Category: Mission Journal

Juneteenth

The challenge continues

Some excerpts from an article by Kelly Brown Douglas, Stephanie Spellers, and Winnie Varghese in Religious News Service (June 18, 2026):

At the time of Juneteenth in 1865, “Neither the Emancipation Proclamation nor General Order No. 3 [announcing slaves were free] was yet true. Both ushered in a new reality of “unfreedom.” Both expressed the enduring tension within the American freedom experiment itself: the gap between our proclaimed ideals and our lived realities.”

In our experience today, “The story of freedom is unfinished in a nation that pledges “liberty and justice for all,” while it systematically advances policies, practices and ideologies that diminish human dignity.” 

“Here is what we know: Freedom is not an achievement to be declared and celebrated once and for all. The work of freedom is perpetually unfinished because the forces that threaten it continually take new forms, as we see today in restrictions on voting rights, challenges to citizenship and the denial of due process to immigrants.”

Beautiful Louisville

Louisville is a really beautiful city, something I am becoming more aware of and am enjoying more since I returned from Cambodia and started riding my bike through neighborhoods I never knew before. Today I had a 28-mile ride from Nazareth Home Clifton where I live to Iroquois Park in South Louisville where I used to live. Here is a photo on one of the lookouts in the park. Basically all you see is trees but under those trees are 150-year old neighborhoods and city streets. The city is green, not barren suburbs (we have those, too).

Iroquois Park is one of five parks inside the city which were laid out by Olmsted, the celebrated urban planner who designed Central Park, a masterpiece of landscape architecture, in New York City.

The American way….

Today I was at Costco to get some items I need for my trip this week to Cambodia and I was struck by how polite and respectful most Americans are. People greeted me, waved me in line ahead of them, apologized for brushing my arm, paused their cart to let me go first. I am not used to that. Cambodian people are some of the most courteous people in the world but culturally they don’t express it the way we do here. There is seldom acknowledgement of the other person, no eye contact, no greeting spoken, no disarming smiles. They are wonderful people but they just don’t interact the way we do. Coming back to OUR way has been a really positive experience for me and an opportunity for reflection on who we are and how we meet each other.

Friends, for many years

I am back in the United States now but it would have been much simpler and easier to retire in Asia. The main reasons I returned to Louisville are my brothers and sisters and cousins and my friends. Today Donna and Nancy took me to dinner for my birthday. They were students in my class in high school and both have become significant actors in the deaf world. And remained my friends. They are the types of friends it is very difficult to find in another country, another language, another culture where we have almost nothing in common.

Reflections on love for Valentine’s Day

by Anne Lamott (gifted author interpreter of the human spirit)

Love springs from new life, love springs from death. Love acts like Gandhi and our pets and Jesus and Mr. Bean and Mr. Rogers and Bette Midler. Love won’t be pinned down.

Love is often hard, ignored, or hilarious. But one thing is certain: Love is our only hope.

68 Years Later

In May, 1958 the eighth-grade class of St. Columba School in Louisville’s West End graduated and we all moved on to high school and the rest of our lives. That didn’t end all contact, though, and some of those classmates have continued to meet through the ensuing 68 years. Today 12 classmates and their spouses got together at an Italian restaurant, continuing bi-monthly lunches together. Because I just came back from Cambodia, it was the first time I had seen some of them since graduation. It was great! [Notice the restaurant ambiance! It is quite exotic with all sorts of Italian memorabilia and photos. Of special notice: a bust of Pope John XXIII on the table and his picture on the wall.]

More from Oregon

One powerful realization for me when I was wandering in the forested area of The Grotto in Portland, Oregon was how much I had missed forests of large hardwood trees while I was in Asia. From my days in the Boy Scouts and from our Dittmeier family camping trips (the only vacations we could afford), I have loved being out in the forests. At The Grotto I was able to be with huge, old trees that brought back good memories and renewed my love of nature.

Time for meeting others

In Nazareth Home, there is an independent living wing where I live and the general wing which provides nursing and living care that might be needed. The general wing has a variety of activities, and when they had an ice cream tasting event, I went over to join in. It was enjoyable–eight flavors of good ice cream–and I got to meet some new people.