Yesterday, we walked the Burgo Bridge (Puente del Burgo) in Pontevedra, Spain. Called the bridge for pilgrims—a medieval bridge built over an older bridge of Roman origin, which crosses the Lérez River. And the scallop shell with a yellow arrow…
On NPR's This American Life, Ira Glass interviewed a young woman, a singer with a Riverdance troupe. She told how one day, the troupe collectively decided to purchase a batch of lottery tickets. The plan (buoyed by sheer conviction and…
"The barracks were full of them. The image was repeated over and over again. Butterflies. They were everywhere I looked. Some were crude. Others were quite detailed." In 1946 Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross visited the Maidenek concentration camp. The children's barracks…
In the beginning, God didn’t make just one or two people; he made a whole bunch of us. “Because” he said, “you can’t really have a lot of fun—taking delight and savoring life—unless there’s a whole bunch of you.”And he…
The young couple stands in the long ticket queue at Knott's Berry Farm. Between the ticket kiosk and the main gate their two young boys—maybe ages five and six—are passing the time, playing, waiting for their parents. Their focus of…
One of my favorite parts about walking (including a good bit of wandering and roving) the Portuguese Camino, is that I approvingly have no idea where my mind (thoughts or spirit) is heading on any particular day. And consequently, no idea…
A week ago, while touring the awe-inspiring Porto Cathedral—“born” in the 12th century, and rebuilt and renovated numerous times throughout the centuries, now an elegant mixture of architectural styles—a woman is vacuuming, between and under the pews. The Cathedral is…
Do you know the story of Rabbi Eizik, son of Rabbi Yekel of Cracow?After many years of hardship and poverty, he dreamed someone bade him look for a treasure in Prague, under the bridge that leads to the king’s palace.…
Buddha's teaching method was counter intuitive, to say the very least. More often than not, he didn't even talk. He just sat there.There is a well-known story about The Buddha sitting in a place with hundreds of people gathered around…
In June 1859, Jean-François Gravelet (known as The Great Blondin) crossed Niagara Falls walking a tight rope. During his life, he repeated the feat several times, always with a different theatrical variation: blindfolded, in a sack, trundling a wheelbarrow, on…