The King in Plain Sight
On May 9, 1969, Fred Rogers carried a small plastic wading pool into the yard of his television house. It was a warm day in the Neighborhood. He filled the
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The Trouble with Buried Treasure
In February 2013, a couple in Northern California took their dog for a walk along a path on their property. They had walked it for years. There was nothing remarkable
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The Soul Knows the Way Home
On the morning of August 29, 1973, Roger Chapman and Roger Mallinson had finished an eight-hour shift beneath the Atlantic Ocean. Their small submersible, Pisces III, had been laying telephone
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No One Could Count Them
On October 10, 1982, an elderly Polish man stood among the thousands gathered in St. Peter’s Square in Rome. Pope John Paul II was about to declare a fellow countryman
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Before the Sun Goes Down
On December 27, 1657, thirty residents of Flushing, a small settlement in what is now Queens, New York, put their names to a letter addressed to the governor of the
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Whose Image?
In the spring of 1879, Standing Bear, a chief of the Ponca, a Native American people whose homeland lay along the Niobrara River in Nebraska, stood before a federal judge
Many Are Called
On November 24, 2009, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama hosted their first official state dinner at the White House. The guests of honor were Indian Prime Minister
Who Get’s to Decide
For more than two years, the Mona Lisa lived in a wooden trunk in a small room in Paris. Not a reproduction. Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. In August 1911,
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The Mind, the Heart and the Feet
There was a lawyer in Paris who had every reason to think of himself as a good man. He was successful and respected. He had built a reputation representing widows
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Someone Got a Grape
In 2003, two researchers at Emory University conducted an experiment with capuchin monkeys. Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal had taught the monkeys a simple transaction. A monkey would hand
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One More Time
The F Word. It may be one of the most emotionally charged words in the English language. People say it in anger. They say it when they have been hurt.
Across the Courtroom
A woman stood in an El Paso courtroom and asked permission to cross the floor. Her name was Yolanda Tinajero. She was seventy-one years old. On the other side of
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The Jesus We Want. The Jesus We Need.
Every generation remembers certain moments when the entire world seemed to hold its breath. Millions stopped what they were doing, radios stayed on through the night, television cameras never looked
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Would You Recognize a Stradivarius?
There are certain questions in life that are so important they cannot be answered for us. A parent may guide us. A teacher may influence us. Friends may offer advice.
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Be a Window of Hope
There are moments when another person changes the way we see the world. Years ago, a young graduate student spent several months living with a Navajo family while conducting research
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The Coat
It wasn’t the man they were shooting at. It was the coat. The soldiers had entered Warsaw only days after the Germans began their retreat. The war was ending. After
Who’s Your Devonte?
There are moments when the world simply feels too large. Not geographically large, but morally and emotionally large. We awaken each morning intending to care, and before the day has
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What We Learn to Value
There are some lessons life insists on teaching. It teaches them slowly. Often quietly. Sometimes painfully. We rarely recognize those lessons while they are unfolding. A conversation with a parent.
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Before the Harvest
There are few things more satisfying than certainty. We like believing we know what happened. We like believing we know who is right and who is wrong. We like problems
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Difficult to Ignore
We’ve all been there. You call your child to dinner from another room. Silence. “Did you hear what I said?” “Yes.” “Then why didn’t you come?” “I wasn’t listening.” Because
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