Feature Columnists

Have you ever been locked in a room and couldn't find the door to take you outside the confinement? You possibly bang on the walls and try the same lock over and over. The lock doesn't budge. Do you then stop attempting to leave the room and sit down on the floor waiting for someone to rescue you,...

Partly as a function of age, I'm not a sound sleeper. Nature calls too often. When sleep does come, though, my dreams tend to be optimistic. Nightmares, more common early in life, are quite infrequent now. In my nocturnal state, wars are resolved, enmities are ended, pain is eased, relationships...

September is the beginning of a transition time in the Southeast Missouri woods. Summer is coming to an end. Daytime high temperatures are getting more comfortable. And something bright red has made its appearance in the woods. I found this beautiful plant in the forest surrounded by ferns. It has...

September is the perfect time of year to evaluate your life and plan for the remaining months. Even amid a global pandemic when the only thing you can depend on is you cannot depend on anything. Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, "In preparing for battles, I have always found that plans are useless,...

The other day in church, I looked up and saw a little girl wearing a crown. It was a silver plastic one, bedecked with rhinestones, and she wore it atop her head unironically, proudly, straightforwardly, with a purple dress. It sat atop her head, and she moved about with an energetic air of...

Here I show you two flowers that you may easily find at this time of year. The yellow flower is a common evening primrose. The common evening primrose can grow to about 6 feet tall. It is sometimes called the "sun drop," because of its brilliant yellow flowers...

You may consider yourself lucky and honored if you get to see one of these turtles in the wilds of Missouri. Two major reasons make this so. One, the male alligator snapper spends nearly all of its time under water, and the female only comes out for a short time in spring to lay eggs. Two, the...

Early one morning, recently, I went out my front door with my Pug, Penelope, for a short romp. This ritual is a frequent occurrence, although her walks are becoming shorter and less spontaneous. This morning was different for me, however, because the experience became more than simply a chore or...

Over 40 years ago, I worked for awhile as an intern for National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting in Washington, D.C. Funded by Ralph Nader, the NCCB operated during a different media age -- before cable, before the Internet -- in a time in which over-the-air broadcasting held sway over...

I took this photo Aug. 19. What you see here are the green berries of a plant called polkberry, polkweed or polk sallet. When the berries ripen, they will be dark purple. This is a common native shrub that dies back to the ground each autumn. The root system stays alive, and the following spring...

Recently I discovered the Anglo-Welsh poet R.S. Thomas, who was an Anglican priest at rural parishes throughout his life and searched for God in silence. What comforts and urges me on about his spirituality is that he understands the point is obedience to the choice of acting in faith. Reaping a...

Another prominent leader has been discovered to not be who they said they were. They were not living out the values that they claimed to hold. They were not victims of the cancel culture but of grotesque hypocrisy. Sadly, each of us can place a different image to the previous description. ...

When things become overwhelming in your life, what do you do? Do you run around in a frenzy trying to control and straighten out what's going on, or what? Whose life doesn't often feel as if it's a mystery? We begin to think we've finally arrived, then our security is suddenly jerked out from under...

I cannot recall a year in which there has been more worry and trepidation about returning to school. The reason for anxiety is well known. The hulking viral presence of COVID-19 looms over the start of the 2020-21 academic year. Most classes begin Monday in public and private schools. as well as at...

This photo shows the beautiful flowers and flower buds of a hybridized non-native shrub. It is a kind of hibiscus called Rose of Sharon. The name is confusing because it is not a rose. This plant can grow into a small tree reaching maybe 15 feet tall. ...

I drive past a beautiful maple tree nearly every day. The tree is not very large, but season after season, it possesses the deepest green leaves that will give way every fall to brilliant red. As I am writing this in early August, I am shocked to have seen that the leaves are already changing...

The other day, I came across this prayer by Saint John Henry Newman, which I remembered reading from attending the Newman Center during college. I want to share it with you. It says: "God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to...

Some things we just have to have or it just ain't summer. Summer can't be summer in Southeast Missouri without thunderstorms, temperatures reaching into the 90s and watermelons. Katydids singing at night, fields of tasseling corn and spotted baby fawns are also things of summer. And so are bees and...

Do you sometimes wake up and wonder what your day may bring? Now that COVID-19 is staring us in the face, things are certainly different. How are we making the adjustments that are forced upon us? Since our days aren't as crammed full of activities as they once were, how are we interpreting all the...

Seventy-five years ago this weekend, the United States discharged an atomic bomb over Nagasaki, Japan, on Aug. 9, 1945. Within a few days, World War II was over. Twenty-six years ago this past Monday, a metaphorical bomb dropped on the life of Josh Kezer, as he was sent to the Missouri Department...

