Feature Columnists

I took this photo Jan. 5. It shows the green limbs and five buds at the ends of the limbs. Not many native North American trees will tell you during winter whether they will bloom come springtime. But the flowering dogwood will. If you have a dogwood tree in your yard, you can go now and see if it...

Peace is a coveted word. Just the meaning of the letters brings feelings of tranquility and calm. "Ah-h, "we say, "If I could merely have this feeling of serenity and safety, always; I would feel secure." Often we're only relaxed when we can find refuge in our home, and being with those we...

In a little over a week, the spring semester begins at Southeast Missouri State. It's a decided privilege once again to teach a subject close to my heart -- and since you are reading this column -- perhaps close to yours as well: New Testament Literature...

Something that struck me about Christmas this year is the truth of what we are celebrating. It is not a holiday only about the past; it is a holiday also about the future. It is a marking of our defiant hope as Christians despite the odds, and a statement of our trust in God, God's promises and...

I have a list of goals for 2019 that I did not reach. Now on the cusp of a new year raging with optimism, I will list out what I want to accomplish in 2020. No. 1: Practice self-control. Proverbs 25:28 reads, "A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls." Ancient...

Trees are resilient. Most of them grow relatively straight and tall under good conditions. But many trees struggle to overcome adversity of one kind or another. I do not know what caused the tree in my photo here to take on such an unusual form. Your guess is as good as mine. I have never seen a...

Thank you Cape Girardeau. This is probably the hardest column I have ever had to write because it will be my last. It is not about gardening, but it is about you, members of this community who have made my career in gardening so memorable and for the support of my family. In a sense you have...

It has been my privilege to teach a number of international undergraduates at Southeast Missouri State University the last eight years. I've had in my classes students from Latvia, South Korea, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, China and the Philippines. I'm appreciate of their efforts to speak and...

The Rev. Charles Stanley said, "Contentment isn't something that comes naturally: It is learned." I had never heard contentment explained in this way so I read on about the meaning of contentment. Stanley talks about contentment as if it were learned in a classroom environment and he asks, "What...

Winter is the season when the woods are most drab in Southeast Missouri. Of course there are still many colors out there, but most of them are not bright and cheery. I ventured out Dec. 22 looking for a cheerful picture. A few cedar trees had some good color, but seemed too common. I found some...

This is a depiction of how ice has formed on a pond during a windless night. This is new ice. The day before saw light rain with temperatures hovering above freezing. A cold front passed through the area during the evening hours as the rain came to an end. Calm water and slowly dropping...

Overexposure and familiarity to the story of Christmas can drown out its meaning. Familiarity in a marriage can dull the romance that began the relationship. Familiarity numbs us to the importance and the meaning of what we have become so accustomed to. ...

Sometimes, it hurts to hope. The suffering of waiting, of longing, of the "not yet" can seem futile and foolishly childish. It is easier to throw in the towel, to pretend like we never wanted it, anyway. But then, ushering us into winter, Advent comes. It reminds us: Even though it's getting dark...

I tend to find good TV shows when they're just about to end. My first "Game of Thrones" episode was the finale. My wife said I missed a lot, and she got weary of explaining every plot nuance to me. Dejà vu. It seems I found the Amazon Prime series "The Man in the High Castle" at the end of its...

Have you begun to plan for Christmas -- or do you allow things to take their course? Many people go all out with decorating, buying and wrapping presents, having large groups of people over and all kinds of other festivities. As long as my mother was physically able, she would excitedly put up a...

There is a time in early winter or late autumn when something unusual happens in the Missouri outdoors. Cooler nights cause most weedy plants to slow the movement of sap upward and they die. But some perennial plants maintain a living root system and sap in the lower stem lies waiting for the first...

In a movie theater, I like to stay until the very end of the credits. I can't jump up from a film and immediately enter back into normal life when I have been deeply affected by a piece of art I've given two hours of my life to; I need the transition time to usher me back into the space around me...

Black Friday. Over. Cyber Monday. Come and gone. We are now in the middle of the Christmas shopping frenzy. By the time this column is published, there will only be about 14 shopping days until Christmas. Or, for some, 13 days before Christmas shopping begins. Gift-giving, though, is more than...

This plant is native to North America. It is a common woodland bush that goes unnoticed most of the year. Growing to only about four feet, this is a short rather spindly understory bush. Indian currant, buck-bush and coralberry are common names for this plant. It is valuable as browse for animals...

