A Good Mama is Hard to Lose
Shelby Jean Mayes Spears, 75, died after a brief bout of cancer at her son’s home in Auburn, WA. on December 26, 2012. Born on January 23, 1937, to John Harve Mayes and Ruth Matilda Shropshire Mayes of...
View ArticlePraying for Bob
We were supposed to have coffee this morning, me and Bob. We planned it before I left Oregon. He’d sent me a note when he heard I was going to be in Navarre. I might never have known about Navarre,...
View ArticleAn Encounter Beyond the Grave
But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. Matt. 6: 20 The graveyard at Christian Bend First Baptist Church was...
View ArticleJournalism vs. Fiction
So you may have heard by now that I have a novel coming out in September. It’s my sixth book and my first work of fiction. I’d be lying if I said I’m not nervous about it. You’d be scared, too, if you...
View ArticleThe Gordon of Crossville, TN
My buddy Gordon took this photo on April 16, 2007. I know the date because we had just crossed over the Holston River in Gordon’s red truck when the DJ on the country radio station stopped the music...
View ArticleMothers & Mental Illness
My childhood girlfriend was institutionalized following the birth of her first-born. Here she was, ten years later, in the third-trimester of her second pregnancy, talking out of her head again. We...
View ArticleThe Sound of Sameness
Editor’s Note: Rebekah Sanderlin is a journalist, a military wife and a dear friend. She is also a native of Tennessee. As you can tell, we share a lot in common. In the following essay, Rebekah talks...
View ArticleA Soldier’s Funeral
The funeral service was held Wednesday morning, August 3, 1966, at McCloud Baptist Church. Mama was up at daybreak. I don’t think she’d slept at all the night before. I could hear her trying to...
View ArticleThe Problem with Evil
I have been intentionally silent. Instead of blogging, I have spent time listening to the ramblings of Elliot Rodger. I watched the news reports of Richard Martinez grieving for his beautiful son,...
View ArticleThe Holiness of a Place
Can you see the holiness of a place beyond the “No Trespass” sign? That moment when you knew the things unknown even to the “Video Surveillance”? Bowed your heart in silent...
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