MY PERSPECTIVE, Gary Damron

Many of us focus more on our physical body, which only houses the inner life, than on the deeper parts of who we are. The apostle Paul wrote, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body (I Corinthians 6:19-20).” While the body is important because it can be the dwelling for the Holy Spirit, we must learn to care for the entire person God created. The dwelling is only truly significant when God abides in it.

A body gives us mobility to work and play. It allows us to touch, see, hear, taste, and smell, and most of the experiences enjoyed in life are tied to the physical body. At the same time, our bodies can become the source of aches, disease, and eventual decline, so they can affect attitudes and how we cope. Paul added, "Though our outer self is wasting away, yet our inner self is being renewed day by day" (2 Corinthians 4:16). Even as we age, God is able to breathe new life into our inner self through His presence.

GUEST COLUMN, Vance Ginn, Kansas Policy Institute

Kansas has a serious water problem, especially in the west. But more government is unlikely to solve a problem that government policy helped worsen.

The Kansas Geological Survey has documented decades of groundwater declines across the High Plains Aquifer, including the Ogallala region. Long-term drought plays a role, but this is also an incentives problem. The former is beyond the control of agriculture and other water users; the latter is something we can change to ensure the water that does exist supports Kansas families.

Kansas water is governed through permits, administrative boundaries, pumping rules, and government approval. These rules often weaken the reward for conservation and make it difficult to move water to different users.

L&T Publisher Earl Watt

The rise of the Democratic Socialist Party is happening about as fast as the Bolsheviks took over Russia.

From presidents like Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan, warnings have been issued that freedom and liberty only die in America by our own hand, not by some conquering outside force.

And we might be watching it in real time.

THE POSTSCRIPT, Carrie Classon

I am made entirely of habits.

This is not an original observation. Annie Dillard wrote: “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” I either love that quote or hate it, depending on how I spent my day.

I am thinking about this because I was trying to break a habit of mine: sitting up late at my computer, mindlessly scrolling and snacking. I do this because I am tired — not hungry — and I feel too lazy to read a book or do anything useful, but it seems too early to go to bed. So instead, I end up full of peanuts and chocolate chips. I don’t sleep well, and I don’t fit into my jeans. I have concluded that this is not a good habit. So I resolved to break it.