Cost of Living

November 20, 2025

Are you looking to relocate to a place where the cost of living is relatively low? Have I got a deal for you? Come home to Springfield, Missouri. Yes, I said, come home. I have lived here for most of my life. We moved to Joplin early in our marriage. We came home as soon as we could.

I think that 15.5% below the national average for cost of living would be good. You must understand that for most of us, we consider our wages low. Our average housing cost is 15.7% below the national average. I’m not bragging, I am stating facts from Google’s AI answer to my search. Look for yourself.

We are the third-largest city in Missouri and the largest Springfield among thirty-six in the country. Once again, if you don’t believe me, check the last census numbers. I looked it up myself because people who have never heard of us can’t believe it. Is it my fault you’ve been living under a rock your whole life?

Businessinsider.com put us thirty-two in their top 32 largest midwestern cities. We don’t have to be number one; we just try harder. Our public school system is the largest district in Missouri. We have five high schools, and if you don’t like public schools, we have almost every type of private school you might want.

Our technical college is one of the best, and they have several campuses in our outlying area. We have three major universities and numerous other types of higher private education facilities. Do you want to learn non-traditional skills? We do that as well.

Do you want rural or suburban living? We have a lot of that? Farmland is close, and you can even buy eggs and milk from the producers. There are almost as many small towns and villages close to Springfield as you will find in any city of our size. We have lots of bars and churches when you need to go to a place where everybody knows your name.

What about the opera, stage plays, symphony, and other cultural activities? We have you covered there as well. Our airport is not one of the major international hubs. We have connecting flights to most of the busiest, if you really like long lines.

We have two cab companies, and most of the internet services for moving people and goods. Oh, I forgot to mention shopping. If our mall isn’t large enough for you, there are half a dozen more within a fifty-minute drive of my house. I’ve driven longer than that in St. Louis or Kansas City to get to the good shopping once I got to those cities.

The construction industry seems to be having a heyday with homes and businesses, especially car washes and some of the most popular franchise fast food restaurants. Google your favorite and see if we have one or will next week.

We are the home of Bass Pro Shops, General Council of the Assemblies of God, Convoy of Hope, and Springfield-style Cashew Chicken. You don’t know about our own knock-off offering of a favorite oriental dish? You’ve had nothing like it.

I could go on for hours, but I’ll end with this. If you would like to go to Branson, MO, for the music shows or drive Historic Route 66 from Chicago to LA, we are on your way, and you can check us out the next time you pass through. You’ve probably been within fifty miles of us and never noticed the highway signs. The group Buffalo Springfield came through in the sixties and got their name from one of our signs. We hope to see you soon.

©Copyright 2025 by Charles Kensinger

Wisdom from an unexpected place

November 18, 2025

It is often referred to as the Boob Tube.  This is for a good reason.  Many have lost themselves in the surreal pastime of watching TV and have not allowed their minds to expand by experiencing the world around them.  The crazes of cell phones, Pokémon Go, and numerous selfie accidents demonstrate how easily video devices can turn normally intelligent beings into stumbling and falling imbeciles.

Have you had incidents where you gained wisdom from this most unexpected source? When you are my age, and every time you go into the hospital, they give you yellow socks, and you start to feel your age. The wisdom I have gained over these decades enables me to tell the doctors no when they ask if I’ve fallen in the last three months.

We learn from our mistakes is an old saying. I am not sure that the generations following me have learned from the errors committed by my age group. Just as many teenagers started smoking as did when I was there. I watched an older brother throw up the first time he took a drag. I said that it was not for me.

I had friends in high school who stayed out drinking because their parents did not pay attention to what they were doing. Mine did, and I knew not to try it. The punishment would fit the crime.

I drove fast, but because I wasn’t smoking or drinking, I was able to stay undistracted. I did date, and that made it hard to keep my mind on the road. But because the parents of the girls I dated told me to be careful, I was.

When I graduated from high school, I thought I was smart. Then I got married and we had children, and I realized I did not know anything. There is a quotation by Mark Twain that says the same thing. I never realized how smart Uncle Sam was.

Wisdom comes from the Lord according to the Bible. I believe he uses everyday situations to teach us, if we pay attention. Some of us are too poor to pay attention. Think about it. You will get the joke, eventually.

Messing things up is part of the human experience. Just be sure that when you do, you live through it. I’ve been fortunate. I’ve survived my own and others’ mistakes as well. Some were easy to identify as near misses, while most are things that I will never know about.

Listen to your elders and watch for signs. I mean street signs, road signs like speed limits, and avoid running red lights. Like driving drunk, these things will catch up with you, and others’ problems may catch you as well.

©Copyright 2025 by Charles Kensinger

Thanksgiving carols

November 16, 2025

I have always wondered why we have a few Halloween songs and there are a lot of songs for other holidays, but Thanksgiving only has lame songs about giving thanks. I want songs about turkeys, stuffing, cranberries, pumpkin pie and all that other great stuff.

Yes, I know there are football songs. Do not get me started on football on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Maybe you just did. I might just do that. Write a column on the evils of Football on Holidays. I wonder if the government has commissioned a study on that, yet.

We can find everything on the internet, so I searched and found many options. The first was very interesting, “Gobble, Gobble” by Matthew West. He begins like I did wondering why there are no songs about Thanksgiving. Watch it and if you don’t like the adult version check out the kid’s version.

As I was searching, I found “Five Fat Turkeys” which I first head when my daughter came home from school singing it around this time of year when she was in elementary school. I have no idea how long it has existed. All three of these girls are in their forties.

Then there is “A Thanksgiving Prayer” by Johnny Cash which I first heard when he sang it to his wife, June Carter Cash, on “Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman.” This one had slipped out of my mind as well.

