September 2, 2026
Opinion
Walking by Faith
Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night stumbling around in the dark just to find your way to your kitchen for a drink of water? You know the design of your home; you know the exact layout and furniture arrangement yet in the darkness of the night it all seems so strange and discombobulating. This is exactly what can happen in our daily walk with Christ as well. When life is full of light, open doors and new opportunities it is easy to walk in faith, talk with God, spend time in the Word and encourage others; however, when that veil of darkness comes, we seem to lose our sight. We forget that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever more” as written in Hebrews 13:8.
College is worth it
As a new academic year begins on college campuses across the country, students and families are considering one of the most important investments they will ever make: a college education. And many are asking an important question: Is it worth it? That question arises amid a national narrative that increasingly portrays higher education as too expensive, out of reach and no longer worth the investment. Those concerns deserve to be taken seriously. But when that narrative is fueled by incomplete comparisons, inaccurate information or broad claims that simply do not match the facts, it does a disservice to the students and families trying to make informed decisions about their futures.
Our shrinking summer vacations
People of a certain age enjoy telling our younger friends how things were so much better when we were kids. Of course, they always have a snappy comeback or two. “Oh yeah, life was good before seat belts, right? Y’all must have really enjoyed breathing all that polluted air. I’ll bet it was fun watching 3 black and white TV channels.”
The WNBA: Giving Prison Basketball a Bad Name
Capitalizing on the WNBA’s inability (or unwillingness) to define what a woman is, several ex-NBA players have declared for the WNBA draft. I like that; it takes balls. Could men in the WNBA be the final frontier of diversity, equity and inclusion? In a development that has left the nation’s most progressive sports fans clutching their participation trophies and muttering about “lived experience,” several male athletes have declared their intention to enter the WNBA draft. The reaction has been everything one would expect from a culture that spent a decade insisting biology is a social construct—until biology started dunking in the paint. The logic, we are told, is airtight. And if a man identifies as a woman, or merely feels that the women’s league offers a more welcoming competitive environment, who are we to stand in the way of his dreams? After all, the WNBA has long been marketed as a sanctuary of empowerment.
A Century of Stories
What can 100 years teach us about living well? Tennessee’s centenarians have plenty of answers: work hard, stay active, love your family, serve others, keep your faith and eat your vegetables.
Brain can’t think
Isat down with my computer and a cup of coffee to write this week’s article, but before I started, I asked my four-year old what Mama’s “topic” should be. Of course I was only teasing, but I did want to see what God may place on his little heart. He pondered and pondered, asked me questions and even tried to divert my question to his older sister but eventually he said “Mama, my brain can’t think.”
Looking back on change
What comes to mind when you hear the word change? A zillion things come to my head mind when I hear the word CHANGE! It is one of my favorite words, and I think of it as an acronym as it can be used in so many situations. As an acronym, it can apply to many situations such as “Citizens having a new growth experience” or “Children having a new growth experience” or even “Communities having a new growth experience”.
The great American political circus
Ladies, gentlemen, and the increasingly large number of people who identify as “exhausted,” welcome to the Greatest Show on Earth: The United States of America, where the political process has evolved from a system of checks and balances into a high-stakes reality show that determines which party controls our nuclear weapons. Democrats now must bow to the DSA, which is the rising communist wing of the party. And communism is like veganism: Both are fine unless you like food. American politics has reached a level of sophistication previously reserved for middleschool cafeteria arguments and Twitter (sorry, X) quote-tweets. The two major parties, those ancient and venerable institutions, have long since abandoned the quaint notion of governing in favor of a perpetual performative theater of the absurd.