Commentary

Prayer may be thought of as the way humans sent emails to the gods before the Internet. How many of them expected a direct reply is anybody’s guess, though there is no doubt there were some who imagined they received one.

Prayer can be thought of as an open line of communication, a request, a petition for understanding, a plea for help, a supplication, an intercession, a thanksgiving, a confession and much more.

Most of us have a few, maybe a handful, of best friends who go back to our beginnings. We share common history, of course, and that is part of the friend dynamic. But there often are long gaps in those shared experiences. I have not seen some of my best friends in several years and we communicate by phone or email or social media infrequently.

Why does the Islam religion not hold on to the creator's law of the Sabbath, but instead keep it on a Friday?

Let’s be honest. It has been hot out — pretty unbearable, in my opinion. Summer started with a massive heat wave in not only Spokane, but the Pacific Northwest. What I did not expect, however, was this wave of kindness I’ve been seeing in the Spokane community.

I believe we’re also wallowing in a cultural drought our country hasn’t seen in many decades. ​The drought shows itself in the aridness of social imagination and distorting selfishness that has settled in our souls.