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A word to the wise should be sufficient, a truth etched indelibly into my perspective finally sunk in. This missive gave reason for pause when peer pressure seemed the easier path or when giving self-permission for something my brain knew not to do but desired and won the argument. Mom, if you can read this from Heaven, thank you. Most of Mom’s wisdom had a biblical base though she never quoted chapter and verse. She just had a goat-milking way of saying things that were not

When twilight mingles with dark and effort gives way to sleep, when dawn once more yields to the sun, even if the flag of his game had been at half-staff the day before, the golfer finds his way to the course to do it all over again in an air of hope, to face the resolute opponent within, to prove, to risk humility and assurance all the same, to find a way to say to himself, “I’ve got it.” When those words rise in him, he is unaware how his language entangles him. He is incli

Righteousness is a hard word for me. Do you have words like that? Words that you just cannot quite grasp, no matter how many different ways you try to look at them? I suspect, for me, it is because righteousness is a serious word, a final-judgment–sounding word. Bonnie McClure Do you know any righteous people? Yes is probably the

Life in Four Holes is never as it seems. Up may be down and down can be sideways. But its swamp critters live free from those perplexing dilemmas. A rich riparian habitat, the swamp teems with life. Leaving the highway and turning down the lane that winds through the community, one finds himself in a fog, except he realizes no fog exists. Something has changed, something hard to place a finger on, something suspending time or the feeling one gets when experience will not suff

Donny, the duck, lived on an island in the high north. Instead of quacking and waddling, he hopped and quocked. Curious about everything, he loved to hop around the island to discover places. Hopping and quocking with glee through the woods, the islanders always knew his whereabouts. Donny had his quirks but so did the others who lived there. A good day consisted of hopping through the leaves, splashing through mud puddles, stopping to quock to his friends just to see how the

There is a tree beyond this world In its ancient roots this song is curled I am the fool whose life's been spent Between what's said and what is meant. There is a Tree, a song from Carrie Newcomer Most often life is lived by what is said, what is seen, what is known. This living remains but a short distance from our ears, our eyes, and our brain. Much like sitting on a fence, the choice confronts us to hop on one side or the other, to choose either what is said or what is mea

In the village of Hara, there were three friends. Their names were Faith, Joy, and Desire. Faith was the youngest of three children, Joy was an only child, and Desire was a twin. Hara, being a small village, seemed tranquil enough, but not all things are as they seem. The three friends found enough to interest them, but no matter the happenings in the village, the three friends usually settled beneath the old oak tree in the middle of the village. Each being different than th

What of this thing called faith? There are no words to convey the full meaning, simply because language does not offer them. A life in Christ is one of continually exploring one’s faith. Faith is unexplainable until you start walking into the unseen. We can liken it to a house you have strolled past many times before yet never stopped. When you finally decide to enter, the rooms are dark. To bring in light, you must pull back the curtains, and as your eyes adjust, you begin t

Fog has settled on the mountain this morning. Sometimes this offers little concern because soon the sun rises and the fog burns away. There are other times such an occurrence means the mountain residents must be vigilant and watchful because this mountain fog can be fickle. One must always pause to consider which fog has arrived, the casual one that wishes to say, “I’m here, don’t forget me,” or the stubborn one demanding you pay attention to it. Consternation characterizes t

More often, too often perhaps, culture portrays Christianity like some salve for a scrape. Rub it on and you will feel better. But then, the wound heals, the hurt is forgotten, and we go on with our considered normal life. A life lived long enough by faith knows this to be false. Some ideas suggest the Christian life is more like an inoculation, the injection shields us from the disease, and the disease never touches us. This may be closer to the truth, but it, too, renders a

It’s late Spring in Four Holes Swamp. Noseum season has passed. The skimmer bugs have hatched, and the horseflies are hunting someone to bite who doesn’t have a wet towel on their head. Skeeters are flying in the early morning, late morning, early afternoon, and evening. This is why everyone in Four Holes sits on a screened porch with a ceiling fan whirring to help against the heat and humidity that rises to 100 degrees and 100 percent—unusual in late May but not unheard of.

Thoughts pass through the mind like a breeze rustling through the forest, coming and going, carrying spores looking for fertile soil. Sometimes they remain. Other times they are lost in the dark night of forgetfulness. There is life in a thought, some measure of attention it seeks, even if brief, demanding an answer perhaps just for self, audible only to the mind thinking it. Until… Until this thought passes the lips. The passing chances the ears of someone other than you, so

Books populate these shelves, dry bones with stories and histories, words languishing in aging bindings that once engaged interested eyes. Within those bindings are the truths the writers wished to share, the window on their world each hoped would enter yours and enlighten you. Interspersed on the shelves are pictures, mementos, and remembrances purchased in some gift store, reminders of a trip you took or time shared with a friend. A singular book was your friend at one time

A symphony of light permeates the forest this morning. In quiet reception, nature allows those streaming and stretching flecks to angle through the canopy, favoring mountain laurel and wild azalea blossoms. Cracklings of diffused light fall past the blossoms, reaching the forest floor, leftovers from a cosmic journey, satisfying ferns and pine seedlings at light’s end. The landscape did not refuse the water from yesterday’s rain. So the creek ambles and serpentines, carrying

Handlebars—not the normal image that comes to mind when sitting at a desk, unless the walls surrounding this desk enshrine a life, a career, a past to contemplate as one contemplates a recipe for supper or eyeing a book on the shelf you read long ago and eyeing it again caused you to open it. The recipe begs a grocery list, so you go to the grocery store and move down one aisle, then another looking for honey mustard or a salty prosciutto to go with a good, crusted artisan lo

A golf shot is a harmonious collaboration between a good eye and sure hands while disharmony and a bad eye festers doubt in a competitor’s constitution. Doubt never hit a golf ball well while the approaching examination of clearing a lake or a facing bunker assert their ground. A well struck golf ball for the shot at hand must possess in the mind of the golfer a steel certitude of intent and in the very least a mustard seed of faith in order to have a chance. This, of course,

“It is impossible to believe that He loves such as Cornelius or Vavasor as He loves a Christopher. There must be a difference! The God of truth cannot love the unlovely in the same way as He loves the lovely. The one He loves for what he is and what he has begun to be; the other He loves because he sorely needs love—as sorely as the other and must begin to grow lovely one day.” George MacDonald (From Weighed and Wanting) If there comes a time when we think God does not love u

Another Masters tournament has come and gone. Inherent in this rite of Spring is a truism. No matter the calendar, the week before finds Winter lingering like a bitter herb, but when The Masters comes, a flood of good feeling washes over every golfer, every fan, every azalea-loving botanist tuning in to watch. The opening tee shot signals Spring has begun. The week unfolded with the rising and falling of our golf heroes alongside the ebb and flow of birdies and bogeys. Media

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24, NKJV). Traversing this ravine called life confronts the rushing rivulets of time rippling over and between life’s rocks of hard testing. But we walk on, climbing from who we were to whom we are to become, wrestling life’s bothering rocks and crevices. Always the journey is outside of us an

Dear Reverend Counsel, I wish to deepen my relationship with Christ, but I find in every devotion a thread I think is part and not the whole of scripture. I find this confusing. Can you recommend a way to read scripture, as I earnestly desire to know and do God’s will? Sally Dear Sally, Yours is a good question. I will do my best to frame it. I concede seeking God can sometimes be like attempting to find a misplaced object that you left in a room. You know what you are look