Then there are some that I did not even think about considering for this holiday. “Mashed Potato” by Dee Dee Sharp was one I heard back in the 1960s. Is there one about cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, or stuffing? Yes, there are, but they are for kids, bad humor, or stuck in insignificant albums by people I’ve not heard of before.

Unless you consider Ray Charles and James Taylor’s “Sweet Potato Pie” from the “Genius Loves Company” album or “Country Bumpkin” by Cal Smith to be a Thanksgiving Song. There are many tunes like these that we could stretch our imagination to include them. “Autumn Leaves” by Nat King Cole and “Harvest Time” by Luke Bryan is two more that fit this category.

There is one more that I would like to mention before I encourage you to do your own research and discover that I was wrong. “Thanks Giver” by Crowder is absolutely a Thanksgiving season song. It is on their “Milk & Cookies” album which is a Christmas project.

Check all of these and others out and make your own playlist for your family feast. If you put the videos on a live stream on a TV and lose the football during dinner, maybe no one will notice while they are laughing. It could happen.

©Copyright 2025 by Charles Kensinger

See ya’ later, Calvin

November 16, 2025

Our long-time pastor and friend, Calvin Maberry, is now home with Jesus. He left his earth suit and went home on Friday morning. If you do not know this man of God, let me tell you about him.

I met him the first time I went to Hamlin Church with Cindy. She was raised in that congregation, and he and his wife, Arlene, had worked with the youth and became their pastor a few years before. I instantly liked Calvin and Arlene, even if she told me I better not hurt my new girlfriend.

Their family lived outside of Willard, MO, and their three kids were Cindy’s friends. My future wife was a fifteen-year-old, and Arlene was her Sunday School teacher. This may be the reason that I was given the warning. I was a junior in college at the time.

Calvin became a mentor to me as I negotiated my way through college as a ministerial student. They were at our wedding and supported us for the last fifty-plus years as we attended many classes that they were part of.

My first opportunity to officiate at a wedding took place while we were living in Joplin, MO. Calvin advised me on common ceremonies and problems I might have. The pastor of the bride was not someone I knew, and I felt more comfortable with Brother Maberry than our pastor in Joplin.

Years later, when I was asked to officiate at my first funeral, Pastor Calvin was there for me as well. He gave me some sage advice that I have heard from him often. Follow what you believe the Lord wants you to do, and follow what the family asks you to do. Other ministers I knew told me before other funerals what were different opinions of what should be done.

When Calvin decided to announce his retirement as our pastor, we spoke about it before it was announced to the church. I was the Chairman of the Deacon body and would be responsible for helping that group lead the congregation through the transition period.

I was the one who asked him to allow the church to bestow the title of Pastor Emeritus on him when we celebrated his term as our under shepherd. I felt like I was fighting an uphill battle to convince him to accept that honor. Life at the church changed a great deal after that.

For a few years, we saw him and Arlene occasionally at church, but bumped into them at many other places. They always asked how we were getting along and how the girls were. They were always the adoptive grandparents to the kids at Hamlin.

When Arlene was fighting the Illness that ultimately took her life, Calvin was scheduled for bypass surgery. I had just gone through that operation and tried to encourage him that it was difficult, but the Lord would see him through it. I remember that he told me that if it were not for Arlene needing him, he would not have had the surgery. He was ready to go home.

Now that he is there with her, his savior and Lord, and all those that still call him pastor Calvin and friend, I am continuing to look forward to the day that Christ says welcome home to me as well. I know that we are there together, even though some do not realize it, yet.

©Copyright 2025 by Charles Kensinger

Love potion no. 1

November 14, 2025

Do you recognize the song “Love Potion No. Nine?” It originated in 1959, recorded by The Clovers and returned in 1964 by The Searchers when it reached #2 and #3 on the charts. Many other groups have released it. A young man goes to a gypsy and asks for something to improve his love life.

The question I have is “What is Love?” Is it a feeling? Can you get someone to love you if they do not want to? Can you fall in and out of love? These are questions that a lot of people have asked over the years.

Just so you know, I am talking about the Biblical view of the word agape’ that is translated in the King James Version (KJV) of the scriptures. There are five words in the Greek language that are translated love. I like to transliterate, which means I will be substituting agape’ for love in the verses I relate to you.

I will try not to confuse you with this substitution. One of the most used definitions of agape is in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, where it says that love is patient, love is kind.

My question when someone asks me if they are in love is, “Are you patient with them?” Patience is what few of us have with others. If we want patience, we want it right now. That is counterproductive. When you are loved with Godly love, they will wait on you to speak, to make decisions, and to meet them in places.

If they are impatient, it is not agape that they have toward you. I started to say, if they feel agape’ love, but agape’ is not an emotion. It is an action. The D.C. Talk song “Love is a Verb” talks about this kind of love. “I don’t care what you say. I don’t care what you’ve heard. Love, love, love is a verb.”

Saying something three times shows that your thought is complete. There is nothing else to say about that. Right, Forest?   I often use the phrase, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” Three phrases complete the thought.

Another question I like to ask is, “Are you kind to them?” That usually generates a weird look and/or a “huh.” God’s type of love is the one where you want to be kind. Not the one where you use them or take advantage of them. They are not your possession. You love a friend with agape’ love. The love that most of us think of is the Greek word Eros. This is sex. I’ve talked about lust before. That is not love; it is physical desire.

If sex is what you thought this column was about, you were wrong. I am sorry, you do not need my instruction in how to sex more often or with someone new. That is not who I am. I want you to have a better relationship with either a husband or a wife or people you have nonsexual relationships with.

That is the end of Love Potion no. 1. We will continue with what love is as no. 2. Those contain, “It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.” I know I may have lost some of you with patience and kindness. You may not want to come back for the next dose of God’s love potion.

©Copyright 2025 by Charles Kensinger