Dateline: Missoula, Montana. "Newlywed charged with killing of her husband of eight days."

I invite you to meditate upon that headline as you continue reading the following column.

The Temptations recorded a hit song years ago called, "Papa was a rolling stone." A line in that tune stated, "Everywhere he laid his hat was his home."

Louis, the Claude Rains character, in the movie Casablanca warned Rick, the Humphrey Bogart character, that he had a fluid personality. He had no scruples, could not be relied upon and moved in the direction of the strongest breeze.

There is an insidious side to rapidly evolving technology and inventions. We have become programmed to discard the tried and true for the new and fancy.

The slightest flaw or imperfection, even if it is repairable, will not be tolerated and causes us to replace it. As the comedian, Larry the Cable Guy so judiciously phrased it, "In America we are conditioned to yearn after things we do not even know we needed or wanted."

That is the prevailing position in the world today in all aspects of society including our relationships; where patience and endurance are seen as flaws and not virtues.

We are unacquainted with words like loyalty, dependability, reliability faithfulness and steadfastness.

We have become too familiar with sounds like feckless, shiftless, disloyal, unfaithful, unreliable and undependable. Phrases and traits that seem innocuous enough written or spoken until you encounter them in the character of a person you hold in high regard or esteem. That man or woman you cherish and adore. Then they become like curved two edged daggers twisting and mutilating your broken heart.

We have developed a nasty habit of using people until we have used them up. Then we consign them to the garbage heap of yesterday thoughtlessly continuing on our merry way without the slightest hint of remorse.

In the movie, Diary of a Mad black woman, do you recall the anger and emotion you felt when the unfeeling husband evicted his longtime faithful wife for that cute, young "skank?"

Do you remember the satisfaction you experienced, during the bathroom scene, when she almost allowed the now crippled, long abandoned ex-spouse to drown?

There were cheers of, "Good for him," and "You go girl." throughout the theater.

Loyalty still means something.

It is still important.

You owe something to that person, institution or God who stuck with you through the lean years. There is an outstanding, eternal debt to those that hung around when you were nobody, had nothing, without prospects or hope in the world. Those thin times when even dreams were too expensive.

There is no sin or shame in becoming big, important, comfortable or wealthy, but as you ascend the ladder of success, reach down and pull others up with you.

Broker your influence into a rising tide to lift others' boats.

Since life is fickle and uncertain; if you mistreat people on the way up, you may encounter the same people on the way down.

As you make friends in high places, maintain lots of friends in low places.

Betrayal is one of the most heartbreaking, debilitating and dastardly of human crimes.

It strikes at the very core of your being.

It makes you question yourself worth and purpose.

Imagine all of your energy, effort, hope, love and dream poured into a person or institution, so casually discarded and disregarded. Sometimes it is a blow from which many never recover.

There are three instances that remain vivid in my memory.

There are two ladies who underwent the trauma and agony of unfaithful husbands who have never remarried, apparently unwilling, too nervous and afraid to entrust their hearts to anyone who could crush it again. The hurt, it seems, is too awful and acute to risk another exposure to such danger and damage.

The third situation involved an executive who worked more than thirty years for the same company. He was deemed redundant and dismissed without warning.

He went home, closed his garage door, turned on his car and committed suicide.

Disloyalty is not a hurdle easily handled.

You just do not blithely get over words like:

"I do not want or need you anymore."

"I am just not feeling it."

"We are not a good fit and it just does not work for me."

"We do not connect anymore."

"I have outgrown you."

You meant it, even if the other person did not, when the preacher asked:

"Do you take this man or woman to be your lawfully wedded wife or husband for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health as you long as ye both shall live?” And you responded, "I do."

It is incomprehensible and unfathomable that an individual would venture into the house of God before all those witnesses, and swear to the man of God such binding vows that years, or perhaps days or months later, would demonstrate by his or her actions that it was all just a lie.

The intensity of the pain is heightened, as he or she walks out the door, leaving your life in shambles, when you remember the struggles of the past.

While he or she pursued that prestigious college degree or coveted green card you worked two jobs to put food on the table and keep body and soul together.

You now understand and empathize with the woman who fed arsenic to her husband, the jilted Bahamian lady who poured hot coconut oil in the ear of her sleeping spouse or Mary Winkler of Georgia who blew away her preacher husband.

Where is the loyalty?

Where is the demonstration of gratitude?

What happened to dancing with the one who "brung" you to the party?

It is at this juncture we have a vague idea of how God feels.

Through the lens of our suffering we are afforded a glimpse into the heart of God.

We disappointed him in the Garden of Eden.

We forgot Him after being delivered out Egypt, passing through the red sea, crossing over the river Jordan, entering the Promised Land and becoming fat and wealthy.

Our sacrifices to him turned into what was left instead of what was right.

It is recorded that one day He looked down from heaven upon the family of men and observed that they had all become filthy, not one was doing good or seeking God.

We are described as unrepentant harlots who prostituted ourselves with many strange and foreign lovers.

We turned Him over for 30 pieces of silver.

We denied knowledge of Him during the moment of His greatest need.

Yet despite all of that He so loved us that He allowed his only begotten son to die on that cruel rugged cross to redeem our souls.

High and lifted up, writhing in pain on that unforgiving tree, deserted by his closest companions, mocked and ridiculed by his countrymen who had surrendered him to the Romans to be crucified, watching them cast lots for his garment he uttered, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."

When we reflect and meditate on that, it is unmistakably, absolutely, positively, undeniably true:

How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

V. Knowles is a husband and father with an interest in penning issues that serve to uplift mankind. He melds his love for Classic literature, The Bible and pop culture - as sordid as it may be - into highly relatable columns of truth, faith and justice. Hence the name: Just Thinking. If he's not buried in a book or penning his next column, you may find him pinned to his sectional watching a good old Country and Western flick.