Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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Freedom. It is not a gift any government benevolently bestows upon its citizens; freedom is the gift of God to everyone created in his image. It is a serious blessing to live in a land founded by those who believed that the responsibility of our nation’s leaders was to recognize and protect the freedom that is already the birthright of those given life by their Creator. It’s a blessing to be able to celebrate on July 4 the birthday of a nation “conceived in liberty.” And, wh...
I like trains. I always have. I’m not sure what it is that particularly fascinates me about them; maybe it’s the whole package. I like the sounds of their whistles. I like the sounds of their various linkages and mechanisms. I like the look and sounds of steam locomotives. (They seem magical to me, even if you don’t bump into Harry Potter and his friends on one.) I like the deep guttural roar from diesel locomotive engines. I like the massive “clang” when train cars are coupl...
I didn’t remember it being quite that far down. I don’t remember being so tempted to “loft” the ball. And what in the world is wrong with these rented shoes? Or maybe it’s the lane surface? This just doesn’t feel right; in fact, it feels kinda terrible. “It” was a recent attempt at bowling. I’d taken maybe a 15-year break. (Probably more like 25.) When my dad was in his 80s, one of my brothers asked him what age he thought of himself as being. He said, “Oh, probably about 38....
“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms,” writes G. K. Chesterton. “It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.” Yes, and we wonder, don’t we? We always wonder how much courage we really have, for how can we know until we’re tested? I still have my draft card. I remember when I was still in high school, Amarillo’s Tascosa High, being required to make the short trip over to an office in the even-then historic Herring Hotel (established...
True confession No. 1: I don’t feel the least bit guilty about my next true confession. True confession No. 2: I have never been much of a cat person. I’ll pick a slobbering dog over a condescending cat every time. I do admit that those types are not necessarily the only choices. But enough truth lies in the stereotypes that we all chuckle knowingly at Winston Churchill’s variously quoted truth: “Cats look down on you, dogs look up to you. Give me a pig! He looks you in the...
Entropy. What pops into your head when you hear that word? Well, just to prove that I listened some in a science class 4-plus years ago, here ya go: “The tendency of a body in motion to remain in motion and a body at rest to remain at rest.” Impressive, right? Not so much. Because, I’m now reminded, that is the definition of “inertia,” not “entropy.” OK. Let me think. “Entropy” is “a wasting away or progressive decline due to disuse or disease — for example, a muscle due...
“In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.” Yep. I’m not sure where I first heard that statement, but I’ve always thought its truth packs a punch. I did a little “search engine” research and found it attributed to Paul Harvey or Will Harvey. Some versions say “remember” instead of “recall.” I don’t know Will Harvey, but I certainly remember Paul, and he said a great many things well worth recalling. I know. Lots of things look b...
I’ve long ago forgotten where I found the tale I’m about to relate, but I like it. Personally, I very much doubt that it’s factual; it does, however, hold a lesson or two that are true indeed. As the story goes, a fellow was walking down the street one day when he saw a hand-lettered sign in a yard: “Talking Dog: Five Dollars.” Quite curious, the man walked up to the front door of the house and knocked. When an ordinary-looking fellow answered, the guy standing on the porch...
If heaven were not already paradise, the mere fact that no misunderstanding will mar its joy would make it heavenly. Drat it! I got word recently of yet another misunderstanding and its sad fruit: broken relationships, deep hurt, and the waste of precious energy that could be put to far better use. Careful now, lest you think I’m writing about anyone we might both know. Remember the story about the fellow in England who sent a note as a joke to his prominent acquaintances sayi...
Ah, Thomas, I hate to mention this, but you could have saved yourself a great deal of trouble if you’d just hung with the rest of the disciples on that first Easter evening. You wouldn’t believe the spin lots of folks have put on the fact that you weren’t there that night. Yes, I know one would think that people would give an apostle of Christ the benefit of the doubt, so to speak. What? Oh, yes, a rather bad choice of words. Sorry. But you would be the first to admit, I’m s...
Since this column has my name on it, this should be obvious: The opinions expressed herein are simply my own to own. G.K. Chesterton died far too long ago for me to tell him, in this life anyway, how much I love his writing. I do indeed love his way with words and his wit regarding politics (and everything else). Regarding government in general, he writes, “All government is an ugly necessity.” Regarding politics, he recommends, “What we should try to do is make polit...
Won't it be nice to be out of time? Say what? I'm serious, and I repeat: Won't it be nice to be out of time? I don't wonder that you're confused. You're probably thinking: Whaddaya mean? “Nice” to be out of time? I find myself “out of time” innumerable times every week, and running out of time may be many things, but “nice” is not one of them. Try another word, Bucko! How about “frustrating”? Maddening? Depressing? Infuriating? I think all of those words well describe how mo...
