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I grew up in a small town called Lacrosse. The town still has about 300 people living there. Our high school mascot was a tiger, and it was painted on the gym wall. I remember going to basketball games and cheering loud for the Tigers. During the games, we kinda disliked the visiting teams. And…

I grew up in Eastern Washington State. The town was so small that the high school had 64 students and my class had 14 students. The teachers had to teach multiple subjects but they did a great job. One teacher especially has shaped me. Dorothy Smith. Dorothy taught English, history, and German. Mostly she challenged…

My first experience with Paths to Understanding was in November of 2017. I was invited to a board meeting. Our co-founder, Father Treacy, was present and the group was trying hard to keep the organization together after the sale of their retreat center, Camp Brotherhood, the year before. They were working through understandable grief and…

Everyone is talking about how divided we are. Most of the time this conversation is accompanied by a sense of dread and despair. People don’t know what to do. In her book, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity, professor Lilliana Mason tells a story about how we got here and what it means. In…

We held our first LGT Council meeting on Tuesday, May 11th 2023. We met at the Upper Skagit Cultural Center. So far, the Council includes Upper Skagit Elders, Skagit Valley Catholic Churches, Mount Vernon Rotary, Burlington Lutheran Church, Skagit Valley YMCA, Skagit Unitarian Universalist Church, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints of Skagit County,…