(a Steve Orr Bible reflection) I love a good time-travel story. In most of them, characters use technology or some kind of power to intentionally travel through time. My favorites are the unintentional time travelers, the reluctant ones. They have no control over when they vanish from their present life, none over where and when they travel, none over how long they are gone, and none over when (or if) they ever return to their original time. Also, and this is key: They don’

(a Steve Orr Bible Reflection) I don't know how long I lay there, eyes fixed on the starry skies above. Even as a five-year-old, I was a free-range kid. So, it was a while before anyone came looking for me that night. Did I see Sputnik (Russian for "fellow traveler"), the Earth’s first artificial satellite? I did see something arcing across the night sky—blinking, blinking. But really, who knows? There is some controversy over whether the satellite was actually visible to t

It is common to talk about the weather in Texas (and elsewhere). Is it going to rain today? (Usually not much in Texas in August!) Most evenings, I watch the weather man (aka weather person, sometimes weather woman) on a local station. I learn what the temperature was today and what to expect for the next 10 days. In Central Texas, it will be “hot,” which is not really news. We probably won’t establish a record this month for triple digit days (temperature over 100), but the

"September is the other January." — Gretchen Rubin This week is a strange one. For the past decade and more, the beginning of September has meant extra events on our family’s personal calendar. Meet the Teacher nights, PTA kick-offs, Youth events, Band practices… All of that and settling into the routine of the new school year–new schedules to remember, new teachers to get to know, new friends in our orbit, new lessons to learn. August and September meant change. This was th

(a Steve Orr Bible reflection) A talented musician wrote a song about my hometown. Actually, more than one musician has written a song about Paducah, Kentucky. But I’m thinking of George Coryell, a hometown contemporary of mine. He wrote and performed “Paddlewheels.” It’s a fine little song about Paducah that includes many of the town’s hallmarks. Chief among those is Paducah’s two rivers and the paddlewheel-driven riverboats that ply them. We played down by the river, wh