“He is risen!” “He is risen indeed!” Such power is difficult to imagine. We read the Gospel accounts and try to view the scenes in our mind's eye. Mind-boggling. Pick any of the events of that first Holy Week. Some are obviously filled with meaning and mystery. Some seem rather mundane, almost commonplace for that time and place, until the Gospel writers and Christ himself pull back the curtain just a bit. Any Passover meal is already deeply meaningful and symbolic, but lis...
“I could be wrong to swing this sword, but swing it I will! Try to arrest my Lord, if you will, but this sword says that there will be blood!” Was something like that going through the Apostle Peter’s head when, in the Garden of Gethsemane, he drew his sword and swung it to defend his Lord? An armed “detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and the Pharisees” (John 18:3), lit with torches and adrenaline, had come to arrest Jesus. It seemed clear to Pete...
The people of faith who impress me the most are the people who are the least impressed with their own faith. Folks like this are slow to throw down glib and easy answers to life's hardest questions. They're quick to be present, mostly in silence, as they put an arm around a friend facing one of life's genuine tragedies and offer real tears, but they're slow to show up to add verbal drizzle and plastic platitudes that, well-meant or not, make a horrible situation even worse....
I am a self-confessed English major. And I'm choosing words carefully here, words that in our present cultural climate serve as — take your pick — solemn and grim warnings, red stop signs surrounded by flashing lights, cease and desist orders complete with dire penalties lawyer-littered in pages of small print. I am (pause here for display of deep emotion as a substitute for rational thinking) concerned. I am (pause here for display of deep emotion as a substitute for rat...
I am an English major. I am an English major who wears many hats in my work and the various aspects of it, but most of them are colored by the fact that, as I mention yet again just before I step off a verbal cliff and fall into triple redundancy, I am an English major. My wife married me anyway. She says that as a young lass she’d always thought she’d marry a preacher or a farmer. I’ve long wondered why a girl would dream of a life almost guaranteed to produce very modes...
During one of the most famous battles ever fought, the World War II “Battle of the Bulge,” the Germans made use of a battalion of men commanded by Maj. Otto Skorzeny, “the most daring commando in the German army.” According to author Stephen Ambrose in his book “Citizen Soldier,” 500 or so volunteers from that battalion were dressed in American uniforms and dispatched across the lines to wreak havoc and confusion, perpetrate mischief, and cause misery and mayhem in any way...
Sirens. Lots of them. I might not have heard them, but one of my sons and I were engaged in a dart game or a few out in the garage. The recent blizzard had receded. We had the garage door open. And we started hearing sirens. I didn’t know exactly what had happened, but it was pretty certainly something pretty bad. I still don’t know, but some other friends who were outside that evening told me the next day that they’d actually heard the sounds of a massive crash, metal into...
I don’t wish to be indelicate (gotcha; those words guarantee an audience as surely as “viewer discretion advised”), but it’s increasingly difficult to venture out of your house and not step into a pile of ... lawyer droppings. Neither can you drink a cup of coffee; buy a garden hose, wheelbarrow, or power tool; install a computer program; take a pill; or breathe — without encountering what might more politely be called “lawyer litter.” Maybe it could just as easily be cal... Full story
I love winter. Plenty there is to love about each of the four seasons. The best features of each one are incredibly amazing and delightful and might tempt you to cast your vote once and for all: This season is my favorite! Truth be told, each also comes with its own failings. Be ye frozen or boiled or dried out or almost blown away as the wind howls and rodents, small children, and acres of dirt fly across the landscape, it’s not fair to judge any of them — the seasons, I mea...
Software update. I love those, don’t you? Doesn’t it make you feel good to know that the folks who created your computer’s operating system are so completely on top of things that they’ve issued yet another update? You were hoping to quit for the day. You were in the process of punching your computer’s lights out. And then that screen screams at you: “Stop! Whatever you do, don’t turn this thing off or unplug it! Incredibly important updates will now be downloaded an...
Tomorrow, as I write this column, is Inauguration Day. It’s a particularly good time to think about our citizenship, I think. And I think it’s a particularly good time for me to stay off of Facebook and other social media for at least a day or two. Even as I think social media companies’ increasing censorship of free speech is unwise, I think my increasing censorship of my own speech is a responsibility of my citizenship. Whatever rants from whatever blusterers (and I can b...
Change. I love it. Yes, and I also love each morning to throw open the blinds immediately to retina-scorching sunlight and then to jump into pep-rally-volume conversation. If you believe any of the wretched falsehoods above, you surely don’t know me at all. If you think I love “change” ... Evidently, to be a “progressive,” not a label I love, desire, trust, or in any way covet, one must accept the notion that change itself is always change for the better. “What we need is cha...
I’m writing this column on Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021. That matters. I don’t know if henceforth all one will have to do is say “1/6” to bring forth images of a terrible assault on our nation; probably not, but I hope we never forget the assault and its lessons. “December 7, 1941: a date which will live in infamy,” does that for many of us. For many more of us, “9/11” does the same thing. I wasn’t alive in 1941, but I can imagine how Dec. 7 and 8 must have felt. I’ve seen videos...
