Category Archives: Opinions
Don’t mess with Mother Nature
Don’t mess with Mother Nature — and never underestimate the power of a hurricane. By the time Hurricane Helene hit the Upstate, although downgraded to a tropical storm, she was still 
powerful enough to cause flooding and take down trees and power lines, making us powerless.
Scientists have been trying to control the weather for centuries. Everything from rain making to lightning squelching, hurricane snuffing, fog lifting, frost smothering and hail pelting. Melt that
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Courier Letters to the Editor 10-9-24
Hurricane help from local citizens
Dear Editor,
Since early last Friday morning, I have seen some of the best from our Pickens County residents. As I traveled to work through many detours, I saw local heroes out cutting trees and placing warning cones at intersections without power. Highway 123 coming out of Clemson was at a standstill, with a pine tree that had fallen over the entire eastbound lane. I was heading toward Clemson and was getting ready to stop and offer help when I saw a man cutting up the tree as his truck was pulled into the median with hazard lights on. I was stopping to get out and help remove the sections of the tree from the highway when I saw four or five people getting out of their cars that were eastbound to offer assistance.
On Sunday, I took some gas to a friend in the Dacusville area for their generator and saw a
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The dynamic relationship between love and prayer
Last Sunday, I was asked to bring the morning sermon for a wonderful church in the country called Mt. Lebanon Methodist.
I had a dream recently about delivering a message and when I awoke, I went I into my office and asked God to please not let it dissipate before I could write down as much of it as I could remember. Dreams are like the morning fog that fades when the sun comes out. I was noticeably rattled and was typing feverishly. How many know
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The price of ignorance
Everything has a price. It may not be labeled with a $19.99 tag or be evident what the price is at the time, but a cost is associated with most everything we purchase or the choices we make.
At the moment, America has an ignorance problem. Rather than educating ourselves on what’s happening with current events, we’re relying on social media to drive our opinions of the world. We see social media influencers and celebrities living a life the average American could never afford, and yet, there’s a desire to attain their status and wealth. This desire leads to
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Gearing up for winter
I think I’m ready for winter. I say that with fingers crossed because, truly, around here you just never know, despite what the annual Almanac says. How about you? Are you ready to get through the coming 
winter?
One of the biggest and most important items on my to-do list was to find a new (and reliable) snow plow guy. It had to be someone with not only a plow on the
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History happened here!
The Cherokee considered the land their sacred mother, whose forests provided a profusion of rabbit, deer and turkey. The rivers were abundant with fish. The Blue Ridge Mountains were extraordinary 
places of beauty that strengthened spiritual healing.
The Cherokee had been peacefully trading with the British since the 1600s. After the deer skins and furs were exchanged for beads, axes and rum, the British would get
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There are some things God cannot do
When we think about God being The Almighty, we see Him as having infinite power and authority in heaven and earth, and this is certainly true.
Remember the passage in Matthew 19:26 where Jesus is explaining to His disciples about how difficult
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Courier Letters to the Editor
On Freddie Owen death penalty case
Dear Editor,
I have watched with interest how some have protested the use of the death penalty in the Freddie Owen case. They cite the sixth commandment, but seem to forget that Owen is the killer, not the state of South Carolina. They should read Deuteronomy 19:11-13, which seems to apply in this case.
J.G. Taylor
Sunset
Highway repaving projects
Dear Editor,
The state is in the midst of a 10-year highway improvement plan. I want to update you on what the SCDOT is up to concerning repaving our state highways inside Pickens County.
Last year, the SCDOT repaved S.C. 186 in Dacusville. It is now finishing repaving S.C. 186 east out of
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Loving God with all that we are
In Luke 10:27 and Mark 12:30, we notice that both passages use a fourfold description to explain how we are to love God: Heart, soul, strength and mind.
In the Old Testament, we find a similar command in Deuteronomy 6:5-6, “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thine might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart.” It leaves out the
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‘Remember the ladies’
Abigail Adams was a busy woman in 1776.
Her husband, John Adams, was a delegate at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. She was at home in Braintree, Mass., raising four young children and managing the family farm while living in a war zone. The British Army was in Boston, only 12 miles away.
She wrote her husband a letter and asked that he
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