Refractions and Reflections

A few years ago I left a bookstore with Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City . An entrancing read, it made me want to read more of his works, and I soon ordered Thunderstruck on paperbackswap.com . I never got around to reading it, though, and so I finally started it yesterday. It segues nicely into the next story post I wanted to write - more from my friend Millie - about work ethic and innovation in entrepreneurship. Larson's habit is to weave two dissimilar lives together in a sort of double biography that no one would ever think to thrust together. For example, in Devil in the White City he tells the story of Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the phenomenal structures of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, as intertwined with the tale of another inhabitant of Chicago at the same time, serial killer H. H. Holmes. Thunderstruck mingles the paths of Guglielmo Marconi, discoverer of wireless telegraphy (the precursor to radio and telephone technology)...

I thought today we could talk about those moments of life “that take your breath away”. You know…moments when you get a thrill of excitement, or anticipation makes you almost float away from the spot where you’re standing…those moments that make other moments seem dull.   One of my favorite experiences is seeing people or animals playing when they don’t know they are being observed (not that I’m a creeper or anything…). But really – just watching little kids use their imaginations – even together sometimes! – to relocate themselves to a faraway land in need of a hero; it is so fun! You witnessed a unique moment of innocent joy. Once I was at my mom’s house and everyone else had gone somewhere. I was sitting on the couch in the living room, watching tv or something, and when I looked down my mom’s cat was crouching, about to pounce on an unsuspecting toy my little sister had left in the floor. He would pounce and run away…and then stealthily reapproach and do it again. It was s...

Although Easter was yesterday , all that talk about resurrection gets me thinking about what it means to be alive. Lots of people have lots of different opinions on this – hence all the debates on abortion, life support, euthanasia, etc. Perhaps one of the things “being alive” means is that you get to have an opinion. And you get to learn how to live side-by-side on this great big planet with other people’s opinions, too. Love, in my opinion, is one of the more important aspects of being alive. Sure, a person can for one reason or another cut off all his or her relationships and still breathe, and walk around, and “exist”…but that reminds me more of someone on a ventilator than someone who has a strong pulse and a reason to build his or her strength again to a point of thriving. Relationships…compassion…we thrive on love both as an experience and as an activity. Inventiveness…creativity…is another special aspect of being alive. I think each person brings his or her own nuance to ...

A good epic fantasy (like Lord of the Rings, for example) involves a character(s) making his/her way through a very trying journey, to accomplish the impossible and arrive at a distant desirable location, usually being home. Motel 6 paints an accurate picture with their slogan, "We'll leave the light on." People on a long, difficult, tiring journey long for the eventual end of the road; for their arrival to be anticipated, welcomed, enjoyed. They want to get to the place where they belong. Thus goes life. For the nonbeliever, the grave eventually becomes an emblem of peace (hence the epitaph, RIP...not to mention the location of most cemeteries on a shady, picturesque hillside, fenced off from the hustle and bustle of everyday life). For the believer, heaven is our hope. As the apostle Paul put it, "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men" (1 Corinthians 15:19, NIV). Jesus said, "Don't let this throw you. ...