Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 57
Follow is an appropriate word for today. For most of the summer it has been an appropriate word for those who have to drive on Highway 281 between Sheyenne and New Rockford. I would imagine that like me, it is getting very tiresome for all of us sitting in our vehicles waiting for that pilot car with the sign on the back that says “Follow Me.” I recall times when I had friends or family visiting when I was living in Minneapolis or Denver and we would be going out to eat or to a ball game or whatever. There were too many of us to go in one car...
August is here. Where did the summer go? It seems like we just celebrated the fourth with picnics and parades and related festivities. Family and school reunions have come and gone with only memories remaining. August is one of the several transition months we have here in North Dakota. Of course, many of the northern tier states and several others in the upper Great Plains experience the changes of the four very different seasons. We start out August with hot and sometimes humid weather. We will end the month thinking about the first frost...
Is spring finally here? It sure looks like it. I walked to work today and didn't have to worry about slipping on the ice. It was a beautiful morning. We had so much ice this year and let's throw in wind as well. Nothing like a strong wind blowing snow over the ice to polish it up nice and shiny and slippery. I had a meeting with a family at the funeral home early this afternoon. Sometime between my walk to the office in the morning and my afternoon drive to New Rockford to the funeral home, it got quite windy, cold and even a drop a two of...
Why? So often this is a question asked by children of their parents. They see something they are not familiar with so it stands to reason that they would ask why. Even everyday occurrences, things that are so common to us we don't even notice them, can be a wonderment to little ones. Sometimes they don't know why there are rules or why they are forbidden to do some things. “Come inside, it's starting to rain,” says mom. Do we have to? Why? “Because you will get wet.” So? We get wet when we take a bath. Why can't we get wet in the rain? “Your c...
If you were to think of a single word, one which would sum up the Lent season, what would it be? Sadness? Worry? Death? Suffering? Jesus? Cross? There are any number of words that come to mind. And most likely, they would all be correct to some extent. Certainly all the ones I just listed would qualify. But the one I've come up with, the one word that to me signifies this season on our church calendar is Forgiveness. It is indeed a difficult concept to truly understand. In other religions of the world, they don't have a God that will forgive a...
This week begins the portion of the church calendar that separates Christianity from all other religions, Easter. As a prelude, a time for preparation, for nearly all Christian denominations to observe the season of Lent. The season of Lent lasts for 40 days and begins on Ash Wednesday. But if you were to count the actual days on your calendar from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday you would find there are 44 days. The answer to this is that as Sunday is a day of worship, it is not counted as a day of preparation. So, taking the days of this...
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father. Amen. It seems like everybody says this at least once every day. Where has the time gone? I know I do. It seems to me we were just complaining about how hot it was outside and now, here we are making plans for Thanksgiving, and Christmas is right around the corner. This week’s message is a prayer. We all know what the holiday of Thanksgiving is for. It is pretty much self-explanatory. We are to be thankful for the many blessings we receive; both physical and spiritual. So, rather than go through a b...
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father. Amen. Last week I talked about the bible. I enjoy reading the bible and do so every day. It's not just because I'm “in the business” and reading it is part of my job. I read the bible before I started in parish ministry. Why? Well, for a number of reasons. One is that even though the New Testament was written approximately 2,000 years ago, and the Old Testament long before that, some of it reads as if it were written to us just yesterday. Take the apostle Paul's letters to the churches he helped get s...
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father. Amen. The Bible. I'm sure the vast majority of homes in the area have at least one. That's good. Unfortunately, in too many homes, we're not quite sure where it is. If asked, is your answer some place in the bookcase, or maybe in a drawer somewhere? Here is another question. Did you receive one as a gift many years ago, and it still has that “new car” smell and not even the title page has been read? I wish there weren't so many people who would agree with those answers. However, the good news is that...
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father. Amen. It is getting to be about that time of year. Halloween is over and retail outfits, big and small alike, are skimming over Thanksgiving and marching right into the Christmas season. It seems a shame, but if I were in retail, it is likely I would be doing the same thing. After all, how hard it must be to put a really big sales push into a season in which we are to be thankful for what we already have. Along with this season comes the hustle and bustle of getting ready for the Christmas season....
Change, transition, whatever name you wish to put on it, we are experiencing it right now. I've been known to repeat this a number of times so bear with me if you have heard me say this before. When I was young, I would hear grown-ups say that the older they got, the faster time went by. I would think to myself, how dumb is that? It made no sense to me at all. Time did not go fast. It went too slow. The things I wanted to happen took forever to get here. However, now as I get older, I am finding that the grown-ups knew what they were talking...
Greetings dear brothers and sisters in Christ. Beginnings. Something new, or perhaps returning to something, to again begin anew… a new city, new job, new school, or a new baby in the house. Even in rural communities such as ours, where things never seem to change, there is usually something new. Of course the biggest thing that is new now is that once again, we are saying good bye to summer vacation and school has started. For some, it truly is a new beginning. The kindergarten children, the first graders, and perhaps the freshmen are all e...
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father. Amen Joshua 24:1-2, 14-18 Joshua speaks of choices in this little bit of scripture. When we think about it, the whole Bible is about choices we make. Some of them are good choices; others, not so much. God chose to give us mortals the ability to think, to reason, and to make choices. From the very beginning this ability has been our downfall. The deceiver, my name for satan, talked to Eve in the garden. Through deception, he talked Eve into making the wrong choice. She could have stuck to her guns...
