Citizen Writers Fighting Censorship by Helping Americans Understand Issues Affecting the Republic.
Michael Knowles discusses reports that the Trump administration is drafting plans to subsidize stay-at-home parents. He calls it one of the best policies to come out of the administration.
We’ll call her April. But that’s not her name. She sent me a letter which arrived in my mailbox on April 1. Hence, the pseudonym.
“I am 15 and I just had a baby…” the letter began.
I paused to get my reading glasses.
This is a big trip for me and my sister. We are visiting Pikes Peak to see my dad. And it’s going to be big.
The first thing you should know about my sister Sarah and me is that we like people. It’s just who we are. She and I are both what you’d call extreme “people people.” My father was a people person. And we definitely got his genes.
Do you ever feel like your entire life hurts—like you are physically exhausted, emotionally drained, and completely trapped by circumstances? In our modern, high-pressure world, it is tragically easy to fall into dark depression, feeling isolated, out of touch with God, and deeply anxious about the future.
Columnist and musician, Sean Dietrich, aka Sean of the South, and his sister are setting out to climb Pikes Peak in honor of their father. The man became a runner overnight and frequently ran the Pikes Peak Marathon. His ashes are scattered atop this “fourteener,” as hikers call it, or mountain with an elevation over 14,000 feet. Sadly, the Dietrich patriarch died by his own hand when Sean was just 10. Sean writes eloquently and honestly about his struggles with with forgiving his father. We wish him and his sister a successful climb, good fellowship and peace and healing as they remember their father and his impact on their lives.
Our plane touched down in Albuquerque. No sooner had my feet hit the airport terminal floor than I knew immediately—call it gut intuition—that Albuquerque is definitely a city with two Qs.
This morning, I took a drive through rural Kansas. I pulled over on a dirt road and played a song on the same ground where my father took his own life. I thought I’d share it with you.
Over the years, I’ve written about Morgan many times, keeping notes on many of the conversations Morgan and I have had, so I’d never forget the things she told me.
Dearest Morgan,
It’s four in the morning. And I’m awake. Just sitting here. Thinking about you.
I haven’t slept since your last text. Your text about how doctors placed you under hospice care. Your text asking me to come say one last goodbye.
“It’s my birthday,” the email said, “and my dad forgot me…”
The young man writing to me just turned 14 years old. We’re going to call him Mark.
So the idea was: After eight weeks of rigorous marriage training, couples would receive an official certificate, trimmed in gold, with their names on it. And this certificate would prove to the world, without a doubt, that couples were spiritually, and emotionally prepared to take the multiple choice exam in the back of the book.
What if the duty to protect your family didn’t begin with the Second Amendment at all? The Armed Christian Creed argues that our responsibility to defend innocent life comes from God, while the Constitution simply recognizes and protects a pre-existing right to keep and bear arms. We worship God, not our arms. They are not symbols of aggression, but tools carried with discipline, humility, and the hope they are never needed. The firearm is not sacred. The life we may someday be called upon to protect is.
My dad was a runner. He started just before I was born. One day after work, they say he came home and decided it was time to quit smoking and start jogging. He stabbed out his smoldering cigarette and he tore off running, right then. He finished the cigarette later that evening.
It was our place. That’s what it was. I grew up in a little fishing village, nestled in the Florida Panhandle.
This was long before the tattoo parlors, before the T-shirt shops, before Whole Foods and Bass Pro.
This morning I walked into a drugstore in downtown Nashville and bought three sacks of blue raspberry Dum-Dums.
The cashier looked at me funny. She casually asked why I was buying so many blue raspberry suckers.
So I told her a story.
I had a dream last night. It was a vivid dream. I was in a perfect place. A realm of unspeakable beauty. It was the kind of dream where anything could happen. The kind of dream where anyone could show up.
Anyone, such as, for example, Will Rogers.
Columbus, Georgia. I was eating at a barbecue joint not far from the state line. My cousin, John, insisted that this joint serves the best barbecue in the state of Georgia. He made me promise to try it.
Another week has flown by, and who knows what’s really going on? Certainly not the media. Or if they do, they’re not saying. Don knows, though, and he’ll make you laugh and think as he attempts to explain.
Traditionally, the Old Testament book of Ruth has been viewed as a love story. But in this series of 12 conversations with author Carolyn Custis James, Mart DeHaan and Elisa Morgan discover that this story of Naomi and Ruth and Boaz is not all about romance. It’s about God’s ability to make much of broken lives, and how he calls men and women to serve together to build His kingdom.
I’m in Avondale Park. I’m watching random kids play baseball. The kids pepper the field. Gloves on their knees.
“Hey, batta batta batta!” they all chant. They look like third graders. The third-baseman looks like he has to go pee.