life. faithful.

Tomorrow morning, my hometown is saying goodbye to one of the best men I have ever been blessed to know. Joe "Buster" Powell was one of those special people that are hard to really describe in words. He was the most honest, true, humble, hardworking man, a soft soul who could put anyone at ease. His heart was for his farm, his people (and if you ever met Buster, you were his people), and most importantly his God. When I was growing up, Buster served as a deacon at First Baptist in Green Forest. The deacons took turns on Sunday mornings, with a different man reading a Scripture and saying an opening prayer each week. I always looked forward to Buster's turn--he could preach a better sermon in that five minutes than most of us could in a full day. He usually had a story from his farm to share, something he had noticed the week before because Buster was so much better than most of us at noticing the little ways God speaks. And then he would pray. I've heard a lot of...

I've been trying to figure out what to write, but I'm at a loss for words. That's not a normal thing for me...words are my strength (the written word, at least). Right now, though, my thoughts and feelings and words are all jumbled up in my brain. It's like a big knot--a lot like when I've got a ball of yarn that's gotten all mixed up and tangled. I start pulling on one thing and start to think that I'm making progress, but then the knot just starts getting tighter. So I move to a new piece and start pulling on it...only to find that it is connected to the knot in another way. Right now, I wish I could tie all my thoughts together. I wish I could come up with a nice, neat way to explain all the chaos that's in the world right now. But to be honest, I just don't understand. I don't understand why people seem to think that violence makes things better. I don't understand how burning down businesses honors a life senselessly taken. I don't u...