From Me to You

Did you know that Charles Dickens—that's right, the guy who wrote "A Christmas Carol"—wrote a book about the life of Jesus? And the best part is that he wrote it for his kids! The handwritten manuscript was a private family treasure for many years, until the children decided to share it with the world in 1934. It was the last work of Dickens to be published. I have a tradition of reading the short book each Easter. As a Christian, I appreciate the overview it gives of the life of Jesus Christ. But most of all, it's a good reminder to me that each of us—whether we have "children of our own" or not—have the opportunity to create something meaningful to leave the next generation. Whether that ''thing" is a tangible item, or a teaching, or an influence, it has the potential to continue shaping, strengthening, and empowering our children long after we've left. Every day gives us another chance to create—through words, artwork, letters, v...

I’m trying to get back in the habit of exercise, and found myself thinking a lot about comparisons while on the stationary bike today. You know how when you’re on a treadmill or some other machine, you can choose different programs to run? The machine makes the incline steeper or the pace faster for certain intervals of time. The changing difficulty levels are often represented by vertical bars on the machine’s screen. As I looked down the row of machines today, some people were running fast, others were sweating hard and pushing the pedals slowly. How could I tell who was working the hardest? I realized that I couldn’t! Because the person who seems to be flying by might have zero incline, while the person barely moving might be climbing steep terrain. The person who is only walking might have already been through an intense workout and is finally doing a much-needed cool-down interval. In a similar way, we don’t know what experiences other people ar...

On January 7, 2015, Kevin Jorgensen clung to the side El Capitan—a rock formation in Yosemite National Park. He and his climbing buddy Tommy Caldwell would go on to become the first people to free-climb Dawn Wall, but they didn't know it at the time. Instead, what Kevin knew was that he kept falling. Over, and over, and over again. He was stuck on Pitch 15, a treacherous sideways part of the climb that had only the tiniest of sharp handholds. He would fail to complete the pitch 11 times over seven days.  Fast-forward two days. On January 9, Jorgensen slid along Pitch 15 with renewed determination. Put your foot here. Grab there. Shift foot there. Release and regrip. Every technical move had to be done exactly right. Finally, the magical moment came. Jorgensen clipped his tether into the carabiner, marking the completion of the pitch. He had done it! What made the difference? I wonder if part of his success came about because of two important practices Jorgensen did...

I was walking through an aquarium gift store when an adorable picture book caught my eye. It was called "With Your Paw in Mine" by Jane Chapman. What I didn't realize at the time was that this book would end up communicating a much-needed message of love during a tumultuous time in my life. You see, I've been pretty sick. I started off 2019 in the hospital, and I feel like I haven't had too many healthy days since then. And even if you haven't gone through a prolonged period of illness yourself, I'm sure you can imagine that this season has been an emotional trial as well as a physical one. It's hard to stay positive and interact well with others when all you really want to do is sleep. Or at least it is for me. :) And because of that, it has become really easy for me to get down on myself. Some of my former measurements of success aren't things I can currently do well. It was after a particularly stormy month recently that family members came...

If a piece of art changed my life, I would remember what it looked like forever. Right? I recall so many other details about that day. It was November 2016, and I was visiting the Skirball Center, a Jewish cultural institution in Los Angeles. There were several art exhibits to explore—a life-size Noah's Ark, for example, and an interactive living room created to look like a Liechtenstein. But the life-changing realization took place in a collection of paintings (I think they were paintings?) that taught about daily life in Jewish worship. "You think  they were paintings? You don't even remember that much?" I can hear you ask, and I agree! It's crazy! I mean, I remember feeling captivated  by what I saw, even though the scene in the artwork was an extremely ordinary one—a woman baking bread, perhaps? It was some sort of daily chore, accompanied by information about the exhibit titled "Daily Life: Deeds that lead to holiness." I did make note o...