And rise
to circle the fourplex
hawks on a February
day. Or shims of hawks,
as v-ed as a second
grader’s drawing
on a periwinkle
rectangle of sky,
a scallop of sun.
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Bishop Budde among the Swedes
In September, Episcopal bishop Mariann Edgar Budde will travel to her mother’s homeland at the invitation of the Stockholm Cathedral.
Body counts: The dark side of Christian history
With its long coastline, rugged mountains and haunting sand dunes, Oman is a paradise for desert lovers, hikers and boaters. Muscat, the capital city, is a gem—its arched white buildings and flat roofs squeezed between the blue ocean and black mountains. Yet call me an egghead, but what I remember most from a trip to Oman is a booklet I read there with an ominous title: Body Count: A Quantitative Review of Political Violence Across World Civilizations (2009). In it, author Naveed Sheikh claims that “the Christian civilization emerges as the most violent and genocidal in the world history.” Compared to Islam, Christianity is a clear winner: 31.94 million deaths by Muslims to 177.94 million deaths by Christians.