Wang Weiguo, an award-winning actor with the National Theatre Company of China, was wandering through Bejing’s Panjiayuan Flea Market when he found a treasure, 20 exquisite picture frames. He bought them all. Inside the frames were a woman’s life story. There were pictures of her as a baby and a growing child, pictures with...
I grew up with a single parent back in the days when such family configurations were uncommon. To keep a roof over our heads, Mother worked five and a half days a week for a seed company in Twin Falls, Idaho. We would have had a hard time surviving on her meager salary, but...
Most Germans don’t give much thought to millstones these days. Wolfgang Strakosch does. The 58-year-old artisan from the Bavarian village of Zusamaltheim is the last millstone mason in the country. He hews millstones from the same basalt used for that purpose for more than 2000 years. He understands how to cut the porous rock...
Giving something every day…now there’s a good idea. Instead of keeping the focus turned firmly inward, Jacqueline set out to “create a movement that would mobilize people to give back every day of their lives.” She’s nearing the finish line. Every day she figures out some way to give something. Here are some examples:...
People send me links that give them hope. This one comes from the wonderful folk at Guurrbi Tours. For nearly fifty years Joan Rayment and Aunty Grace Dick have been pen pals. Through all the years of letters, through marriage and childbirth and shared confidences, they had only met once until recently. That was...
Every pregnancy should be a welcome one, but life isn’t always simple or kind. So it’s wonderful to see the joy that greets the announcements on MotherGlow. The site posts “videos of expecting moms revealing the news to their families and friends”. These sweet little films make me smile and even shed a tear...
Most of us think about what we’d do if we hit the jackpot. Violet and Allen Large had to do more than think about it. In July 2010 they won $11.2 million in the Canadian 6/49 lottery. Consumer toys weren’t on their list. Neither was a replacement for their 147-year-old house or their 1987...
I’m totally amazed every time it happens, even though it happens a lot. Sometimes they arrive in human forms. Other times they appear as books or poems or paintings or a bird flying overhead. They are signs but only if we interpret them that way, and I do. I do that even though I...
The premise caught my interest. Seven young Americans answering a call to serve humanity. They were Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim. The filmmakers followed them “from their first days of training, through years of challenges, doubts, triumphs and surprises, and into their early practice as ordained professionals.” PBS aired the documentary on Independent Lens...
When Chooka Parker took the stage at Australia’s Got Talent, he was so diffident I wasn’t sure what to expect. At the same time, he had a quiet confidence that belied his sixteen years. When he said he had nothing prepared and was just going to play whatever came into his head, I ratcheted...
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