arguing Roe v Wade before the U.S. Supreme Court. McMurry University Office of the President McMurry University is saddened
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Jay Moore’s newest book, “Abilene Daily: Snapshots of Home,” contains one or morevignettes from Abilene’s history for each day of the year. Periodically, stories with some connection–however loose–to Abilene’s religious life will be featured in Spirit of Abilene. The book can be purchased at Texas Star Trading Co., 174 Cypress St. www.texasstartrading.com or call 325-672-9696. Books are $27.50. Following is an excerpt from
Read moreBy NANCY PATRICK As we near the end of 2021 and begin the new year of 2022, we have a time for reflection—reflection on what has happened and what may happen in the future. I struggle to discern the difference between importance and irrelevance. I sometimes get busy or distracted and become bogged down in peripheral things. The older I
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By JIM NICHOLS This is not really a sports story, although a sports comment was the stimulus for it. As I am writing this, it is the college football “bowl season.” Teams have played their regular season games and the supposedly best teams now have a bonus game, a bowl game. When I was younger, there were just a few
Read moreIDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury One thing we “geezers and geezerettes” have in common is that the lot of us have said something or done “bone-headed” things that disappointed our mothers. We’ve all participated in pranks that have gone south, causing our mothers to shake their heads in disbelief. Oh, how we’d like to apologize, but our moms–whose work was
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