August 2017. With a carload of young and adult men, I pulled into a small parking lot at the base of a 4-day long backpacking trail. We were there to summit the tallest peak in Utah.

As you can imagine, mobile phone reception was spotty, but a voicemail from my wife reached me as we pulled in.

She had been to the doctor.

The diagnosis: Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma.

Her doctor caught it very early; the post-operative recovery rate above 99%. She was one of the lucky ones.

It shocked her into making some pretty dramatic lifestyle changes which I’ve written…

Who am I?

In our lifetime, we may ask ourselves that question more than once. Sometimes, it’s superficial self-questioning. At others, it sparks deep reflection, and may result in a career change, dramatic weight loss, or going all-in with a new relationship.

From birth, we are assigned labels. In my opinion, many of these are harmless except that each label we receive — if we’re not careful — will pigeon-hole us further into thinking about ourselves only through the lens of how others see us or what others expect from us.

Worldwide, the average height for a man is around…

Consider this composite image.

What thoughts and feelings are elicited by the two halves of this picture. Here are a couple of obvious primers:

Eye for Ebony

• The image features just one person.
• The way her eyes are looking makes me believe she is looking at another person.
• The smile on her face indicates she is happy about something.
• She is wearing what looks like a nice watch, a gold-colored chain necklace, and nice earrings which lends itself to a measure of affluence, but she’s not rich.
• She is beautiful.
• The narrative I imagine when looking at this picture is…

My wife works as a health coach. She became interested in taking control of her health after a cancer diagnosis, surgery, and treatment. She’s an amazingly disciplined person. When she puts her mind to something she is 100% committed to it.

This will sound odd, but it was hard for me to watch her get healthy. She went on a strict (but healthy) diet and she lost a lot of weight fast.

So much of our life — up to that point — revolved around food. It was our primary social outlet: going to dinner with friends. …

7:02 pm. June 13, 2019. 15-year old Donnel was struck and killed on Helen Street by a 24-year old driver who lost control of his car. He was traveling through a neighborhood at a high rate of speed. The driver attempted to flee the scene and was forcibly detained by residents until the police arrived.

5:21pm. October 24, 2019. 34-year Anna and her unborn baby died when their vehicle was struck by another car travelling at “excessive speed” in “abhorrent conditions”. The vehicle that struck Anna was traveling above 100mph (161km/h) in snowy conditions. …

2020 began with people alive with anticipation of the new decade and ended with people worldwide exhausted and anxious for change and relief. 2021, at least in the United States, didn’t start out with the calm most people hoped for; political unrest and the Capitol riot were capstones to the chaos that left so many people on edge, wondering what the next thing would be.

For many people in “developed” nations, the worldwide pandemic, race riots, and political and civil unrest are the most traumatic things they’ve ever experienced. They hit over and over again with unrelenting force. …

Little Kavita Laghari was born in Shanivarasanthe, India in 1941 — the first child born in the village that year. Her mother came from a royal bloodline that was ousted by Ahmad Yar Khan when he took over the rule of Baluchistan (now in Pakistan) in 1933. They sold what they could and used the money to get as far away as possible, even though travel under British rule was difficult. Their money was nearly exhausted when they arrived in Shanivarasanthe in the Southern Indian district of Kodagu, Karnataka.

Being royalty was the only skill Kavita’s parents had. They spent…

In 63 BC, Pompey laid siege to Jerusalem. 70 years later, the Romans are still in charge, oppressing the people; only allowing most of them to eek out a meager existence.

A warm summer breeze blows from the South, carrying the distinct scent of the fish markets around the Sea of Galilee to the surrounding hillside. Hundreds of people are seated in a semi-circle listening to a man most only know as an itinerate preacher, a man called Jesus from Nazareth, as he teaches what would be known more than a millennia later as the Beatitudes.

As his sermon draws…