Tag Archives: Perseverance

Growth That Lasts

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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here There’s no such thing as instant landscaping.  But the Bradford pear sure seemed like an exception.     This fast-growing tree with lush green leaves – native to Vietnam and China – was introduced to the United States in the 1960s.  Lady Bird Johnson, the wife of then-President LBJ, was widely acclaimed as an environmental… Read more »

It’s How You Finish

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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here It’s not how you start. It’s how you finish. What you see poised on a single human finger in the image above is a pinecone.  But it’s not just any pinecone.  That’s the primary reproductive apparatus for the California redwood, the tallest living thing on the planet.  Every one of the cone’s woody “scales” is… Read more »

Never Give Up

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To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. The pre-dawn earthquake that struck along the border of Turkey and Syria yesterday was one of the most powerful shakings those countries have ever experienced. There are fewer than 20 quakes a year anywhere on the planet that exceed a magnitude of 7.0.  This one measured 7.8, meaning it was sufficiently fierce to… Read more »

Handle Hard Better

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To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Every day we have two choices. We can hope that things will get easier.  Or we can handle life’s hard things better.  That’s the perspective of Kara Lawson, one of this generation’s most accomplished female basketball players.  Her resume includes 15 seasons as an All-Star shooting guard in the WNBA, including… Read more »

Rocks in the Mountains

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Owners of restaurants, bars, salons, and retail stores live in the hope of receiving five-star reviews from Yelp, a popular online customer review service.  One-star reviews, on the other hand (“we had to endure the worst waiter ever”) can have immediate impact on public perception – even if the reviewer had simply gotten up on the wrong side of the bed… Read more »

Running the Race

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Two weekends ago, more than 20,000 runners, joggers, walkers, and wheelchair participants left the starting line of the OneAmerica Indy Mini-Marathon.  The race is one of the world’s premiere 13.1-mile annual events.  It begins and ends in downtown Indianapolis, and famously includes a single two-and-a-half-mile lap around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the “500.”  For some participants, the Mini-Indy is the… Read more »

Surviving Yesterday

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It’s become known as the Fail Mary. Lance Easley calls it something else: the worst moment of his life. This fall will mark the 10th anniversary of the Monday Night Football contest when Easley, a replacement referee, ruled that a desperation pass by then-Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson was a touchdown.  It was the game’s final play.  Seahawks win, Green Bay… Read more »

It’s Supposed to Be Hard

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“There’s no crying in baseball!” That’s the most frequently quoted line from A League of Their Own, the 1992 feature film about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which opened the door for women to play pro ball when World War II sent numerous MLB players into combat. But the film’s most compelling conversation takes place between Dottie Hinson, the… Read more »

Finish the Race

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In the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, marathon runner John Stephen Akhwari of Tanzania finished last. But there’s quite a bit more to his story. Akhwari was one of the world’s best long distance runners.  He had never trained at high altitudes, however, such as those in central Mexico.  Several miles into the marathon, Akhwari began to cramp.  Then, approaching the… Read more »

Yitzhak Perlman

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Yitzhak Perlman has enjoyed a lifelong love affair with the violin. The native Israeli was first drawn to its sound at age three, when he was captivated by a classical music performance on the radio.  Denied admission to a musical conservatory because he was too small to hold a real instrument, he nonetheless taught himself to play the violin by using a toy fiddle…. Read more »