This is the little country church I attend – Goshen Baptist. On Sunday we are going to celebrate our 200th year. To give a little perspective on how long that is, when Goshen first began meeting, the members couldn’t sing the national anthem because the “Star-Spangled Banner” had not yet been written. They couldn’t claim to live in Anderson County …
When the Truth No Longer Matters
This is my beautiful mother at the age she thinks she is now. Or sometimes she thinks she’s younger than this, still a child going to school or one who lives in her parents’ house. She constantly wants to go home because they will be worried about her. Oh, to be able to go home to where confusion didn’t muddle …
Butterfly Season
The butterfly’s attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry: deeper motives contribute to it. We would not think them so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the perturbing mystery of metamorphosis: the latter assumes in our eyes …
If I Knew Then What I Want to Know Now
My aunt, grandfather, mother, father, and sisters. I was taking the picture. Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family. ~Anthony Brandt Today is my grandfather’s birth date. If I’ve done the math right, John Lewis Houchin was born in 1871 on September 23. Around that year anyway. He was one of four sons. I …
The Lighthouse – A 7 Minute Gift
Darrell, Eugene, Ronnie Hinson, and David singing “The Lighthouse” One of the most beloved songs in Southern Gospel music is “The Lighthouse.” Ronnie Hinson wrote it when he was just a teenager. He and his brothers and sisters were singing in church out of hymnals when he had the chance to hear the Speer family, a well known gospel singing …
Birthday Newsletter and Giveaway
“There is still no cure for the common birthday.” ~John Glenn Birthdays! That’s something you have to have once a year as regular as clockwork. And the clocks seem to work faster the older I get. My sister sent me a birthday card with the picture of a dog with his ears and fur all blowing back like a race …
Blue Skies and Clouds
If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things in nature have a message you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive. ~ Eleanora Duse “Not a cloud in the sky.” You’ve heard people say that, I’m sure. …
A Week of Songs
That’s a big gift when people say to you that a song helped them or brought them to some place in their life where they needed to be. ~ Lenny Kavitz The National Quartet Convention is in Louisville this week. The Patriot Quartet, the group my husband sings bass with, will be singing on a showcase Monday afternoon, …
The Honks Keep Coming In
A double dose of hope What expresses hope for the future better than a rainbow? And two rainbows are even better. Hope can be amazing, and perhaps it was that message of hope about my little great-niece on my Facebook page that has so touched people. The honks are still coming in. If you didn’t see my earlier post on …
Celebrating Work
Work is no disgrace; the disgrace is idleness. ~ Greek proverb Labor Day weekend – the last hurrah of summer. In some places it’s when school starts although here in our community, school has been starting earlier and earlier, and now the kids have usually been in school several weeks by the time Labor Day comes around. Labor Day was originally conceived as a …