Opinion

Seems like summer is just starting to really heat up in Texas, yet it is almost time for children to go back to school. Soon motorists will be sharing the roads with school buses, children walking or on bicycles, and lots of new teen drivers taking their first car to school.

Three weeks after a Texas prison began housing illegal aliens charged with state crimes, the first “confinees” have already served their time. What U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) does with them will determine whether Gov. Greg Abbott’s stepped-up law enforcement program is an effective deterrent, or just another version of catch and release.

My Lab puppy, Thurber, makes me laugh out loud every day. The writing life requires you to sit still for long periods of time, but those days are long gone.

Dear Neil: My lantana is on my patio with a western exposure. It is blooming, and has vigorous new growth, but it has these spots on many of its mature leaves. Is this a fungus? Could I have over-watered it? What can I do to make it look better? I try to use non-toxic materials whenever possible.

For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. Romans 12:4-5 (NIV)

It’s hard to believe that summer is over and the children are headed back to school. Is your student heading back to school soon? Check out these top tips for keeping your student healthy during the hectic back-toschool season.

While warning Americans about rising COVID infections, the Biden administration continues to move sick migrants into the U.S. The incoherence is breathtaking, even for some members of the President’s own party.

Could invoking the Golden Rule be enough to induce vaccine-skeptical people of faith to finally get their COVID-19 jab? According to some new polling data, that may well be the case. A recent poll of 5,123 adults by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Interfaith Youth Core found that nearly four in 10 vaccine-hesitant Americans who attend religious services at least a few times a year said that one or more faith-based approaches would make them more likely to get vaccinated.

Dear Neil: We have bare spots beneath our live oaks. We put new St. Augustine sod in eight years ago and it has gradually disappeared. I understand it’s the competition from the live oaks’ roots plus the lack of sunlight. Thoughts?

“I spread out my hands to you; I thirst for you like a parched land.” Psalms 143:6 (NIV) I often feel that we, as Christians in the U.S., have it too good. Most of us, even during the worst of times, don’t face the same hardships as people living in many other parts of the world.