The Great Unsettling: Fast pace of social change leaves us uncertain and uneasy. Here’s how we can cope. Journalist Shams Charania accurately summed up modern life in 18 words: “The world we live in now is totally different than it was five, six, seven, eight years ago.” Charania was speaking about his specialty – he reports on the NBA for The Athletic. Yet, he could have been describing how our world has changed in the past two years as the COVID-19 pandemic radically altered how we live,...

Legos at Easter: We’re made to work together to build something beautiful with our neighbors. My grandchildren love to build all sorts of things – spaceships, castles, skyscrapers – with Legos.  For them, snapping together brightly colored Lego bricks to create something new is a fun outlet for their imagination. I’m not so enamored with Legos myself – I’ve had too many late night, barefoot encounters with hard-edged bits of plastic that a grandchild left behind on the floor. The other...

As inflation bites, my neighbors water down their children’s milk to make ends meet. Inflation is an insidious tax on people in poverty.  And it’s one that forces my neighbors on the east side of Indianapolis to make heartbreaking choices each day. I know parents who in recent months have begun to water down their children’s milk to make it go further. I’ve seen multiple families move into one small house because they can no longer afford a home of their own. And I’ve listened as mothers...

The Great Unsettling: Fast pace of social change leaves us uncertain and uneasy. Here’s how we can cope. Journalist Shams Charania accurately summed up modern life in 18 words: “The world we live in now is totally different than it was five, six, seven, eight years ago.” Charania was speaking about his specialty – he reports on the NBA for The Athletic. Yet, he could have been describing how our world has changed in the past two years as the COVID-19 pandemic radically altered how we live,...

Legos at Easter: We’re made to work together to build something beautiful with our neighbors. My grandchildren love to build all sorts of things – spaceships, castles, skyscrapers – with Legos.  For them, snapping together brightly colored Lego bricks to create something new is a fun outlet for their imagination. I’m not so enamored with Legos myself – I’ve had too many late night, barefoot encounters with hard-edged bits of plastic that a grandchild left behind on the floor. The other...

As inflation bites, my neighbors water down their children’s milk to make ends meet. Inflation is an insidious tax on people in poverty.  And it’s one that forces my neighbors on the east side of Indianapolis to make heartbreaking choices each day. I know parents who in recent months have begun to water down their children’s milk to make it go further. I’ve seen multiple families move into one small house because they can no longer afford a home of their own. And I’ve listened as mothers...