Religion

"What’s Love Got to Do with It” is the edgy title of a catchy – but cynical – 1984 song sung by Tina Turner. Great beat, but a distorted understanding of love if you think it’s only a “secondhand emotion.”! Which brings me to a second song about love. And a true story.

I’ve always been good at being busy. In college a family friend gave me the book, “The Art of Doing Nothing,” in hopes that I’d learn to slow down and make time for myself.

Wedged into a recliner in the corner of her assisted living apartment in Portland, Skylar Freimann, who has a terminal heart condition and pulmonary illness, anxiously eyed her newly arrived hospital bed on a recent day and worried over how she would maintain independence as she further loses mobility.

A Spokane priest having an apparent mental health crisis caused outcry from officials in the U.K. after he spoofed royal guardsmen last month by claiming to know the battalion’s chaplain and gained access to the guard barracks at Windsor Castle, a home of Queen Elizabeth II.

Four Muslim detainees in the Spokane County Jail filed a U.S. District Court lawsuit April 11 citing religious discrimination, charging that their requests for halal food before and during Ramadan were not met in violation of the First Amendment and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.

Down through the centuries religion has fueled many wars. Or is it just that Might makes Right, and religion is irrelevant, powerless?

Even as a child, I was mildly confused by how God could be loving and yet punish people with hell.

Under Pastor Andy’s guidance, Westminster voted to become open and affirming, agreed to stay at its downtown location and in 2004 celebrated 125 years - making it Spokane’s longest-serving church.

The pandemic challenged all faiths, including their practices, services and rituals. Similarly, Islam was also challenged. These challenges were deeply felt during the last two Ramadans. 

We can all take a page from the kids in our lives and start asking “why?” a lot more.

A journey of at least 500 miles from Sumy, a city near Ukraine's eastern border with Russia, to Moldova and on to Romania, was scheduled to end later that day with Rabbi Yechiel Shlomo Levitansky and his wife and children taking a flight to Israel. Levitansky, who's been living and building a Jewish congregation in Sumy for the past 17 years, said on a video call from the driver's seat of his car that he'd not stopped to reflect completely on the decision to leave.

Rock-throwing is an international symbol of frustration and situational impotence. Tragically, expect rock-throwing in Ukraine now.

To answer the question, you have to understand the history of the Soviet Union, American ideals and human nature. 

Two Gonzaga University upperclassmen were among 130 students from 21 countries to take part in a dialogue Thursday with Pope Francis on matters concerning the care of migrants and refugees.

Thousands of Ukrainian-Americans in Spokane are worried for their family members as Russia invades Ukraine. 

Parishioners at the Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes in downtown Spokane have been faithfully raising money for years to build a shrine to St. Peregrine, the patron saint of people with cancer. Though there’s still money left to raise, organizers hope the shrine will be complete in time for St. Peregrine’s feast day on May 1.

Liberty Lake artist and Selkirk Middle School seventh-grader Sindhu Surapaneni has come up with a way to connect Valentine’s Day and Black History Month with her newest painting titled “Everyone is Loved.”

Spokane's Ukrainian residents don't all see eye-to-eye on the issue. Inna Mayorov doesn’t want to take sides. The Ukrainian-American owner of Yummy Snamy European Food and Deli interacts with Spokane Slavs at her store every day, and lately that means hearing conversations about the escalating Ukraine-Russia conflict.