Feature Columnists

Conflict is inevitable. The best of friends can disagree. You can measure the impact of conflict on a scale ranging from the least impactful to the dissolution of relationships. The least impactful conflicts can center on divides on sports teams, the best vacation spots, which make of truck is the...

I recently had the privilege of viewing a beautiful piece of art by a young artist that helped me more deeply understand God's care for each of us. In the piece, the artist had drawn a self-portrait; from off the page, there was a speech bubble with an unseen person asking if she was OK, and from...

Who knew a baby catfish could be so cute! The one to the left is being shy. The one to the right is being inquisitive. I wonder what the one in the middle might be saying if it could talk. These fish are fingerling channel catfish. They are about 6 inches long. Channel catfish are raised in ponds...

I find myself thinking back quite often on the way things used to be. No doubt this is partially a function of age. I am Social Security eligible but not yet Medicare eligible and with that information, the reader can discern this writer's age is somewhere between 62 and 65...

"S N I F F, S N I F F." I felt myself inhale with a purpose. What was that lovely fragrance in the air? I took another whiff, slowly this time, but with a mission. I still could not name the scent. Then I heard sounds of music in the distance -- and marching footsteps keeping time rhythmically. ...

A man went into the woods with his chainsaw and cut down a tree. He took away the tree to make firewood or maybe sold the tree trunk as a log to be made into furniture. But he left the part of the tree that is now called a stump. In this case the stump has become a dining table for a squirrel. ...

My wife and I recently took a trip where we ascended 178 stairs to the gallery of a 148-foot-tall lighthouse. Once we caught our breath, the view took it. We could see for miles. The height gave us a bigger perspective of everything around us. Possessing a big view of God has a similar effect...

When Jesus calls the first disciples in John 1:35-51 (NAB), there is all this business of seeing. References to sight -- the words or some variation of the words "watched," "see" and "looking" -- are listed 12 times throughout these 16 verses. In one way of reading it, it is a story about the...

Let this be another reminder to not be out in the woods during a storm. Last Saturday, Sept. 4, a series of thunderstorms crossed over Southeast Missouri delivering heavy rain and strong wind gusts to some areas. The dead limb you see in my photo fell from the sprawling soft maple in the near...

On the first Monday in September, you may be looking forward to one last fling. That's because Labor Day is arriving, then. What does it mean to most folks? Do we meditate on the true reason we celebrate Labor Day, or does it have another meaning for us?...

This column is written the day after the Cape Girardeau Public Schools Board of Education decided to re-implement a mask mandate after daily student attendance dropped below 90% in most of the district's schools. According to a story by my newsroom colleague Monica Obradovic, 306 of the CGPS' 4,475...

Is this a flower? Is this a cookie? Could this be a special kind of pancake with white icing? It might look like I went diving into the depths of the ocean to find some strange electric coral, but I didn't. I stayed right here in Southeast Missouri...

I am thinking about hiring someone to mow my yard. The idea grates on me and wounds my masculine pride. The yard seems to mocks me, "If you were a real man, I wouldn't look like this." It's my yard! I should be able to whip it into submission. I thought about my grass dilemma after reading Psalm...

Part of the beauty of creating is having the intent and desire to share whatever is created, to let love, joy and gift overflow into the lives of others, to bless them. This is a good and beautiful desire, and, I have experienced, a fulfilling and joyful way to live. ...

This is an eastern rat snake. A large adult one can reach about 7 feet long. This one is close to 4 feet long. The eastern rat snake is a skinny snake that can get into holes where rats go. Rats and mice are a major component of its diet. Have you found the egg yet? It's inside the snake about...

I was in Jefferson City the morning of Aug. 10 to attend the celebration in recognition of the founding of Missouri in 1821 as the 24th state to join the United States of America. alking the grounds around the State Capitol, I noticed this tree growing next to a sidewalk. It is a native sweet-gum...

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful." What a wonderful and empowering passage from Christian Scripture! As I read those words from Timothy 4:7, recently. I felt a warm wave of wonder and awe. I also felt sadness, mixed with admiration. ...

Honestly, I don't know the answer to the question. Be careful of anyone who claims insight into the mind of the second person of the Christian Trinity. This is one of those seemingly inescapable "What Would Jesus Do" queries. Let's drill it down. They didn't have vaccines in first-century...

My children have been asking me questions about the next school year. Questions such as, "What is going to happen?"; "What might happen?"; and "What the worst-case scenario could be?" The everyday stress from the start of a new school year is amplified. ...

Father Bill Kottenstette always told us to think of the person in the world who loves us best -- we could know from their visible love for us that God loves us at least that much and more and more perfectly, because God is God. The same, he said, is true for the person in the world we love best --...

