(30.40) LCK Good Taste

The 77% Weekly

The 40/52-weeks-a-year, quick-reading, thought-lingering, spiritual-religious newsletter.

Religion-Outside-The-Box (oldrotb.wpengine.com) is a donation supported not-for-profit empowering adults to find and be with (the) God (of their understanding).

30/40 From the desk of Dr. Laurence C. Keene

Good Taste

I
couldn’t believe this young person I love so much actually chose to
wear the clothes he was wearing. Baggy pants, a haircut that looked
like the barber changed his mind halfway through the job of cutting it,
and an earring that hung two inches below his earlobe.

“This is a cool outfit,” he said to me.

Cool was not the word I would have chosen to describe it.

His
dog still loved him just as much as always and so did I, but it was
clear to me that personal tastes in clothing and other things can
certainly differ among people who deeply love one another.
Help
me to remember that, dear God. Help me to remember that it is our love
for one another that binds us together not our similar tastes in music,
food, clothing or even the friends we choose to feel close to. Keep me
from eroding other people’s love for me by my insistence on their
conforming to my tastes. Help me to trust more fully that it is our
love and positive regard for one another that should be relished and
cherished not our fickle preferences for fashion.
Help me to be
more like that faithful old dog who never looks at a person’s haircut
at all but only sees the person who’s wearing it.
Love,
Larry.
larry@rotb.org

The 77% Weekly

The 77% Weekly: The Religion-Outside-The-Box Newsletter helps people find and be with (the) God (of their understanding) 40 out of 52 weeks a year.

Why 77%?
Two reasons:

1) 40/52 = 0.76923. The newsletter is sent every Monday except the last of each month.
2) In school 77% was a passing grade and ROTB wants to remind you that life isn’t graded.

Religion-Outside-The-Box is a donation-supported,
non-denominational, internet-based, 501c3-tax exempt religious congregation.

Flash Bang

February 6, 2026

✧✧✧ My buddy Marc meets me near my house at 3:30 on Saturday afternoon so we can bike to the small park named for Elizabeth Caruthers. I looked her up as I started to write this article. Elizabeth Caruthers was an early pioneer woman whose Supreme Court case led to the 1850 Donation Act—ruling that a woman, married or not,

Hiawatha Johnson, JR.

January 31, 2026

January 2026 — Portland, ORE Hiawatha Johnson, Jr., a mentor and friend died. Summer 1985 — Magic Camp Oakdale, Long Island I’m 15. He’s 30. He wears a dashiki. He uses a walking stick. I’m prepubescent. I listen to comedy cassettes on a Walkman. I’m in awe. ✧✧✧ I perform a rather banal magic act that year — me narrating

The Delay

January 14, 2026

2026 issue #03 — The Delay I’m in my buddy David’s car. He’s driving me from my mom’s apartment in NYC to Newark, NJ, where I’m going to catch a plane back home to Portland. David and I have been friends for fifty years. Amazing. My phone dings. I look at it. Nothing important. Just an alert from United. *

(30.40) LCK Good Taste