The bottle on my desk is blue and white with bold red print. It contains 8 oz. of a mysterious liquid, the ingredients of which I can hardly pronounce much less reprint here. I have never seen a product label exactly like this one. It reads “Wash Away Your Sins Hand Cleanser.”

When the minister arrived at the nursing home, he found his parishioner sitting alone in her room. “I am worried sick,” the 95-year-old woman explained. Trying to pinpoint the source of her anxiety, her minister began to question the woman.

“He’s got the whole world in his hands…” Laurie London first recorded this popular spiritual in 1958; it eventually went all the way to # 1. Simple lyrics coupled with a melodious tune have sustained the music’s popularity through the years. Most of us find it comforting to think that the world and our very lives do not simply spin unfettered in space, but rest firmly in the grasp of the almighty. However, I wonder what the song sounds like in Cantonese. I wonder if they have ever sung it in China. If so, do they still?

I was born in Bristol, Tenn., and spent most of my youth in the Appalachian Mountains of Southwest Virginia and Western North Carolina. I also lived in several places in the Deep South growing up and, after college, spent five years with my Wytheville-born wife in New York City.

There is a new church in Wales. Founded by two cousins, Barney and Michael Jones, it is the Church of Jediism. 

The music event was a way of bringing community together, said Kari Kovick, concert organizer and performer.

The Farm Tour, now in its 4th year, grows in attendance each year.

Parrotheads will recognize Peter Mayer’s name from his nearly 20 years with Jimmy Buffett on lead guitar. Others may know he has stepped out to form his own band, The Peter Mayer Group. Both audiences and anyone who appreciates virtuoso musicianship will want to know Mayer will be in Marion tomorrow, performing at The Lincoln Theater on Sunday, May 18, at 3 p.m.

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

We live in paradise. I noticed it on May Day, songbirds and creekbirds flitting through my little woods, butterflies floating over the flowers, fat bumblebees bumping clumsily into each other through the blooming bushes.