History, Real Life and Faith
Primary Source Materials are first hand accounts of events, like this: “I was too young to remember her. I do not have the faintest recollection of her. I was told my Aunt Hannah made a white dress for me with lace beading and ran a black ribbon through this beading for the burial services. “The day of the services Aunt Hannah…
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Who are the unsung heroes in your life? I’m not talking about the obvious unsung heroes like your mom or your saintly aunt. I mean the ones you may never have met who have done a service for you–whether they’ll ever meet you or not–out of enthusiasm for the topic or situation I’ve been thinking about unsung heroes this week…
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Are you a book hoarder? I think I might be a book hoarder. I’ve actually given away 250 books since our moving process began in June, but I’ve still got boxes to go through. My husband won’t let me buy any more bookshelves and, really, I can’t blame him. But is it book hoarding? Here’s a definition from the Anxiety and…
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What’s a novella? “For sale: baby shoes; never worn.” An entire story packed into six heartbreaking words, which calls to mind the infamous quote: “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.” In our google-brained attention-span-of-a-gnat era, novellas have become popular because they can be read in an hour or so. People are busy, they don’t have…
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Serendipity struck a few years ago when I did some unexpected research in McMinnville, Tennessee. While on my way to a conference in Indianapolis, I stopped off for a couple days in Middle Tennessee. I spent two days of research on my Civil War project–the one that keeps getting set aside so I can write other things! (I know, I…
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Among some Texas Baptists, the Reverend Thomas Hanks, a circuit-riding preacher from the Primitive Baptist Church, is famous for obtaining “the first conversion” on the west side of the Brazos River. He had begun sneaking into Texas when it was still a Mexican state, baptizing, marrying and preaching to the English-speakers in the neighborhood possibly as early as 1820. He baptized…
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