What's Tony Thinking

Fire Wise and Fire Worried

September 6, 2024 — It is a hazy day here today. Which means that smoke from wildfires somewhere, probably central and western Oregon, has found its way to us in the Wallowas. The haze makes what is normally a cerulean blue sky, deep green forests, ochre moraines and reddish basaltic rimrock pretty much all grey. I’ve seen it worse,... Read More

More On Theology: Natural and Revealed

September 3, 2024 — I once started a Church Council meeting by suggesting that everyone share a recent experience of God’s presence in their life. Someone cited a beautiful sunset. Another spoke of the birth of a grandchild. Someone mentioned a time of closeness with her father. Another spoke of a tree that they found especially beautiful, even magical.... Read More

Gleanings and Group Think

August 30, 2024 — Here are several items I came across in my reading this week that I commend to your attention. There’s a theme that links all these together: the dangers of group think. In an article in Politico on Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a member of our Washington State congressional delegation, MGP offered the a salty opinion on... Read More

What a Difference a Quadrennial Makes

August 27, 2024 — I was in the mountains last week and so missed seeing any of Democrat’s National Convention live. But I’ve been catching up, and recently watched Vice-President Harris’s acceptance speech. Harris rose to the occasion. She embraced the stature and authority of her new position and role as the party’s presidential nominee, even as the party... Read More

Anxiety and Moral Values

August 25, 2024 — Freya India is a blogger at Substack who writes the blog, “Girls.” She is a Brit who has an affiliation with the moral psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, the author of The Anxious Generation. India is also a Gen-Z’er (those born 1997 – 2012) who questions the conventional wisdom, in particular the trading out of moral and... Read More

Rewards

August 19, 2024 — For those thinking that “What’s Tony Thinking?” is finally offering a “rewards” program for faithful readers — no such luck! I have in mind the old saw, “What do you get for a job well done?” Answer: “Another job!” I guess I did a decent enough job working with The Vancouver School of Theology, the... Read More

The Edge Harris and Walz Have

August 18, 2024 — We Americans are neophiles. We love the new, the novel, the improved. We go for the latest. We love the newest gadget, book, idea and we love the new face. This is the advantage that Kamala Harris, Tim Walz and the Democrats have as they head into their convention in Chicago and into the post-Labor... Read More

Scots-Irish J. D. Vance

August 15, 2024 — I’ve been interested to note that the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate, J. D. Vance, is frequently described as “Scots-Irish.” I was unfamiliar with that term or the people it described until, during seminary, I served an internship at several small Presbyterian Churches in the Susquehanna Valley and Catskill Mountains of southern New York. There I met... Read More

On Banter

August 13, 2024 — I spent some time yesterday with two older (even older than me) guys from church. They jointly own a beat-up flat-bed trailer that they use for all sorts of things, frequently helping people from the church and the community with various projects. They were helping me move a large-ish tree. We also stopped to load... Read More

Musings at the Weekend

August 11, 2024 — The signs of late summer are many here in the Wallowas. The berries on the Mountain Ash tree are turning orange. Robins feast on the intoxicating berries, which leads to some reeling redbreasts on the grass. In the mountains the thimble berries are bright red and tasty. The mosquitoes are mostly behind us now. The... Read More

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