Category: Featured

Before President Wilson declared Mother’s Day an official U.S. holiday in 1914, there had been many previous incarnations of “Mom’s Events” before the turn of the century. “As early as the 1850s, West Virginia women’s organizer Ann Reeves Jarvis held Mother’s Day work clubs to improve sanitary conditions and try to lower infant mortality by fighting disease and curbing milk contamination, according to historian Katharine Antolini of West Virginia Wesleyan College.” (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/05/110511-mothers-day-dark-history-jarvis-nation-gifts-facts/) Groups of Mom’s gathered to help each other in caring for children. Other guilds were activists who aided in rehabilitation for injured soldiers from the Civil War and...

“Here comes Peter Cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail, hippity, hoppity, Easter’s on its way.” That song and chocolate bunnies are my most prevalent childhood memories of Easter. Another strong memory is from my late teens, waking up with a pile of friends and a Southern Comfort hangover on Easter Sunday. One of my friends was leaving for church, and gave a quick explanation. “Wait, somebody died?” is what I remember thinking. Later, after marriage and involvement in church attendance I learned the theory of Penal Substitutionary Atonement. (PSA- leaning more towards punishment.) Having an underlying theory of atonement, as I...