The Stranger at McDonald’s

Red and blue tube slides curved around the ceiling like sinuous snakes, and clubbed green helicopter blades whirled overhead. Kids scrambled up slippery slides, crawled through plastic tunnels, and emerged grinning on the floor, hair standing tall with static electricity. Two brown-eyed children with curly black hair stepped apprehensively closer to the indoor playset, their…

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A Verse that Can Carve New Meaning into You and Me

It was like tearing up a Rembrandt. Okay, not a Rembrandt, but still. Painted by Rembrandt van Rijn, photographed by flikr user freeparking, Creative Commons, cc license With several flicking hand waves, her eraser eradicated half her drawing. The intricately-sketched figure of a woman was now gone. “It’s all right, Mom,” she laughed. “I can…

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When They Think They See Us, But It’s Not

 They thought it was us, but it wasn’t. It was him. In a land where warm fresh bread was just a morning’s walk away — the long crusty-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside French baguettes– and where buttery pain au chocolates “croissants” with inner chocolate streaks elicited moans every morning, everything was vivid. Our team of thirteen senior high…

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