If life teaches us anything, it’s that wants and needs are two different things. A child has many wants from a parent, but need boils down to the wisdom, strength and courage that come through a mom and dad’s faith, hope and love. So what happens if mom or dad dies? Suddenly a main source […]

This post is dedicated to Dolores, my family’s lifelong friend and my surrogate mom. As one who is passionate about life, she has grown wise as its student. So it’s no surprise that one of Dolores’s passions is genealogy: the study of a family’s lines of descent. She understands that by knowing your history you […]

Many country/western songs are about the search for love, but their lyrics really explain why we misinterpret the true meaning of love—and therefore end up “lookin’ for love in all the wrong places.” This idea of needing love that’s requited by someone else rather than required of us is where humanity goes wrong. True love […]

A crop of young faces sprouted at one of the main intersections of our town this summer. The faces belong to Independence High School’s Graduating Class of 2020, but they represent a generation of young people hoping to make their way in a post-pandemic world. Theirs was a graduation with a lot less pomp, under […]

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said many memorable things through his speeches. His last one, delivered the night of April 3, 1968—the night before he was assassinated—is famous for how it ended. He said “I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, […]