6 results for tag: Ruth A. Tucker

Pen Pals – by Ruth A. Tucker

I once had a pen pal. A boy from Kissimmee, Florida. I was ten, he the same age. Other than that, I don’t remember anything about him, not even his name. I was reminded of him the other day when I read a fascinating story about pen pal connections that spanned decades. The article was from the Washington Post, and I was immediately taken by the fact that the one-time girl grew up in East Grand Rapids only a short distance from where I lived for most of three decades. Twelve-year-old Kristina Olson had gone door-to-door, raising money through Camp Fire Girls in order to send care packages to soldiers stationed abroad. Hers went to Ned Felder in ...

Mother’s Day Cards – by Ruth A. Tucker

One of my favorite short stories is “Mothers Day” by Octavus Roy Cohen. It was Saturday night, the eve of Mothers Day. Dan Clancy “neither knew nor cared.” He was a police detective, “square shouldered” who “thought only of himself.” But on this particular night his thoughts were on a “narrow-shouldered and furtive” drifter, “a sneak-thief” hiding under the freight cars. Of course, Dan could have picked him up willy-nilly as a vagrant and seen to it that the man received sixty or ninety days in the workhouse. But there was little pleasure in that. It amused Dan to play with his quarry as a cat plays with a mouse, when ...

Mercy Drops – by Ruth A.Tucker

I was a senior in high school, focused and driven. A Mozart French horn solo was all that seemed to matter.  I will never forget the phone call with the news that I had won first prize in the northern Wisconsin regional brass competition. It was a feeling of sheer ecstasy—a landmark in my life. We all have experiences like that.  Maybe it’s that long-awaited phone call that the adoption has finally come through.  There are no words to describe our joy.  Or maybe we’re biting out nails in the third row back of the darkened auditorium when daughter Katie spells “masseuse” and wins the spelling bee.  Or, perhaps ...

The Girl with the Goat – by Ruth A. Tucker

“Countless verses have been written on the puppy and the kitten.” These are the first lines of a poem written by my eighth-grade Latin teacher who was hands-down the most popular poet at the middle school located high on a hill in the small town of Spooner, Wisconsin. He would often read one of his poems before he put on his stern face and ordered oral exercises in declining nouns and conjugating verbs. Students repeatedly asked him to write a poem for them. He knew better. Do it for one, you’ve got to do it for all. I was very specific in my request, however, begging him to write a poem about Buzzy. Finally, after months of refusal, he ...

God’s Glass Ceiling? Ruth Tucker

Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the cradle and last at the cross. They had never known a man like this man—there never has been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered them, never treated them as either The women, God help us! or The ladies, God bless them!; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; never had an axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was ...

Luther at 500 – October CWR available

CLICK HERE to read now Brad Jersak: Luther at 500: Reformation Then & Now – pg. 1  Ruth Tucker: Katie Luther – pg. 5 10 Things You Might Not  Know about Luther – pg. 6 Brad Jersak: Reformation Now: Claims and Calls – pg. 7 Jessica Williams: I Am a Small Boat on a Raging Sea – pg. 8 Marlene Winell: Religious Trauma Syndrome – pg. 9 Laura Urista: Connected to the Vine – pg. 10 Richard Rohr: The Greatest Commandments – pg. 11 Brian Zahnd: God is Love, God is Love – pg. 12 Greg Albrecht: “Should I attend my gay daughter’s wedding?” -pg. 14