To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier on April 15, 1947. It is difficult to comprehend the sheer hatred he had to face from many fans across the country, even in New York City, where he played for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Death threats and taunts were everyday realities. The movie 42… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here He spent 20 years of his life screaming his head off. As a drill sergeant, he was (in his own words) “the guy who makes you scrub the latrine, the guy who makes you make your bed, the guy who screams at you for being late to work.” So when he… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here America lost one of its most gifted writers in 2016 when 70-year-old Pat Conroy died of pancreatic cancer. Conroy’s fiction (The Prince of Tides, The Water is Wide, The Great Santini) was primarily rooted in the tumult of his own upbringing as a “military brat,” and of the American South that… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here A few years ago John Gilbert died at the age of 25 at his home in Paradise, California. When he was five years old, John was diagnosed with Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy. That meant that during the course of his few years, John had progressively lost more and more of the physical… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here As J.K. Rowling was putting the finishing touches on her seven-part Harry Potter series, she received a lot of advice. Parents, teachers, psychologists, and fans of all ages around the globe made one heartfelt request: Please don’t let Harry die. A number of key characters had already met their demise at… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here “In due time.” That was one of my dad’s favorite Dad-isms. I have vivid memories of my brothers and I approaching our father after dinner. He would be reading the newspaper, since Dad read every single page of the Indianapolis Star every day. We would humbly present our requests. Could we… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Little more than a century ago, the city of Vienna imagined itself the embodiment of modern enlightenment. Philosophers were redefining the way people answered life’s most important questions. Avant-garde painters and musicians were redirecting the fine arts. Sigmund Freud was virtually inventing the field of psychology. It seemed to many like a brave new… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Pinky: What are we going to do tonight, Brain?Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try and take over the world! That was the opening exchange of every episode of Pinky and the Brain, the iconic 1990s animated series about a pair of genetically enhanced laboratory mice. Every now and… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Eva Hart was just seven years old when she and her parents boarded Titanic. When the “unsinkable” passenger liner collided with an iceberg on April 14, 1912, Eva and her mother were escorted to a lifeboat by her father. That was the last time they ever saw him. Hart was one… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Years ago a workplace research group from California approached some loggers in the Pacific Northwest. They made what seemed like an offer too good to be true: “We’ll double your pay for the next month. All you have to do is swing your axe so the handle hits the tree instead of… Read more »
