Sunday, May 11, is Mother’s Day, the annual day to honor and celebrate mothers in the United States. According to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia (http://www.wikipedia.en), Howe, after seeing the carnage and destruction of the Civil War, became a pacifist. I found this rather strange from a woman who wrote “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Nevertheless, she apparently did and wrote the poem the “Mother’s Day Proclamation” as a call for a Mother’s Day for Peace to be established in the United States.

He was a kind, stately man who carried a dark secret. One would never suspect it. He appeared at ease with himself and others. However, the secret would occasionally reveal itself in the place where for the sincere, few secrets can hide, the church. I would never have seen the secret except one Sunday I peeked.

Cosby Mae Anderson declares that there’s nothing she would change about her life. Faith in God and her family’s love, she says, supplied grace sufficient for a happy existence.

Balancing family life, work and nursing studies has been a challenge.

Thanks a lot scientists of the year 2006.
Before you rode in on Rocinante, penning some new definition of the word “planet,” life was easy. Back then there were nine planets. Even if we didn’t exactly, precisely and for sure and certain know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what we all meant when we said planet, we knew there were nine of them. Now we aren’t so sure. Worse, we don’t know what to say when our 6-year-old sons ask if there are eight planets in the solar system.

My friend Susan told me about the National Geographic Genographic Project, an effort to track human migration patterns over a long period of time.  I thought that participating in the project would help me in my own efforts to understand my relationship with my mother, so I swabbed my mouth for a sample of mitochondrial DNA.

Older senior citizens remember waking to find their mothers stoking the kitchen wood stove in preparation for making homemade baking powder biscuits for breakfast.

Every week, I go to the Dunk ‘N Deli and buy six plain cake donuts.  I bring them home, package them individually in plastic baggies, and have one each morning with my coffee.  This is my morning ritual.

Again this week, it is my pleasure to call to attention the amazing amount of local artistic talent the young people of the Wytheville area possess.  On April 27, I was very happy to attend the final performance of the Wythe One Voice at the Wytheville Baptist Church.  Wythe One Voice is a collective choir consisting of a group of young people from several different churches in the area who come together annually to perform a praise and worship concert for the public, expressing their unified devotion to God.  The idea of this collaboration was the brainchild of Jennifer Mullins, wife of Wytheville Baptist Church Pastor Rusty Mullins who formed the group in May 2005.  As a result, a wonderful ministry led by some of Wytheville’s finest and most talented youth and young adult Christians was formed.

Ratchet Arnold broke the morning silence at the barn.
“Pope Benedict is coming,” he said.