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“As we look back in time with our marvelous telescopes, we are not viewing our current reality, we are viewing what was. As we sit in our local gravity pit, we are swimming within what is, wondering as to what will be.”
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“The universe is all beautiful and thus far beyond the comprehension of our limited knowledge to explain. Our universe is truly a vast magnificent place of beauty and wonder. In this our current year, the mystery remains.”
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“The butterfly effect is the idea that small things can have non-linear impacts on a complex system. The concept is imagined with a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon Forest and causing a typhoon in the Pacific.
Imagine the butterfly effect applied to your actions. A small act of kindness in your neighborhood or city gaining strength and spreading to benefit the many.
Perhaps, that thought will make you think twice in moments of weakness.”
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Imagine the butterfly effect applied to your actions. A small act of kindness in your neighborhood or city gaining strength and spreading to benefit the many.
Perhaps, that thought will make you think twice in moments of weakness.”
―
“We were not accidental. The evidence is written in our own longing.
I remember the moment I received an unexpected kindness or delivered the same to a stranger or acquaintance: the involuntary warmth that rises in both the giver and the receiver. That warmth requires no theological degree to recognize. It is the soul acknowledging its own native language.
Science confirms what faith has always known: human beings severed from meaningful connection wither. Not metaphorically, physically. The body itself registers isolation as injury; community as medicine. At our basic architecture, we are creatures designed for one another.
The blueprint reveals the Builder's intention.
That seemingly inconsequential something residing beneath our ambitions and anxieties (the part that persists when achievement fades and accumulation fails to satisfy) has been recognized across every civilization, every century, every tradition that has paused long enough to examine what a human being actually is.
It is not the mind. Not the body.
It is the soul (that divine signature infused into ordinary flesh) restless, perpetually seeking, mysteriously homesick for something no material possession has ever successfully provided.
I have felt profoundly that some miracles are simply moments when that invisible architecture becomes briefly visible, when the veil between what we are and what we were made for grows thin enough to glimpse through.
I feel it unmistakably in the giving. In the comforting. In the moment I have set aside my own appetite to serve another's need and discover, paradoxically, that I have never felt more completely myself. I am far from alone; we have all felt these incredible moments.
This is not a coincidence. This is design.
We were created for love, to give it, receive it, and follow it like a compass needle that points perpetually home.”
―
I remember the moment I received an unexpected kindness or delivered the same to a stranger or acquaintance: the involuntary warmth that rises in both the giver and the receiver. That warmth requires no theological degree to recognize. It is the soul acknowledging its own native language.
Science confirms what faith has always known: human beings severed from meaningful connection wither. Not metaphorically, physically. The body itself registers isolation as injury; community as medicine. At our basic architecture, we are creatures designed for one another.
The blueprint reveals the Builder's intention.
That seemingly inconsequential something residing beneath our ambitions and anxieties (the part that persists when achievement fades and accumulation fails to satisfy) has been recognized across every civilization, every century, every tradition that has paused long enough to examine what a human being actually is.
It is not the mind. Not the body.
It is the soul (that divine signature infused into ordinary flesh) restless, perpetually seeking, mysteriously homesick for something no material possession has ever successfully provided.
I have felt profoundly that some miracles are simply moments when that invisible architecture becomes briefly visible, when the veil between what we are and what we were made for grows thin enough to glimpse through.
I feel it unmistakably in the giving. In the comforting. In the moment I have set aside my own appetite to serve another's need and discover, paradoxically, that I have never felt more completely myself. I am far from alone; we have all felt these incredible moments.
This is not a coincidence. This is design.
We were created for love, to give it, receive it, and follow it like a compass needle that points perpetually home.”
―
“The Gift That Asks Nothing Back
Nature planted within every living creature an irresistible devotion to tomorrow - not their own tomorrow, but the tomorrow of those who will never remember their name.
The salmon swims upstream until it cannot swim anymore — not for itself, but for what comes after.
The parent sacrifices sleep, comfort, and ambition for a child who will one day leave without fully understanding the cost.
The farmer plants trees whose shade he will never sit beneath.
This force — ancient, ungoverned, and magnificent - cares nothing for our individual survival. It simply insists that life itself must continue and quietly recruits each of us into that cause without asking our permission.
We are each a link in a chain stretching beyond memory in both directions.
What is truly humbling is this: the drive that ensures our species outlasts us individually asks nothing in return. No immortality. No recognition. No guarantee that we personally will witness what our sacrifice made possible.
We serve a future we will never see.
And something deep within us considers that enough.
Perhaps that is the most eloquent argument for a Creator who understood that love (real love) was never about the lover's survival.
It was always about the beloved's flourishing.
We were built, it seems, for something larger than ourselves.”
―
Nature planted within every living creature an irresistible devotion to tomorrow - not their own tomorrow, but the tomorrow of those who will never remember their name.
The salmon swims upstream until it cannot swim anymore — not for itself, but for what comes after.
The parent sacrifices sleep, comfort, and ambition for a child who will one day leave without fully understanding the cost.
The farmer plants trees whose shade he will never sit beneath.
This force — ancient, ungoverned, and magnificent - cares nothing for our individual survival. It simply insists that life itself must continue and quietly recruits each of us into that cause without asking our permission.
We are each a link in a chain stretching beyond memory in both directions.
What is truly humbling is this: the drive that ensures our species outlasts us individually asks nothing in return. No immortality. No recognition. No guarantee that we personally will witness what our sacrifice made possible.
We serve a future we will never see.
And something deep within us considers that enough.
Perhaps that is the most eloquent argument for a Creator who understood that love (real love) was never about the lover's survival.
It was always about the beloved's flourishing.
We were built, it seems, for something larger than ourselves.”
―
Michael’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Michael’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
21 books
|
36 friends
32 books
|
25 friends
15 books
|
71 friends
3 books
|
32 friends
0 books
|
50 friends
33 books
|
40 friends
10 books
|
87 friends
1 book
|
48 friends
More friends…
Favorite Genres
History, Humor and Comedy, Music, Mystery, Philosophy, Poetry, Psychology, Science, and Spirituality
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