Opinion

GUEST COLUMNIST The bloodshed was everywhere. It was all over my house, my parent’s house, my neighbors’ houses and splattered at any location in which anyone dared to pet my 9-week-old bundle of joy, Thurber the yellow Labrador.

GUEST COLUMNIST So, Dan – what are you doing tonight? After 40-plus years, I can still hear one of my best friends from college asking that dreaded question. No matter how many homework assignments, romantic entanglements and writing deadlines occupied my plate, Jack would invariably cajole me into some series of nerdy antics.

She was such a beautiful tri colored basset hound, was so good with children and always liked to be petted. She would lay at your feet for hours if you continued to rub on her with your feet. We would give her a bath and put perfume on her and sometimes my wife would even tie a little ribbon on her head. That dog had just one bad habit and that was when you let her outdoors she would always try and find something stinky to roll in. If you took her to the chicken pen it was a disaster or around the cows in the pasture. We would make her ride in the back of the pickup and give her a bath when we arrived back home. She did not seem to mind the baths but as soon as she got outside she was looking for something else to roll in again. She never stopped trying to find something to roll in. That rolling dog reminds me of something in the Bible. There are people that just will not depart from sin. It may cause them and others a lot of heartache and trouble and it may last a lifetime but they will not quit or change, (Romans 3:23, Galatians 5:17-25, James 1:14&15,1 John 3:3&4). We can get help by and through Jesus Christ, (John 10:10, Romans 6:16-22 & 7:14-25) See you in Church next Sunday. Brother J

Luke 5:37-39 : “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved.

GARDENER’S MAILBAG Dear Neil: My magnolia tree took a real beating in this past summer’s hot weather. I watered it every other day.

When I was five years old and my father worked for a subdivision developer, the Tyree family was giddily comparing floorplans for constructing a new house on a wooded lot next to our crowded domicile.

When America went to sleep on the night of Aug. 23 following the Republican presidential candidates’ debate, the Real Clear Politics polling averages put former president Donald Trump at 55 percent, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 14 and the rest of the field between less than one percent to seven percent.

Luke 6:41 (NIV) “Why do you notice the little piece of dust that is in your brother’s eye, but you don’t see the big piece of wood that is in your own eye?” This scripture verse is one of the most studied and preached in all Christian churches. It drives home the lesson of hypocrisy.

I heard a story about a far west Texas ranch that consisted of over 38,000 acres and it only had one water well on the whole place. That 2,000 feet deep well was on top of a flat top mountain, and it had a pumpjack on it to pump water. The ranch hands listened for the motor that ran the pumpjack. If it stopped, they were on their way to fix it.

Psalm 119:18 (NIV) “Open my eyes to see the wonderful things in your teachings.” This beautiful verse in Psalm 119 seems to be fairly straightforward. It suggests that we should open our eyes to read about the teachings we find in the Bible.