Musings

By Sean Dietrich Today at the store I watched a young guy hold the door open for a mother of three. He trotted ahead and threw open the door with a grand flourish as if to say, “After you, mademoiselle.” The woman stopped cold in her steps. She had a baby on...

By Pastor Jeff Wade, The Rock of Panama City Beach As I write this today, it’s the first of August and it’s hot on the beach. It’s been kind of hot these past few days. It’s been the kind of heat that makes you want to stay inside and do...

Pastor Jeff Wade, The Rock of Panama City Beach I think that freedom is objective and most of us have our own definition of what that is, what it’s used for, and what we should do with it. For example, although we live in a free country, a person who...

By Sean Dietrich DESTIN, Fla.—I’m in a traffic jam. Standstill. Cars are backed up to the horizon. I am stuck among them, trapped on Highway 98, suffocating within a cloud of blue exhaust and unspeakable misery. We are moving at 0.002 miles per hour. I look out my window and see...

By Sean Dietrich On my kitchen counter is a pound cake, sitting on a pedestal, beneath a glass dome. Pound cake is the food of summer. It can make or break the entire season. A summer without pound cake is like church without singing. Or Monet without color. Or Andy without...

By Dave Holland It happened one summer day when I was at Dad’s house. He lived deep in the desert. We were roofing the addition to the house he shared with his new wife. The sun blistered us with 105 degrees of pure hell as I slapped down the black...

By Dave Holland “She’s the most beautiful girl in the world with the prettiest voice I’ve ever heard,” mused my seven-year-old boy brain as Mom sat at the piano singing ‘What a Friend We have in Jesus.’” Tragic events, two failed marriages, and alcohol battered Mom’s life, but I never lost...

By Sean Dietrich My wife and I are going out to dinner tonight. I am waiting for her to get ready. She is in the bathroom, standing before a mirror, pinching her tummy. She asks if I think she is fat. “No,” I say. She frowns. “You sure?” “Yes.” “Well, I feel fat.” She...

By Sean Dietrich “Will the room please settle down before the dance begins?!” says Gary to the elderly crowd in the nursing home cafeteria. “Simmer down, please!” Gary is an old man with a saxophone dangling from his neck. He speaks over a microphone, addressing old folks who are all wearing...

By Rick Moore This is the story as it was told to me. In 1899, Malaky, her brothers David and Naif, along with their mom and dad, boarded a steamship heading from Byblos, Lebanon to New York City. Malaky was eleven, David was four, and Naif was one year old....