Oh, Kentucky

"Something that has stuck with me from my latest work is, 'Everyone wants to be a lion until it’s time to hunt.' I find this applies to many things and not just writing but specifically to young writers I would say it means to you that everyone wants the novel, the play on Broadway...the finished product. That is the metaphorical 'lion' but not as many want to be a lion when it’s time to write the 15th draft, or format a script or do all the “stuff” that isn’t as glamorous. You can’t be a lion without doing the hunt which is the blood, sweat and tears of what makes a lion so magnificent." Just a fantastic Q&A in Barbourville's Mountain Advocate with Cathy Goguen, "former Knox County teacher, published playwright and author, and mobility advocate...just to name a few," writes Brooke Cole Stansbury.

"We are reminded of God’s creativity and deep connection with all creatures, ecosystems, and humans.  Psalm 24 says, 'The earth is the LORD’s and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants too.' This invites us to protect the earth as home, not only for people including future generations, not only for all plants and animals, rocks and mountains but for God. The word 'ecology' is formed from the Greek words for 'house' (oikos) and 'word, purpose' (logos). Creation is the home of God and for God’s people, ecology calls us to our purpose in this joint household. Our purpose for living, according to the Psalms, is to praise God – not alone, not as a solo, but to join our whole being in praise, with the sun and moon, with sea monsters, trees, creatures that creep along, and birds that fly. We praise God by being who God created us to be, to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God, to love one another, care for the least of these among us, and to protect and care our common home." Amen, Carol Devine of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Nicholasville.

"According to a study on religion in America by the Pew Research Center, 22% of Kentucky residents are religiously unaffiliated. Younger Americans are even more likely to be nonreligious. Kentucky lawmakers should not stigmatize these students by promoting religious messages in school! National motto display bills like HB 46 are being pushed by special interests as part of Project Blitz, an effort by Christian nationalists to rewrite American history so that it favors their agenda. These bills aim to undermine the separation of religion and government and spread a false narrative that America was founded as a Christian nation. We cannot allow special interests to use our children to achieve their political goals." American Atheists Inc. issues a call to Kentuckian action.

Turning to sports, “I thank God for the opportunity to do the job I love so close to home.”

And speaking Pine Mountain State Resort Park, which is fantastic ... hiring in Pineville (immediately for a front-desk clerk).

Good jobs news from Erlanger, Elizabethtown and Lexington--and maybe Cave City, too. Bad from Madisonville.

Per USA Today, the richest Kentuckian is an Oklahoman who got himself really rich in California after a trip to Texas.

Paducah and San Antonio, Texas, are trading their UNESCO Creative City crews.

The Beaver Dam Amphitheatre summer schedule is out, and the Class of '86 is going to freak!

Spring cleanup nears in Elkton.

Beds for 50 Shepherdsville Elementary kids who need them.

Relief for cross-state commuters to and from Wickliffe.

My old Kentucky books: The Interpreter's Bible

It's so, so great:

"A sense of history, as distinguished from the mere recollection of past events, is a sign of maturity. Without conscious manipulation, the disjunct episodes of the child's life begins to assume the appearance first of continuity and then of significance. This enables the child to make a beginning on the important job of understanding himself and his relation to events he shares with others. It is a paradigm of social growth. The development of broken ejaculations into sentences made continuity of discourse possible. Telling stories made continuity of experience possible. As folk tales became stereotyped, the gaps between episodes filled up, and the first adumbrations of the sense of history were seen. The record of social growth is found in the long process from primitive monosyllable to sophisticated history. Every linguistic and communicative device has been employed to make this possible: from grunt to grammar, from knotted string to reckless metaphor, from blazed forest trail to book index, the movement has gone on. Arnold J. Toynbee tells us civilization has reached maturity when it has a military establishment to protect it, a system of propaganda to rationalize it, a highly developed administrative system to give it internal stability, and a money currency to establish its credit. If these are factors in estimating social age, they are also helpful in understanding how mature cultures implement their sense of destiny, which is the moral imperative born of a sense of history. Depending on certain internal factors, it may be sinister or noble, edifying or destructive."

The Interpreter's Bible, Vol. IV. George Arthur Buttrick, ed. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1955) 431.