For Father's Day, my grandson, Creede Wylie, wrote this article as a tribute to his dad and his grandpa, Ben Wylie. I want to share this with others who know them. Are you a real man in today’s social climate? Individuals tussle with the idea that the term man should change. I’m not mad about the participation trophy culture, but I don’t believe you can earn a title by just taking part biologically or through image. Being a man constitutes particular traits that are often unspoken. During a game…

Pagosa Springs is like a magnet. It has a certain appeal that brings long-time guests and part-time residents back every year. They feel at home with good, honest people around them, and where everybody knows their name. Shopkeepers remember them. They frequent their favorite restaurant and find their table waiting. That’s the cham of Pagosa. We stay the same and they come home. It’s like “Cheers.” It’s a place where people come searching for their identity and they find it here. Not at the Bull…

Palm trees in Colorado. It sounds crazy, but not any crazier than the world we live in. The Lord said to Joshua, "You are old, advanced in years, and there remains very much land yet to be possessed." I take this scripture to heart. I look around and echo those words, "There remains very much land yet to be possessed," and I add to the sentiment. What a mess this world is in. I thought I was winding up, but there is much to do and little time to do it. I stopped by a favorite bookstore. The conv…

“Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail.” – Charles Dickens’ famous words in A Christmas Carol. On a recent Monday morning I woke to a dead, dark house. And of my own knowledge, I can attest that everything in the house was as dead as a doornail in Marley’s coffin. I sat up in the blackness, a blank clock stared back at me. An electric blanket, as cold as Pagosa’s winters, lay stiff as a…

Do you remember when God laid something on your heart to do? Your passion grew hot. You lost sleep at night. You told the world you had a revelation from God and it would be the most important work you would ever do in your lifetime. Then it fizzled out. Maybe it was when you moved here. A lightning flash from heaven struck you silly. You were supposed to be in Pagosa. You couldn’t contain the excitement. You spent moths planning your move. Now you wonder why you’re here. You made it through the…

Don't forget your mother. She might be the only person who always loved you and believed in you. She prayed for you when everyone else lost hope. She believed that one day you'd get your life together. And you did. There is something about the heart of a believing mother. She is connected to God on your behalf and might be one of the reasons you are where you are today. She'll always be your mother, no matter where or how she is. I visited a friend in a nursing home this week. I recognized sever…