retirement community in Lynchburg is trying to entice seniors to move to its location by offering warm surroundings, spacious apartments and a carefree lifestyle. Its advertisement’s headline in a senior newspaper says “are you prepared for soaring fuel prices this winter?  Are you spending too much time worrying about high fuel bills?  Leave your worries behind…come live with us.”

The glee was palpable.
Bloggers and armchair-commentators were having a field day on Monday after Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin confirmed that her unmarried teenager daughter was having a baby.
In often not-so-polite terms, many pointed out the irony that a woman who favors abstinence-only education in schools rather than pregnancy prevention/sex ed would have a family member who didn’t delay sex until marriage.

He was 102-years-old and wanted me to baptize him. Health troubles prohibited immersion, but that did not rule out baptism. I planned to sprinkle a small amount of water on his head, hoping that John the Baptist was not looking. Yet, before baptism, I wanted to talk to him about God. I wanted to know his story.

Hello my fellow Appalachian residents. Guess what? An article carried in the Bristol Herald-Courier, the daily sister paper of the Smyth County News & Messenger, on Aug. 27 contained a report released by the government. It seems there is wonderful news from our distinguished United States Census Bureau. At least, the agency seemed to think so. According to the recent release (reported by the Associated Press), median incomes are up in Appalachian. Of course, with the exception of Virginia, Maryland and New York (yes, a very tiny bit of New York lies in Appalachia), the median income is far below the national average, which is just over $50,000. Appalachia’s median income hovers around $39,000.

On Aug. 13 and 14, two walkers passed through Smyth County as part of a state-spanning stroll from the western tip of Virginia to the coast that is raising money for Hope Tree Family Services.
In September, local people will have an opportunity to walk for the organization but get back home in time for supper.

There are certain vegetables that I hate.  Asparagus is one of them.  While I have never eaten one raw, it is an especially foul-smelling vegetable when cooked.

For my money, the best part of the wedding had to be the blessing.
OK, so it probably wasn’t the highlight of anyone’s day, but it was pretty good. Though I didn’t quite make the promised, or was it threatened 45 minutes, I went well passed where “God is great …” would have carried me. I even managed a shout out to my late grandfather (the preacher, not the card-playing, moonshine making lumberjack for those keeping score) who ended every blessing of a meal for the food to be used for the nourishment of our bodies.

Editor’s note: This is the first of two installments detailing the author’s recent excursion into the prickly pretty Pacific Northwest.

For the past two weeks, 600 of America’s top athletes have been competing in the 24th Olympiad half a world away in Beijing, China.

“What kind of people steal from a church?” Last week, after someone took a pallet of shingles from the church parking lot, I heard that question at least a dozen times. “What kind of people steal from a church?” The question assumes there is a particular kind of person who specializes in ecclesiastic crime.