"Christmas lights, Christmas lights, everywhere you go. Up and down and all around, in ice and rain -- and sleet and snow. Why lights, someone asks, always at Christmas season? I can answer, not a task, Jesus is the reason." My thoughts first fell on the subject of lights when I read about the...

Bill McClellan is a literary hero for me -- a description which no doubt would make the longtime St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist blanch. He would hate, one would imagine, being an object of admiration to anyone. McClellan describes himself as an old-fashioned "ink-stained wretch" in an world made...

Well, I suppose we can call a pumpkin a pumpkin even if it is really a squash. Some relatives of the squash include zucchini, ornamental gourds, scallop, butternut squash and pumpkins. The name pumpkin comes from the Greek word "pepon" which means "large melon." The French changed pepon to pompon,...

Brrrr!!!!! It's cold outside, or at least it seems that way to me. My wife tells me I am a "Wooooooos" when it comes to cold. I really don't like cold weather. I was thinking about cold weather the other day when I was looking at some landscape plants that not native to Southeast Missouri but...

I love the anticipation of and celebrating Thanksgiving. I am excited to gather with my family and friends. I even enjoy some of the Black Friday sales and laughing at the Thanksgiving guilt trip memes. Each year for Thanksgiving I take time to reflect on thankfulness from one of the many Psalms...

The other day, our dog was hit by a car. A woman who had driven by after came to our door and told us. I didn't know what I would do when I got to the road, but when I got there, she was already carrying him off of the road for us. It was a gesture of kindness, love and compassion that meant deeply...

Peaking your cellphone inside a hollow tree this time of year and taking a picture might reveal a surprise. Just be sure not to accidentally drop your cellphone inside the tree. Squirrels are notorious for hoarding nuts during autumn. Sometimes they will pick hickory nuts and/or acorns off the...

How do you plan to spend the holiday of Thanksgiving? Is the planning of a large dinner and serving it to those you love, high on your list? Fellowship, mouth-watering food to tickle you pallet and getting together with loved ones is certainly a worthy goal. ...

It's been nearly two years that word first came that my first cousin, Brian, had been found dead in a Chicago hotel room. Brian, 15 years my junior, had been a substance abuser for a long time, since a catastrophic knee injury suffered in Air Force basic military training got him hooked on pain...

This is the North American beaver. It is the biggest native rodent on the continent. Rats, mice, squirrels and muskrats are its cousins. Like these other rodents, beavers are vegetarians. That means they eat plants. The North American beaver can grow to over 50 pounds. His tail is unusual. It is...

November is not generally thought of as a month to go mushroom hunting, but in Southeast Missouri there are still plenty to be found. Even during the cold winter months you may be able to brush away autumn leaves from against an old stump or log and find mushrooms growing there...

One of the most significant challenges to your Christian faith is not temptation, doing the right things in the right way at the right time, nor simply not knowing the answers to difficult questions. The greatest challenge to living out a Christina faith is fear...

In one way of reading it, the story of Zacchaeus the tax collector in Luke 19:1-10 seems to me to be a story of desire. It is a beautiful one. Here is a man living on the fringes of the society he belongs in; as a tax collector, he takes from his own people and because he is wealthy, probably takes...

Just before I started writing this column, I was outside. Ugh! It is overcast and cooling down. Rain is in the forecast. All of this weather information tells me winter is on its way. Brrrrrrr. Most gardeners are picking the last of the vegetables out of the garden before this coming freeze. They...

At first glance you might think this is a photo of cherries, but cherries don't ripen in autumn. What you see here are crabapples I photographed recently while it was raining. Why they are called crabapples is anybody's guess. Maybe the sour taste is why...

My husband and I congratulated ourselves on having all our windows washed for fall. To do this we had to raise all our window blinds, or take them down. I was stunned by what I recognized. My, that which was behind the shades was much prettier and eye-catching than our usual window coverings! I had...

The other day in my New Testament class at Southeast, we were talking about the kinds of people with whom Jesus of Nazareth associated. If you are known by the company you keep, the Galilean didn't seem to care what others thought of his choices. Yes, he hung out with the disreputable...

The other day, I had the opportunity to help build a deck for someone. I had never really built anything before and hadn't really ever used power tools, either; it wasn't until after I said I would help I realized maybe this knowledge and skill set would come in handy. But alas, I was there, and we...

The book of Joshua opens with some shocking news directly from the Lord. "Moses my servant is dead" (Joshua 1:2). The report is stunning to the reader, but for those who were living at the time, the news of Moses' demise is not new nor alarming. The people had just spent the previous 30 days...