Voices
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Valerie Schultz is a freelance writer, a columnist for The Bakersfield Californian and the author of A Hill of Beans: The Grace of Everyday Troubles. She lives on the Oregon Coast.
In All Things
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In All Things
It s not what you re thinking The reason an IUD was inserted into my uterus earlier today is medical It is one more attempt in a two-year succession of attempts to tame my monstrous perimenopausal menstrual cycle that has plunged me into insecurity and anemia And I m not sure which is wor
In All Things
nbsp nbsp nbsp My husband and I look forward every year to attending the Religious Education Congress Organized by the Los Angeles Archdiocese the Congress takes place in Anaheim which I suppose makes it the religious equivalent of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim baseball team nbsp nbsp
In All Things
nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp Today s blog is brought to you by the letter R nbsp nbsp nbsp The state department I work for the CDC or California Department of Corrections in 2005 had the letter R added to its acronym making it the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation It
In All Things
In the beginning was the Word the Gospel of John tells us a Word without flesh A word wields power to heal to hurt to change to condemn to affirm A word separates us from the animal kingdom A word can civilize and uplift us In the beginning It is the beginning of 2009 We have a lot of
In All Things
I spent my Saturday with twelve men in cages It s hard to imagine that in the United States we put inmates in cages but in the Secured Housing Unit of the prison where I volunteer we do In the SHU inmates who are privileged to attend Catholic services are escorted from their housing to ind
In All Things
My husband and I are movie freaks Our earliest dates were to on-campus movies in college We ll see all kinds of movies romance sci-fi adventure documentary foreign independent animated whatever Since we live in a small town with limited cinematic offerings our favorite way to spend a s
In All Things
David Shields an author and English professor at the University of Washington has written a sort of memoir combined with a science report called The Thing About Life Is That One Day You ll Be Dead My daughters were a little alarmed to see me engrossed in such a morbidly-titled book I think t
In All Things
So I m thinking of applying to a university for my Master s degree Part of me is excited about the opportunity Part of me feels a little ridiculous I have children who are old enough to think about getting a Master s degree I worry that my time for being a student has long passed It will
In All Things
Up until maybe ten years ago it didn t occur to me what kind of bleeding the woman with the hemorrhage told of in Mark 5 and Luke 8 was actually experiencing My unexamined mental image was of a woman with drops of blood oozing from random pores who somehow did not bleed to death Then I heard