By NANCY PATRICK I recently rewatched the movie The Book of Eli starring Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman. Filmed in New Mexico in 2009, the movie presents a thoughtful dystopian view of a possible future for the world. This dismal, dangerous, and hopeless society bases its premise on the idea that something catastrophic had happened that destroyed a good world,

By NANCY PATRICK September traditionally correlates to the beginning of new school years. The Sunday before school starts, my church recognizes teachers and other school personnel for their contributions to families as well as society in general.  For many years, I proudly stood with my colleagues because I felt called to my teaching career—it didn’t seem like a job. I

By NANCY PATRICK My pastor, Brandon Hudson, at First Baptist Church Abilene has recently preached a series of sermons based on Jesus’ parables. He always projects on the wall a thoughtful quote at the end of his sermons as he sits down to give us time to read and digest the message.  Jesus used parables as teaching tools to help

By NANCY PATRICK What a hodgepodge a family creates! Grandparents—parents—aunts and uncles—cousins—siblings. As a child, I had seven cousins on my mom’s side and ten on my dad’s side. Both sets of grandparents lived within a few miles of each other in rural Arkansas. Interestingly, all my mom’s siblings remained in Arkansas while my dad and all his siblings moved

By NANCY PATRICK I am currently reading novel fifteen in Louise Penny’s series featuring main character Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté of Quebec, Armand Gamache. By this time in the series, Gamache has cleaned up a corrupt police force as well as the Sûreté’s academy that graduated immoral, inhumane, and power-hungry officers.  Inspector Gamache maintains his integrity throughout the series.

By NANCY PATRICK People have many opinions about pets—cats, dogs, birds, hamsters, snakes, and even iguanas. I’m not judging anyone for preferring one over the other, but I love dogs. During my childhood, my family had at one time or another all those animals except snakes and iguanas. As an adult, my first pet was a sweet little Chihuahua named

By NANCY PATRICK Today’s social climate presents many challenges. I’m not sure if the cause for the rise in depression, violence, climate change, suicide, and lethargy has one diagnosis. Some blame much of the dismal atmosphere on COVID. I agree that the two-year pandemic changed our world in some irreversible ways, but I’m not so sure we can blame COVID

By NANCY PATRICK Every group or organization I have ever belonged to had rules, sometimes called Codes of Conduct, Dress Codes, Bylaws, Constitutions, Codes of Ethics, Business Ethics, or Criminal and Civil Law. Most people accept socially approved laws because they realize their necessity to avoid anarchy and chaos. An old adage that has always puzzled me says, “All’s fair

By NANCY PATRICK There are so many possible answers to that question. A popular song has a great answer: “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.” I certainly wouldn’t argue with that suggestion. Love can forgive many sins and transgressions and would go a long way toward calming the world’s turbulence. I have given the question a lot