You gotta love the country life. It's not as boring as some might say. Even brush hogging has the potential to make an interesting memory. Every summer I do some brush hogging around my small property to keep the place looking halfway respectable. Because a doe whitetail deer hangs around and...

The fern I have photographed here is called a bracken. Bracken is an alternative word for the word fern. The bracken has a particular leaf configuration dissimilar to other ferns. That being said, there are many different kinds of brackens spread worldwide...

One bird chased another as they scrambled toward the feeder. Their scrumptious entrees were laid out, neatly, within easy reach of the perches. The birds took a few bites, then flew away, only to return for more, later. They were only worried about the now -- not what tomorrow held. Robins, blue...

It was more than 27 years ago when a United Methodist bishop sent me to serve a church in south St. Louis. The small congregation, full of senior citizens, was wonderful to us -- and several folks became surrogate grandparents to both our children, born during my tenure there...

This cluster of mushrooms was growing at the base of a rotting tree stump. A good place to look for mushrooms is in the woods on rotting logs, stumps and dead limbs. Commonly called feltscale inky caps, these native mushrooms are evident in June and July in the eastern United States. Although a...

The king of Psalm 72 prays for success, wealth, and influence. He asks for a vast dominion (vs. 8). That people around the world would submit to him (vs. 9, 11), and he would be brought gifts of gold (vs. 15), and nations would call him blessed (vs. 17). The king is asking for a life of influence,...

Brueghel paintings are marvelous. Have you seen one? In many of them, there are a multitude of individual people portrayed as they live their daily lives, and each person has a story -- one might be slaughtering a hog and two might be gossiping next to him as children ice skate nearby and at least...

Do you know what you think about all day, and how much those thoughts impact your being? Little do we know how important it is to mentally keep track of what's going on inside our heads? Studies have shown that the direction in which our thoughts lead us often determines the condition of our...

Something a person should learn in writing for a newspaper is to make sure a pronoun clearly refers to its correct antecedent. Case in point: I recently saw a large welcome sign at the Indiana-Ohio border. The placard carried the emblem of the Buckeye State plus the following declarative sentence...

Summertime is the time to look for wild blackberries. Starting in mid-July and extending for about a month, native wild blackberries ripen in Southeast Missouri. Wild blackberries are borne on long, thorny, woody stems. When ripe, these blackberries are sweet and edible...

Many of us feel plagued with a sense of overwhelm and dread. The future is uncertain. Decisions you confidently made are now having some unintended consequences of devastating effects. Perhaps you can echo the words of the psalmist in Psalm 69:1, "I feel as if I am about to drown." The psalmist who...

Recently, the words of Exodus 2:23-25 (NAB) caught my eye and heart. "A long time passed," these verses state, "during which the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their bondage and cried out, and from their bondage their cry for help went up to God. God heard their moaning and God...

The oak leaf hydrangea is a native flower that grows in the southeast quadrant of the United States. It is an unusual wildflower in that it is quite large in many ways. The clusters of white flowers can grow to 18 inches long or longer. The leaves look like the leaves of a red oak tree, except that...

Last weekend, amid the sound of nearby fireworks, I talked to a friend in a Cape Girardeau coffee shop who began discussing Marie Curie, the renowned Polish-French scientist, who died on America's Independence Day, July 4, 1934. I suppose Curie's death date is the reason the discoverer of two...

Are you wondering if it's time to downsize and live on a smaller scale? It seems as if the subject of downsizing has been an issue recently with many people. They are attempting to decide if they should scale down their lives, or continue as they are, presently. Although the decision may seem like...

The brown eyed susan and the red legged buprestis by their names do not make you think of yellow. But when the insect and flower are combined in a photo, yellow rules the day. The red legged buprestis is a wood-boring insect native to Eastern U.SA. It is a member of the jewel beetles. It is known...

My Grandad grew up on a tobacco farm in western Kentucky. He spent his boyhood days planting, harvesting, drying and smoking tobacco. Shortly after he and my Granny were married, he shipped off to Germany to fight for the cause of freedom. The story handed down is a cease-fire was declared while...

I love the verses in Scripture that speak about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in John 11:1-44. What I am specifically drawn to about this story is Jesus' intensely personal relationship with each sister and the way he knows and comforts each of them in their grief. I love each sister's honest...

I spotted two small insects battling on a rock. At first the gray insect was dragging the red ant. They moved very fast as I snapped several out-of-focus photos with my cellphone. Soon I identified the gray insect as a predatory tiger beetle. Ants are fierce predators, too. I didn't know which one...