Feature Columnists

How was your day at work, today? Was it a good day in your estimation, or did it seem like the same old thing as yesterday? Did you sit and look at the clock, counting the hours until it was time to leave? Those are view-points most of us take, many times, whether we're taking about work or...

This writer is generally loathe to comment on the experiences of celebrities who go public with their stories of faith. In the 15 years penning this column for the Southeast Missourian, my memory is only once has an entertainer's faith postulations made it into this space...

A ray of morning sunlight glanced off a tree limb and reached toward me as I held the camera at just the right angle. Autumn is a beautiful time to embrace the woods. The colors of the leaves can give a hint to what kind of autumn tree you might be looking at. ...

Psalm 9:1 says, "I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds." This psalm gives us three essentials when it comes to giving thanks. First, giving thanks is critical. No doubt you could easily create a "not-thankful for" list. What we need...

My favorite Coldplay album "A Head Full of Dreams" ends with the song "Up&Up." It is a song of hope and imagination amidst a world that can sometimes be filled with drudgery and despair, a song about continuing even when it seems hard and all efforts could potentially come to nothing, a song about...

A frost flower is not truly frost nor is it a flower. The ribbons of ice form from sap slowly freezing as it oozes from a living plant during a period of freezing temperatures. The night of Nov. 6 was calm. A cold front brought light rain a day earlier making everything wet. Nighttime temperatures...

There's nothing quite like a large construction dumpster to focus the mind. We've been talking about getting rid of our clutter for some time, and last month, my wife acted on it by ordering the big green monstrosity to be placed into our driveway. In nearly 40 years of marriage, we've accumulated...

Of what does your life consist, besides purely, the psychical side of it? One can go deeply into the mechanics of it if he chooses, but that isn't my purpose. My goal is to think about the role we have, and do not have, in the shaping of our existence...

My Granddad served during the end of World War II. He left the Kentucky farm and his new bride to serve in the U.S. Army. The unit he was a part of was shipped to Germany as the war ended. Like so many others in the years since, he sacrificed greatly in serving the United States of America...

I have been thinking lately of the connection between comparison and coveting. To covet, Oxford Languages tells us, is to "yearn to possess or have (something)." When we compare our self, ability or life to someone else's life and come up short, so often that leads us to want what they have, which...

Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes crossed Southeast Missouri the evening and night of Oct. 24. The next morning was windy and cool with temperatures in the upper 40s. While walking on this morning, I was surprised to see a big bullfrog sitting out in the open on a pond levee...

Attendance at various governmental meetings is part of my work for this newspaper. All such gatherings begin with a pledge to the U.S. flag. Alumni of the American educational system will note every class day begins with recitation of the pledge -- a vow of national commitment which does not trace...

Are you bored with your life, need to get away, start anew, or, don't know what you want? Almost everyone has felt this way at one time or another. Thinking those thoughts isn't a bad thing, but what we do with them can be. We can act irrationally and make mistakes that may impact our world for...

October is the month of fear. Scary movies, haunted houses, ghosts, goblins and zombies. The scariest thing about October, though, is not the 5-year-old dressed up as the Wicked Witch of the West but that there are at this time of writing fewer than 75 days left in 2021. The shortness of days makes...

I recently discovered the song "Airplane" by The National Parks, and it has been a gift. It's simple and marvelous, and you should look it up when you finish reading this. Here's what it says: "I've been a farmer where nothing grows. Like a sailor when no wind blows. ...

This plump bright green worm is one of the stages in the life of a Polyphemus moth. It's a native North American moth that has a wingspan wider than the Luna moth. I took this photo in the waning days of September. The worm is about 3 inches long and shaped similar to a nice big pecan. ...

"He's going to have to figure it out on his own," Lynn said, angrily. She was so distraught at Web's behavior and lack of motivation that she was ready to give up. It seemed that nothing she tried worked with him. He, merely wanted to stay around home and hang out with friends, doing nothing to...

Sometimes it has fallen to me during a previous 25-year incarnation as a local church pastor to assign adjectives to the dead at their funerals. Families are vital in coming up with descriptive words at the time of transition, especially in those cases when the officiant is unfamiliar with the...

This photo (taken by my daughter) is of an American native praying mantis. Its scientific name is stagmomantis. That name is easy to say if broken into three syllables -- stag-mo-mantis. There are several kinds of mantises native to North America. A few widely distributed invasive mantises come...

I took our van to the shop to have the tires rotated and the alignment checked. Tested and repaired, the van was back on the road. But, unfortunately, a few weeks went by, and the van was out of alignment again. After incorrectly thinking and foolishly asking if she had run into a curb or a giant...

Let us take a minute to talk about onions. This is what Robert Farrar Capon does in his book "The Supper of the Lamb: A culinary reflection," spending 12 pages cutting open an onion to find his assumptions about what an onion is -- odorous, spherical, dry -- are false, based on assumptions. In...

The comedian Norm MacDonald died last month. He was younger than me at his passing. Cancer. The stand-up comic suffered for almost a decade and said nothing about his illness publicly before his death on Sept. 14 at age 61. Our paths never crossed, but because we live in a wired world, with dozens...

This is a yellow-bellied water snake. Southern Missouri swamplands are a good place to find this snake. It lives on small fish, frogs and crawdads. If you happen upon a yellow-bellied water snake, be sure it is what you think it is. It can look quite like a cottonmouth. The cottonmouth is venomous....

Do you often look at other people, and their lives seem so ordinary? You wonder what they do to fill their time because you are extremely busy -- doing important things, you think. You have an outside job, a family, and you feel valuable, like you're making a difference...

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...