“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be Astonished. Tell about it.”Those wonderful, wise words by the poet Mary Oliver inspire us to find joy in the everydayness of life. To love a sycamore when it sheds strips of bark and reveals its mottled trunk. To delight in seeing a dog on a hot day...

What’s the difference, you might ask, between gratitude and gratefulness? Here’s an example: Friends brought soothing soups and multi-hued flowers to my dear friend two weeks ago to sweeten her recovery from major surgery. Appreciating their kindness and expressing thanks is gratitude. In contrast, ...

This week, The Westfield Leader and Union County HAWK contain an article about an internal affairs investigation launched by the Westfield Police Department in response to a YouTube video that levied some serious accusations of misconduct and retaliatory behavior by one of the town’s newest officers...

Our guest contributor, Theresa Stiles, crafted this creative romp as a remedy for overcoming envy.Bang! Bang! Bang! Order in the court. Guilty as charged. I daydream, but not in a good way, about envy. Sometimes you have to eat the green pie to see the light. Allow me to present my case. With gavel ...

“Nothing is more tiring and backbreaking than the relentless bitterness over what has or has not been done to us or for us. There is no harvest in that field, and the gardener ultimately dies in a dry patch of land, alone.” Tennessee Williams penned these wise words about the cost of holding onto gr...

Last week, in a 6-to-5 vote, the state board of education passed new regulations that will require schools that segregate sex-ed classes to do so based on gender identity instead of gender of birth. A slim majority of the state board has simply lost their minds. It’s one thing to be for gender affir...