Loneliness is a bear. No one wants to feel unsupported, unheard, or unloved. You would think, in a world of so many new ways to connect, that loneliness would not be a problem. But Instagram, it turns out, is no answer to the human condition. Churches—especially churches in rural communities—often experience their own kind […]
The Heartlands Interview with Chuck Reese begins here. Chuck’s train of thought is interrupted by the sound of a dish being set carefully on a white wicker table gracing a wide screened porch. (I’m imagining.) CR: Oh my goodness, what is that, sweetheart? Stacy [Chuck’s wife]: Blueberry muffin. CR: My wife just brought me a […]
The Heartlands Interview with Chuck Reece begins here. Chuck Reece can’t help but share some of his favorite stories of finding new writers for The Bitter Southerner. There was the piece Cy Brown, a University of Georgia student, pitched him about A Carolina Dog. “I don’t know about you growing up in Virginia, but in […]
I was standing in a cemetery near Onancock, sweating in the mid-July heat, when Chuck Reece asked me how I got from radio journalism into ministry. I was supposed to be interviewing him, but Chuck Reece, even over the phone, is a master at sniffing out stories and he trained his curiosity on me before […]
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. —Isaiah 43:2 As I write this, it looks like the Eastern Shore will be spared the worst of Hurricane Florence, (or Flo, as I’ve come to call her this week). I’m praying for the people […]
It was 113 degrees when I was at Qumran a few weeks ago. Set up on a ridge near the Dead Sea, the site is unforgiving—no escape from the sun, salt flats and barren wilderness in every direction, a claustrophobic gift shop and lunch room packed with tourists who never seem to make it to […]
I didn’t really believe it was my last as I watched a sky so orange as to subdue the harshest skeptic of sundown magic. But I wondered. How many people in mortal peril see such sights as they slip away? Polar explorers perishing under pulsating green northern lights? Mountaineers admiring the blue tint of the […]
Flagpole in Sebastia Sebastia On the highest point in Sebastia, where a Roman Temple, the Northern Kingdom’s palace, and innumerable pagan holy sites once stood, there is a ramshackle wooden flagpole sporting a small Palestinian flag. Or at least there was last week when I visited. Locals report that the flagpole is the frequent target […]
Heartlands 