It felt like we’d been waiting forever for news that our pregnant neighbor had welcomed her first baby. When a sign declaring “It’s a Girl!” finally appeared on their front lawn, we celebrated the birth of their daughter and tex…

My husband and I have always enjoyed attending the Christmas Eve service at our church. In the early years of our marriage, we had a special tradition of bundling up in warm clothing after the service to hike up a nearby hill where 350 glowing lights w…

Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil of Caesarea were celebrated leaders in the fourth-century church and also close friends. They first met as philosophy students, and Gregory later said that they became like “two bodies with a single spirit.”
…

 
As I sat next to my friend Margaret, who was lying in her hospital bed, I took in the bustle and activity of the other patients, medical staff, and visitors. A young woman sitting nearby with her ailing mother asked Margaret, “Who are all…

Photographer Ronn Murray likes cold weather. Very cold weather. “Cold means clear skies,” notes journalist Lee Cowan in a TV interview with Murray. “And that can open a window to the wonderful!”
Ronn and his wife, Marketa, prov…

When he was younger, my son Xavier and I read a fictional children’s story about a boy who rebelled against his teacher by referring to a pen by a made-up name. The student convinced his fellow fifth graders to use the new name he created for pen…

It was 1968, and America was mired in a war with Vietnam, racial violence was exploding in cities, and two public figures had been assassinated. A year before, fire had taken the lives of three astronauts on the launchpad, and the idea of going to the …

“I’ve got to declare an emergency. My pilot’s deceased.” Doug White nervously uttered those words to the control tower monitoring his flight. Minutes after takeoff, the pilot of the private plane Doug’s family had chartere…

What began as a normal cable car ride across a Pakistani valley turned into a frightful ordeal. Shortly after the ride began, two supporting cables snapped, leaving eight passengers—including school children—suspended hundreds of feet in th…

An Indiana school teacher suggested her students write notes of encouragement and inspiration for their peers in “random acts of kindness.” Days later, when a school tragedy occurred in a different part of the country, their plans took on e…