“I don’t trust you.” That statement means death to a relationship — any kind of relationship. And, unfortunately, there are a lot of dead relationships now… …which is why trust building is so important if we are going to repair the deep divisions in our country. And the efforts are not coming from the top down. So it is up to us to start from the ground up. The concept began in Richmond, Va., over two decades ago and has spread nationwide. Not only is it about bridging the di

It’s right there in I Corinthians 13. The writer enumerates what love is not and what it is. And, to no surprise, some of the attributes we value the most are what it is not: success, intelligence, good intentions, and public generosity. Furthermore, the qualities which we consider weak embody the complicated, yet very simple, emotion: patience, kindness, humility, contentment, tolerance, gentility, forbearance, and honesty. And honesty is perhaps one of the most difficult th

One of my favorite love stories…told to me often by both my mom and dad. I wrote this for The Harris County Journal in 2005. In 1942 Curtis Avery and the other young men in the University of Georgia senior class who had taken Advanced ROTC, were commissioned and graduated early. The bombing of Pearl Harbor had pushed America into a World War. These college students suddenly became soldiers. “I came home to Jones Crossroads and had been here for about two days when I got my or