One of the basic tenets of life is trust. We don’t know everything, and have to trust experts who are trained and specialize in certain areas of life. Growing up, we all trusted our parents to feed us, clothe us and keep us safe. As children, we just took it for granted they would ...

Social media has changed lives, often for the better but at times for the worse. It’s transformed how people communicate. It used to be that the phone, the postal mail and face to face were the only options. Now people have online resources and social networking sites to talk to ...

Fred Rogers, from the beloved children’s show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, once recalled how his mother comforted him during frightening times. “Look for the helpers,” she would say, reminding him of the people who, even in the worst situations, step up to help those in need. Many ...

Our church held its annual fall auction this past Sunday, an event organized and hosted by our women’s group nearly every year for nearly five decades. The event always draws a big crowd, including those outsiders who come to steal our baked goods. Coffee and bars are laid out on the ...

Ann Patchett was an author of the book The Dutch House, which I wrote about for Books & Beyond in 2020. I’m always brought into her books the way she writes about life. Early in These Precious Days, c 2021, she shares with her readers what books mean for her: Books were not just ...

Ahead of the firearms deer season, I pondered over my nature. An excitable guy, subject to the throes of adrenaline and emotion, fidgety and talkative, it’s a wonder I ever got into deer hunting at all, especially the kind I now enjoy most. After a couple seasons of walking hunting, a ...