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Virtue of the Week focuses on building peaceful and caring communities through understanding and fostering the practice of virtues. The Source supports the Virtues Project and will publish one virtue developed by the project each week.

I was thinking about how to write this article, telling of an adventure at sea I experienced recently. If you are familiar with the Book of Acts, Chapter 27: 28:1-10, when Apostle Paul sailed to Rome to face Caesar at his trials, then you will understand my thought process when it comes to sailing.

Moleto A. Smith gives two examples among many of “outstanding Virgin Islands women who have achieved greatness.”

Virtue of the Week focuses on building peaceful and caring communities through understanding and fostering the practice of virtues. The Source supports the Virtues Project and will publish one virtue developed by the project each week.

As you read the Bible, plants are an important part of human development physically, mentally, and in the realm of spirituality. Have you ever been stung by stinging nettle? I have. ... There is no real evidence in the Bible of man using stinging nettle for food and medicine. Nonetheless, in biblical times, the poor probably gathered stinging nettle along with a variety of herbs for food.  

Virtue of the Week focuses on building peaceful and caring communities through understanding and fostering the practice of virtues. The Source supports the Virtues Project and will publish one virtue developed by the project each week.

Personally, I believe that God gives every herb and plant for humankind’s benefit. Whether you believe in a God, a Creator, gods, or have no belief at all, plants are living organisms, just like us humans. Plants and herbs have healing powers beyond human comprehension. As humans, we are connected to the soil of the Earth. We are soil, when you really think about it, because our bodies fertilize the Earth when we die. In fact, all living organisms, including plants, fertilize the Earth’s ecosystem.

Virtue of the Week focuses on building peaceful and caring communities through understanding and fostering the practice of virtues. The Source supports the Virtues Project and will publish one virtue developed by the project each week.

Society in biblical times was essentially an agrarian society where people lived in small towns, villages and close to the land that provided food, fuel, shelter, clothing and medicine for them. Like today’s modern society, bread was looked upon as the staff of life for ancient people. It was the mainstay diet of ancient Israel. Nonetheless, this second part of a four-part series will continue to explore the agricultural crops and herbs of the Bible. 

The V.I. Board of Education celebrates the many aspects of Virgin Islands culture and history that are frequently overlooked.

If you care about preserving the history and culture of the Virgin Islands, then there must be a better place to build a school on St. John than Catherineberg Estate.

As a naturalist, I find the Bible’s natural history, particularly its botany, fascinating with its figurative language and metaphors of the everyday life of people, plants and herbs. 

Virtue of the Week focuses on building peaceful and caring communities through understanding and fostering the practice of virtues. The Source supports the Virtues Project and will publish one virtue developed by the project each week.

Greetings from the dedicated members of St. John Rescue. The past year has been quite eventful. The official count from 911 indicates that our volunteers responded to 22 emergencies.

Virtue of the Week focuses on building peaceful and caring communities through understanding and fostering the practice of virtues. The Source supports the Virtues Project and will publish one virtue developed by the project each week.

Here it is, the middle of February 2023, and we are at five homicides in our beautiful U.S. Virgin Islands. The questions are, “why” is this happening, “why” is this continuing to happen, and “why” many cases go unsolved. The only answer I have is this, as long as WE, all of us, continue to be complacent and see (don’t see), and hear (don’t hear), it will continue, there will be no end, unfortunately. 

The late naturalist George A. Seaman once said, “Only great names remain.” He was referring to the names of estates on St. Croix. Names you might have to roll your tongue to pronounce, or figure out the interpretation behind them. The owners of these estates have long gone in the dust of the wind, and we can only guess at the inspiration behind the names they left on a small Caribbean island.

Recently, one of my hikers asked me to expand on the naming of estates, bays, and the interpretation thereof of the names or the history of St. Thomas and St. John. I grew up calling my birthplace St. Thomas. Did any of us ever think about how the island got its name? 

Essentially, we have tried to construct a brand-new house (and failed five times) when we already live in a house. Our house is not perfect. It has its flaws. Our house has been "rented" under the Revised Organic Act, and as a renter Virgin Islanders have not been able to modify or renovate the house without permission from the landlord, the U.S. Congress. But once we simply accept to take the rental house that we live in already — we will be given the Deed, Title and Ownership.

Virtue of the Week focuses on building peaceful and caring communities through understanding and fostering the practice of virtues. The Source supports the Virtues Project and will publish one virtue developed by the project each week.