… today we remember the more than 1,200,000 people who have died in the service of our country since its founding. We remember their sacrifice and pray that someday such sacrifice will not be necessary … there is hope, because we are human and capable of incredible acts of goodness .. but then there is the flip side of the equation too. All we can do is to bring kindness and understanding with us in our daily lives and perhaps … perhaps those who lead the nations of the world will acknowledge that their duties are to honor their citizens…
Author: Sedona Best
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By Amaya Gayle GregoryHappiness is where we start. It’s at the heart of us. It is what we are before we layer on all the trappings of hope for an acceptable outcome, expectation that the outcome won’t be acceptable, and resistance to what has come before, to what is, and what will be. Resistance is always to what is, even though it seems locked into patterns of past or future. It’s expended energy right now, right here in reaction to a thought that shares the moment with us or more accurately stated – an awareness of thought known by an…
The Sedona International Film Festival is proud to present the Northern Arizona premiere of the award-winning documentary “Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story” showing June 4-9 at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre. “Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story” weaves together live performances and interviews from the 50th anniversary of The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, the signature annual music and cultural event of the city with hundreds of thousands of attendees each year. The N.O. ‘Jazz Fest’ celebrates the music, food, people, arts & crafts, and culture of all of Louisiana since 1970, and is an essential showcase of…
By Amaya Gayle GregoryWe pack up their lunch, make sure they have their gym clothes and books, and bundle them into the car or out to the bus stop, take a deep breath and begin our day. School’s kind of a free period for parenting, or at least for a lot of parents.Do kids think about yesterday’s school shooting as they are being methodically herded out the door? Yesterday’s? There’s always a yesterday’s school shooting it seems.Do parents?We seem to forget pretty quickly, moving onto the next one, and then the next until we simply can’t notice anymore. It’s not…
The Wall That Heals, a three-quarter scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial along with a mobile Education Center, is coming to Payson, AZ, on August 25-28, 2022 at the south general purpose field at Rumsey Park, 400 N. McLane Rd., and will be open 24 hours a day, closing Sunday at 2 pm ,and is free to the public. The Wall That Heals honors the more than three million Americans who served in the U.S. Armed forces in the Vietnam War and it bears the names of the 58,281 men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in Vietnam.“We…
By Amaya Gayle Gregory”As you know, I follow the war every day. I’m not going numb… and will do everything I can to stop it. This is not just Ukrainian PR. I’ve seen pics from all over the country of Ukrainian soldiers protecting animals.” Sky Otter. For lifetimes, we have survived by going numb … and in our numbness nothing changed. If anything, the diconnect continued to build, to worsen. Today’s world is hard to experience, devastatingly hard. Friends and families are torn apart, taking sides, hating each other — the fallout of partisanship reminds me of stories about the…
The Sedona International Film Festival is proud to present the Northern Arizona premiere of “The Score” showing June 4-9 at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre. From the producers of “Yesterday”, “The Score” boldly combines real time heist-thriller suspense with offbeat romance and a killer soundtrack; starring and featuring the music of Johnny Flynn, alongside Noami Ackie and Will Poulter. Every great plan need orchestration. One false note can ruin the perfect score. Two small time crooks, Mike (Flynn) and Troy (Poulter), are on a mission – the ‘score’ – that they both expect will transform their circumstances. At a roadside…
By Rabbi Alicia MagalShalom and greetings from the Rabbi, Board of Directors, and congregation of the Jewish Community of Sedona and the Verde Valley.All the services, classes, and programs are listed on the synagogue website.Come join us either in person or online. See jcsvv.org for instructions to register for in-person services or online links.On Friday, June 3, a Friday evening service, led by Rabbi Alicia Magal, begins at 5:30 pm both in person and on Zoom, and livestreamed for members and their invitees. Congregants participate by lighting candles, doing a reading, or having an Aliyah for the Torah service. Verses…
… a small sample of the life that is lived daily at Lake Pleasant and for that matter, near water throughout Arizona and the rest of the world. While some of us engage in acts of silliness and lose our minds to those useful, but wasteful digital things we call smart phones, life goes on all around us and it is not dependent on the latest email, sms message or twitter post … life is lived in the real world where it counts! We were on the water by 6AM this morning and almost immediately we were engaged with wildlife…