KC Families Share How Ramadan Changed This Year

Ramadan during a pandemic

This year, like almost everything, Ramadan looks and feels different than in years past.  At dusk on April 23, Muslims around the world and in Kansas City began the month-long spiritual practice of fasting. Every day, they refrain from eating, drinking and other activities from dawn to dusk. And once the sun sets, it’s time…

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No Man is an Island, Even in a Pandemic

Yuka Naito-Billen in a surgical mask

No man is an island. So says John Donne’s Meditation 17 in “Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions.”  The next stanza goes: “Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” That sentiment feels palpable during these days of pandemic-forced lockdown to Robert Bingaman, a Kansas City painter. He was inspired to make…

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