The largest land animals, elephants are amazing creatures. They can carry the equivalent weight of over 100 human adults. Their powerful trunks can uproot trees or hold up to four gallons of water at a time. Their sense of smell is over 100 times greater than a dog’s. They only sleep 2-3 hours a day. …
I smoked a few cigarettes this past weekend without even knowing it. That’s when Denver earned the dubious honor of the worst air quality of any large city in the world. Wasn’t even our pollution—smoke from fires in California and Oregon just settled here. Air experts cautioned against outdoor exercise, saying a day outside would …
I was quietly minding my own business (as any introverted college freshman girl would), checking my school mailbox, when someone suddenly rushed from behind and tickled both sides of my ribs. Surprised, I turned around only to see another shocked face–an upperclassman who’d intended to play a joke on his friend! Seeing my bewilderment at …
Last week’s post highlighted the battle for our attention in a frenetic, information-saturated culture. Like the drone of a fan or the roar of a river puts us to sleep physically, the seemingly infinite stream of data coming at us can lull our minds into slumber. I like this quote from the movie Joe vs …
One 90s movie we’ve enjoyed, Sister Act 2, includes a choral instructor‘s challenge to a disengaged group of high school music students: “If you want to be somebody, if you want to go somewhere, you’d better wake up and pay attention!” One might easily recall the line after watching the film because a student immediately …
In a twist on the famous quote, Desmond Tutu once said, “We learn from history that we don’t learn from history!” In other words, humans keep making the same mistakes. A recent reading in 2 Chronicles highlighted this truth for me. After King Solomon’s death, Israel divided into two separate entities, the southern and northern …
I recently had a cyst removed from my jawbone. The oral surgery took less than an hour, and I woke from the general anesthesia surprised at how swiftly those sixty minutes went by. My sense of time differed from the doctor’s because he was conscious of its passing while I was not. We travel through …
I remember as a teenager watching Soviet Olympic weightlifter Vasily Alexeev set a new world record lifting over five hundred pounds in the clean and jerk. Reported to have eaten 26 fried eggs and a steak for breakfast before a competition, Vasily set 80 world records and reigned undefeated for eight years. Feats of strength …
Whether it’s losing weight, saving money, or trying to develop a new habit, we often give up because we don’t see results fast enough. In much of the western world, we are programmed for immediate gratification. I read recently that in the United States, 70% of economic growth comes from consumer spending. The huge advertising …
I don’t know about you, but I sometimes confuse how things are with how they should be, holding tightly to the latter in defiance of the former. Some very stubborn behavior has accompanied my insistence on enforcing “the principle of the thing.” Yesterday, I was walking with a friend and where the trail crossed a …
