Category Archives: Uncategorized

2023 Local Religion News in Review

By LORETTA FULTON Each December, members of Religion News Association, including Spirit of Abilene creator and editor Loretta Fulton, vote on the top religion stories of the year.  Those include the top national stories, international stories, and newsmaker of the year. For 2023, the Israel-Hamas war, along with the rise in antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents in the U.S. and around

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A Lad Gone Too Soon

   THE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury At commencement exercises several decades ago, the speaker droned on about the attributes of a graduate whose mark on the school was incomparable. The crowd hung on his words, uncaring that his extended commentary would throw the ceremony off schedule. So what? A mother–unknowingly standing next to the esteemed graduate’s mom–whispered, “I’d give

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Thoughts on Epiphany

By Penny Biddy In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, magi from the east came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star in the east and have come to pay him homage.” Matthew 2:1-3 As the church calendar turns from Christmas to Epiphany, I

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Let Go

By Danny Minton On Easter morning in 2009, Doug White, with his wife Terri and daughters Bailey (16) and Maggie (19), boarded a King Air 200 to travel home. They had been at Doug’s brother’s funeral in Florida, and a friend, Joe Cabuk, offered to fly the family back to Mississippi, where Doug had left his car. From there they

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Coming About

By Marianne Wood I learned to sail on Lytle Lake and later Lake Brownwood as a teen. I’m not good at it, though my husband has the knack. He recently used a practical sailing term, “coming about,” to describe our pivot in life due to a great loss. His comment got me thinking about “abouts.” “About that time Caesar Augustus

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When Life Overwhelms Us

By NANCY PATRICK Living in today’s world seems more difficult than living in other historical times. Logic, however, defies that assessment. I think most of us tend to see our own world as the only one of relevance or importance; however, if we reflect on world history, we see that moral, political, religious, military, and cultural conflicts have filled the

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