You may have been seeing these big white flowers along county highways for the past few weeks. They are native to much of the southeastern United States. They bloom from about mid-July into autumn. This plant is a kind of hibiscus called rose mallow. It is sometimes called swamp rose mallow because...

Each of us has people in our lives we look to as examples. That social media influencer, the DIY tutorial on the video streaming service or the person from history who overcame tremendous odds all serve as illustrations of those we look to -- men and women who influence our decisions, our likes and...

I remember the first time I heard Taylor Swift. I was 15, driving on Mount Auburn Road in Cape with my best friend who was newly 16. It was dark outside. "There's this girl named Taylor Swift ..." as she put in the CD. We listened to "Teardrops on My Guitar" first. ...

This little insect is a marvel of the insect world. It has left fossil evidence proving that it was thriving on Earth during the time of dinosaurs at least 300 million years ago. As a nymph living underwater, it eats mosquito larvae and other tiny aquatic life. As an adult flying insect, it...

What do you do when your loved ones come to visit during this season of COVID-19? We are told to social distance, wear masks and stay home, a scenario that's unconducive to entertaining. I asked this question of myself recently. My son, Jack, and his family came to visit for a week from a far-a-way...

I listened to Dan Rather's "America" radio show on Sirius XM Tuesday, and Rather and one of his guests got into a riveting discussion about heaven. Two very old men were discussing what comes next after this life. Rather, the grizzled 88-year old former CBS newsman, is sure of heaven...

This is a trail camera photo of a whitetail deer buck in velvet. This deer is probably between five and seven years old. Where he lives, I do not have the liberty of saying. Bucks drop their antlers each year during winter and grow new ones back the following spring and summer. The velvet is thin...

Temperatures were in the 90s recently when I made an afternoon trip to Mingo National Wildlife Refuge. I was hoping to see a baby whitetail deer, but they must have been quietly lying still in the shade somewhere. The refuge was very quiet on this day. It was as if the wild animals were mimicking...

Your values define what is most important to you. Those values are most clearly seen when pressed and stressed. Stephen Covey wrote, "Begin each day with the blueprint of my deepest values FIRMLY in mind then when challenges come, make decisions BASED on those values." What you value, and acting on...

This past weekend, I had the honor of witnessing the wedding of Courtney, one of my dearest friends and sisters in life, to her groom. It was a beautiful ceremony that gave all of the glory to God and began a marriage that I know will, too. God wills beautiful, sacramental marriages that are a...

Jim couldn't get things in his life together. It seemed that everything he desired, or thought he wanted, failed. He felt very insecure inside and this thought pattern seemed to overshadow his whole life. Jim was depressed and discouraged, but a great person. ...

Setting the mail down on the dining room sideboard, I noticed the summer edition of my alma mater's magazine had arrived. The large headline on the periodical's front caused me to think the author of those words had not been a history major. "A Year Like No Other," the cover proclaimed...

Recently, I was sent this fantastic photo of a little boy and a big frog. The look on his face tells it all. Pure delight! His mother told me she was driving him to his day care center while on her way to her job. She saw the huge frog at the side of the road and thought of saving it just like so...

When I was 12, I was trapped, and it was my fault. I was riding a three-wheeler ATV with some friends down a gravel road. The combination of inexperience, loose gravel and exhilaration caused the ATV to flip and land on top of me. The frame pinned my helmeted head to the ground while the hot engine...

Recently, I watched the Netflix show "Outer Banks." While I wouldn't recommend it for people under 25 years of age (sorry, I think it's a show that was written in a purposefully highly-addictive manner and glamorizes much bad decision-making; viewers are in need of full prefrontal cortex...

This is a small songbird native to the eastern third of the United States and a portion of southeastern Canada. This very precious bird is the wood thrush. It looks very similar to two other native songbirds, the hermit thrush and the oven bird. The hermit thrush has dark speckles only on the...

Driving through the country is always exciting. The quiet surroundings minus the hub-bub of town and city activity are awesome. This year, particularly, brings a vivid beauty of greenery. Trees are filled with leaves waving in the winds, and tall slim stalks of grass gingerly bending and bowing to...

The weather was warm for Dec. 29 in Israel, or so our tour guide informed us. On the day in question in 2009, we stood facing the Mediterranean Sea, as clear a body of water as I've ever seen. It was here, in Caesarea, that Pontius Pilate had his headquarters while governor of the Roman province of...

The face you are looking at belongs to a male red ear slider. The red ear slider is a water turtle native to North America. It is probably the most prevalent water turtle in Southeast Missouri. It can be found almost anywhere there is water -- rivers, streams, lakes, swamps and farm ponds...