I recently saw a photograph of Michelangelo rsquo s sculpture Moses in which a closeup view showed a small bulging muscle on Moses rsquo right arm This muscle is the extensor digiti minimi and the contraction only appears when someone lifts their pinky Michelangelo known as a master of intricate details paid close attention to the human bodies he sculpted adding intimate features most everyone else would miss Michelangelo knew the human body in ways few other sculptors have but the details he carved into granite were his attempts to reveal something deeper mdash the soul the interior life of [... more]

I received an email from a young man in England a son who explained that his father only sixty-three was in the hospital in critical condition hanging on to life Though we rsquo d never met his dad rsquo s work and mine shared many intersections The son trying to cheer his father asked me to send a video message of encouragement and prayer Deeply moved I recorded a short message and a prayer for healing I was told that his dad watched the video and gave a hearty thumbs-up Sadly a couple days later I received another email telling [... more]

In Laszlo Hanyecz made the first purchase with bitcoin a digital currency paying bitcoins for two pizzas In the value of those bitcoins would have been roughly million Back before the value skyrocketed he kept paying for pizzas with coins spending bitcoins total If he rsquo d kept those bitcoins their value would rsquo ve made him a billionaire sixty-eight times over and placed him on the Forbes rsquo ldquo richest people in the world rdquo list If only he rsquo d known what was coming Of course Hanyecz couldn rsquo t possibly have known None of us could have [... more]

The nbsp three hundred middle and high school students of the small town of Neodesha Kansas filed into a surprise school assembly They then sat in disbelief upon hearing that a married couple with ties to their town committed to pay college tuition for every Neodesha student for the next twenty-five years The students were stunned overjoyed and tearful Neodesha had been hard hit economically which meant many families worried about how to cover college expenses The gift was a generational game-changer and the donors hope it will immediately impact current families but also incentivize other families to move to [... more]

Jose a seventy-seven-year-old substitute teacher had been living out of his car for eight years Every night the elderly man bunked down in his Ford Thunderbird LX carefully monitoring the car battery as it powered his computer for his evening rsquo s work Jose used the money earmarked for rent and instead sent it to numerous family members in Mexico who needed it more Early every morning one of the teacher rsquo s former students saw Jose rummaging through his trunk ldquo I just felt I needed to do something about it rdquo the man said So he launched a [... more]

Amina an Iraqi immigrant and Joseph an American from birth attended a political protest on opposite sides We rsquo ve been taught to believe that those who are separated by ethnicity and politics carry unbridled animosity toward each other However when a small mob accosted Joseph trying to set his shirt on fire Amina rushed to his defense ldquo I don rsquo t think we could be any further apart as people rdquo Joseph told a reporter ldquo and yet it was just kinda like this common lsquo that rsquo s not OK rsquo moment rdquo Something deeper than politics [... more]

Since it was the week after Easter our five-year-old son Wyatt had heard plenty of resurrection talk He always had questions mdash usually real stumpers I was driving and he was buckled into his seat behind me Wyatt peered out the window deep in thought ldquo Daddy rdquo he said pausing and preparing to ask me a tough one hellip [... more]

Abel Mutai a Kenyan runner competing in a grueling international cross-country race was mere yards from victory mdash his lead secure Confused by the course rsquo s signage and thinking he rsquo d already crossed the finish line however Mutai stopped short The Spanish runner in second place Ivan Fernandez Anaya saw Mutai rsquo s mistake Rather than take advantage and bolt past for the win however he caught up to Mutai put out his arm and guided Mutai forward to a gold-medal win When reporters asked Anaya why he purposefully lost the race he insisted that Mutai deserved the [... more]

During the COVID- pandemic many Singaporeans stayed home to avoid being infected But I blissfully continued swimming believing it was safe My wife however feared that I might pick up an infection at the public pool and pass it on to her aged mother mdash who like other seniors were more vulnerable to the virus ldquo Can you just avoid swimming for some time for my sake rdquo she asked At first I wanted to argue that there was little risk Then I realized that this mattered less than her feelings Why would I insist on swimming mdash hardly an [... more]

During the baseball season a Chicago Cubs coach wanted to give a baseball to a young boy sitting by the dugout But when the coach tossed the ball toward him a man scooped it up instead Video of the event went viral News outlets and social media skewered this ldquo brute rdquo of a man Except viewers didn rsquo t know the whole story Earlier the man had helped the young boy snag a foul ball and they agreed to share any additional balls that came their way Unfortunately it took hours before the true story emerged The mob had [... more]

In three teens were arrested for the murder of a fourteen-year-old According to news reports the younger teen was ldquo shot because of his athletic jacket rdquo Sentenced to life in prison the three spent thirty-six years behind bars before evidence surfaced that revealed their innocence Another man had committed the crime Before the judge released them as free men he issued an apology No matter how hard we try and no matter how much good is done by our officials human justice is often flawed We never have all the information Sometimes dishonest people manipulate the facts Sometimes we [... more]

A video game one that rsquo s become a cultural phenomenon places players on a virtual island to compete until one player remains Whenever a player eliminates you from the contest you can continue to watch through that player rsquo s vantage point As one journalist notes ldquo When you step into another player rsquo s shoes and inhabit their point of view the emotional register shifts from self-preservation to communal solidarity You begin to feel invested in the stranger who not too long ago did you in rdquo Transformation happens whenever we open ourselves to see another rsquo s [... more]

During college I spent a good chunk of a summer in Venezuela The food was astounding the people delightful the weather and hospitality beautiful Within the first day or two however I recognized that my views on time management weren rsquo t shared by my new friends If we planned to have lunch at noon this meant anywhere between and p m The same for meetings or travel timeframes were approximations without rigid punctuality I learned that my idea of ldquo being on time rdquo was far more culturally formed than I rsquo d realized All of us are shaped [... more]

As many as homes in one US state are at risk of collapsing due to faulty foundations Without realizing it a concrete company pulled stone from a quarry laced with a mineral that over time causes concrete to crack and disintegrate The foundations of nearly homes have already crumbled and that number will likely skyrocket over time nbsp Jesus used the image of building a home atop a faulty foundation to explain the far riskier danger of building our lives on unsteady ground He explained how some of us construct our life on sturdy rock ensuring that we hold solid [... more]

After Vicki rsquo s old car broke down with no option for repair she started scraping together money for another vehicle Chris a frequent customer of the restaurant where Vicki works at the drive-thru window one day heard her mention she needed a car ldquo I couldn rsquo t stop thinking about it rdquo Chris said ldquo I had to do something rdquo So he bought his son rsquo s used car his son had just put it up for sale shined it up and handed Vicki the keys Vicki was shocked ldquo Who does that rdquo she said in [... more]

Alexa Amazon rsquo s voice-controlled device has an interesting feature it can erase everything you say Whatever you rsquo ve asked Alexa to do whatever information you rsquo ve asked Alexa to retrieve one simple sentence ldquo Delete everything I said today rdquo sweeps it all clean as if it never happened It rsquo s too bad that the rest of our life doesn rsquo t have this capability Every misspoken word every disgraceful act every moment we wish we could erase mdash we rsquo d just speak the command and the entire mess would disappear There rsquo s good [... more]