Picture yourself and just one other person in a dentist’s waiting room (think pre-COVID, even pre-smart phone days). Do you attempt a conversation? Maybe, depending on your personality. And it could turn into a nice visit. But if the person ignores you, do you feel...

As my wife and I entered the old Spanish fort on the island of Vieques, I immediately noticed the statue of a white woman with flowing blond hair and bright blue eyes. She was holding a child of similar complexion. The Roman Catholic symbolism made it obvious that...

For more than a year, people nearly everywhere on the face of the earth have been asked, encouraged, instructed, urged, required, or otherwise prompted to wear a mask or face covering in public. Whatever your opinion of the present focus on mask wearing, there seems...

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus made it clear that everyone with whom we come in contact is our neighbor. Jesus used the example of someone from Samaria being the neighbor to a beaten and dying Jew. Normally, Jews and Samaritans had nothing to do with each...

You’ve been carrying around a COVID bubble for well over a year now. It’s like the old concept of “personal space,” only bigger—a six-foot-radius circle. This bubble is inherently distancing and isolating. Most of us have felt lonely. Some real human needs are not met...