Greetings to you dear brothers and sisters in Christ. I love sports. I can watch almost any sport at any level. Whenever possible, I enjoy watching our students here play. Particularly, I enjoy going to the volleyball matches and basketball games, girls and boys. I try to get there for the very first game and I stay until the last game is over. It is fun to watch the growth of these young athletes and see the progression of the kids’ abilities of each succeeding game to the next higher level, from 5th graders all the way up to the seniors in h...
In the name of our Father, greetings to one and all. “Hot enough for you”? How many times have we said or heard that this year? Quite a few I imagine. Perhaps for many of us, and I include myself, who are too young to remember the 1930's, this recent spate of high temperatures and accompanying lack of rain seems ominous. Just a few weeks ago, I heard a farmer mention that this is the worst crop he's ever had. We can see from the road as we drive around the area, pastures never really greened up this year and there is little hay to be had. Alt...
I am attending a wedding this week. What is amazing to me is that not so very long ago, those who knew me would have been very surprised at that statement. Truth is, I would go to great lengths to avoid such gatherings. I don't really know for sure why that was but I just didn't go to them unless absolutely necessary. If it were a family event involving a sibling or a nephew or niece, that was different. It was always great to see relatives I hadn't seen for a while and the partying was usually pretty good also. But other than that, I didn't...
Greetings dear friends in Christ. It’s hardly news anymore. I can’t imagine there is any person, anywhere, that isn’t aware of COVID-19. In actuality, it hasn’t been that long since the coronavirus first made the news even though it seems like it's been around forever. As I recall, back then it was a news item but not of any particular importance. IT was just another bug, somewhat reminiscent of the Swine Flu or the Bird Flu of a few years back. We would just let it run its course and all would be fine. Well, it hasn’t worked out that way....
Do not fear. Fear not. Do not be afraid. All these commands are found in the bible. The angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and announced that she was to become the mother of our Savior. He tells her to not be afraid. It is certainly understandable that when all of a sudden an archangel from God appears, at first she would have been afraid. Joseph is visited by an angel in a dream and is told that he is not to be afraid to continue his betrothment, to take Mary as his wife even though she is with child. It was the will of God. Shepherds, keeping...
There was a television program some time ago, reruns continue today. “Fraiser” was based on a psychiatrist who had given up private practice and now had a radio program where people would call in with problems of various levels of seriousness, though usually intended to be humorous. On one particular episode, the psychiatrist was told that he had to have a little song to be played as an intro to his program. Eventually, at the program’s ending, what they came up with was if you wanted help, no matter what your problem, if you wanted help,...
Greetings. What a wonderful time of year. Swimming pools are open, we can again have picnics in the park, chase that little white ball around golf courses, and enjoy leisurely walks in the evenings, listening to the birds singing. If you have the inclination, you can even sit back and relax in the sun with a fishing pole in your hand. We have no worries about icy roads, wondering if the car will start, and so forth. But, this year, after such a cold winter, we were so looking forward to finally having spring and then the coronavirus hit. While...
Division. No, I’m not speaking of a function of mathematics. And I am not speaking of a grouping of sports teams that get scheduled to play against each other. Neither am I talking about a large military unit like an Infantry or Armored division. While elementary school children might not agree with me, none of these definitions of division are a bad thing. We need to learn how to divide one number by another. It can be a source of pride to win one’s division in sports. NDSU has become very successful in winning it’s division champ...
Here it is February already. Can winter really be half over? Didn't we just celebrate Christmas? That seems like so long ago doesn't it. Time does move on and the older we get, it seems as if it goes by faster, but spring is on the way. We've had some very nice weather this past week but those of us who have lived here for any length of time at all, we know there is a lot of winter yet to come. We have just observed Groundhogs Day. Legend would have it that because Phil didn't see his shadow, we will have an early spring. Don't count on it....
I don't know how it all started, but someplace along the line the people on Madison Avenue in New York City decided that it would make an easier sell to have somebody important touting their products. Madison Avenue in New York is to advertising like Wall Street is to stocks and bonds and finance. Personally I don't care who endorses a product. It might be a world-famous athlete, the world's richest person, or the world's most beautiful woman I don't care. If I like something I buy it, if I don't, I won't. Simple as that. I've met some very...
You have probably heard this a thousand times already, but where has the summer gone? Wasn’t it in just the last couple of weeks I wrote an article on the kids getting out of school and people going on vacation? It sure seems like it. Now the kids are back in school, some happily and some sad. The same goes for the teachers I suspect. On the positive side, if your summer was a little on the boring side, we have the football and volleyball seasons starting for our entertainment. It will be fun to cheer them on again this year and I look f...
Rain. We love it. It is needed to grow our crops. Oh, there may be some irrigation on a small scale here and there but for the most part, our farmers here need the rain. I must admit, agricultural purposes aside, I do like the rain. Even as I write this sitting at my desk, there is a very light drizzle happening right outside my window. The other day when I got home from the office I was in my recliner reading and listening to a gentle rain. It wasn’t storming or blowing, just enough so that I could hear it. Yes, I know it is going to make t...
