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	<title>Olympic View Community</title>
	<link>http://olympicchurch.org</link>
	<description>Church of the Brethren</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:51:42 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Avatar:  Imagine crossing over</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Until this last week, I’d only known an ‘avatar’ to be an image used to represent a person interacting with others in an on-line game or chat room.  Needless to say, this word is finding a new place in our culture.
Those more culturally literate than I would have associated ‘avatar’ with the human incarnations of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://olympicchurch.org/uncategorized/avatar-imagine-crossing-over/</link>
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		<title>The Danger of Positive Thinking</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I’m about the last person from whom you’d ever hear a warning about getting too much of a good thing.  My friends argue about whether I’m a perfectionist or a maximalist.  I usually argue for the latter.  I really don’t need everything to be perfect and I don’t take it personally when [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://olympicchurch.org/newsletter/the-danger-of-positive-thinking/</link>
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		<title>Recess: Time to bring it back</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Almost every day at work, I hear one of my life’s favorite sounds–recess at the elementary school across the street–hundreds of kids having all kinds of fun.  Then I hear one of the saddest sounds–the bell that calls them all back to class.  Why did we ever let them take recess away from [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://olympicchurch.org/uncategorized/recess-time-to-bring-it-back/</link>
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		<title>Advent people are making plans</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Conventional wisdom says the right time to celebrate the new year is January.  To be sure, that’s when our Gregorian calendar changes and our attentions turn toward the year ahead.  But that’s backward from the way we mark the passing of our personal time passages.  This March, I’ll celebrate my 40th year of living, but [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://olympicchurch.org/newsletter/advent-people-are-making-plans/</link>
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		<title>Falling isn&#8217;t easy, but we needn&#8217;t fall alone</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The spiders around my house are looking healthy and fat these days.  When I first moved out here, they looked exotic and frightening.  In Indiana, it was mostly Daddy long-legs.  I used to diligently sweep them all out of sight. 
At some point, I called a truce.  I asked them to [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://olympicchurch.org/newsletter/falling-isnt-easy-but-we-neednt-fall-alone-2/</link>
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		<title>Searching for the science of spirituality</title>
		<description><![CDATA[What if you slept?  And what if, in your sleep, you dreamed?  And what if, in your dream, you went to heaven and plucked a strange and beautiful flower?  And what if, when you awoke, you had the flower in your hand?  Ah, what then?  Samuel Taylor Coleridge
I&#8217;ve always been [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://olympicchurch.org/newsletter/falling-isnt-easy-but-we-needn/</link>
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		<title>The power of a question</title>
		<description><![CDATA[There&#8217;s a kind of power that comes to students who understand their stake in the questions they ask.  I remember well the day at Manchester College when I ran into some students from a school out East.  They were traveling around the country to share their experiences with student-led classes.
&#8220;Student led?&#8221; I asked. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://olympicchurch.org/newsletter/1220/</link>
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		<title>Oh, to be as clever as Tom</title>
		<description><![CDATA[When I asked Tom Mullen, one of my favorite seminary professors, to preach at my ordination service, I expected him to be clever and profound; but when he titled his message, &#8216;Unfit for the Ministry&#8217; I wondered if choosing the faculty comedian had been wise.  Was my vocation to be in jeopardy just as it [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://olympicchurch.org/newsletter/oh-to-be-as-clever-as-tom/</link>
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		<title>Losing my religion.  Finding my faith.</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Seems like every other Wednesday, my neighborhood smells kind of farmy-sort of like manure and pig slop.  I hadn&#8217;t noticed the pattern until the weather warmed up.  It&#8217;s the day our cul-de-sac sets yard waste out for pickup.  It&#8217;s the smell of decay.
Our lives are filled with cycles of growth and decay.  We&#8217;re supremely conscious [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://olympicchurch.org/newsletter/losing-my-religion-finding-my-faith/</link>
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		<title>The forecast: a strong likelihood of liminality</title>
		<description><![CDATA[If I had a nickel for every time in Seminary that I heard the word &#8216;liminality&#8217;, I could have gone into the free ministry instead of searching for  a full-time paid position.  But as overused as that word was, I find it returning to me in a powerful way.  It describes so well my personal, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://olympicchurch.org/newsletter/the-forecast-a-strong-likelihood-of-liminality/</link>
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