In Denver, Colorado's Family Star Montessori, retired accountant Sue Alexander finds new purpose. As a child leans against her, whispering, "I love squishy things," Alexander's arm (the "squishy thing") becomes a symbol of connection and care. This scene unfolds within the Early Childhood...
Woody Brown is a great writer. He graduated with top writing honors from UCLA, and completed his master’s at Columbia University. At age 28, he published his highly reviewed first book, Upward Bound. The book reveals the inner lives of neurotypical “clients” and those who care for them at an adult...
Maria Popova reframes heartbreak not as shattering but as dislocation -- a temporary loss of bearing in a universe where even the north star changes every twenty-six thousand years. Her poem refuses "the threadbare drama, the stale catastrophism" of brokenness, insisting instead that the heart...
When a red telephone appears on a London bridge, strangers pick up, and something unexpected happens. Artist Joe Bloom, troubled by how "street interview" culture had become invasive and exploitative, wanted to reimagine the format into something genuinely human. His project "A View from a Bridge"...
For a year, Helen Eveleigh and a fellow member of the Auroville Community in South India inquired about kindness among other community members in interviews and sharing circles. They learned that “kindness is so intrinsic to life that we don't even see it.” They found that an anonymous kind...
Clay Christensen was the starting center on his university's varsity basketball team. They had fought all season to reach the British championship finals. Then he learned the game was scheduled for Sunday — his Sabbath. When he told his coach he couldn't play, the response was swift: "I...
A Dutch writer is reviving "dusking" -- the nearly forgotten practice of pausing to watch the day fade into darkness -- and in doing so, offering something quietly radical to a world that has forgotten how to be still. Once common among farming families in the Netherlands who gathered to mark the...
Matthew Stone, who was living in a tent with his dog in the woods of a central Illinois city, was among the first 55 residents to move into Bloomington’s first shelter village. A fully enclosed campus with a bathhouse and community center and 48 tiny sleeping cabins, The Bridge can accommodate 56...
In 1968, Sisters Berta Sailer and Corita Bussanmas were teaching at a Catholic elementary school. “One day, a mom said to us, we need a place for our small kids. And we were young and stupid and said, well, small kids can't be a problem.” They opened their doors, and fixed breakfast for a few...
At five, Neha Kirpal was told not to brush her teeth because her mother believed the toothpaste was poisoned. Her mother had schizophrenia, and for years their home was a place where reality shifted without warning—furniture barricaded against doors at night, fights that sent her brother hiding...