The Modest Miracle

Why was it that my hardest semester as a Psychology major at BYU taught me the most about thriving? It had all started out innocuously enough.   I was working part-time at a local burger joint and volunteering at my church, but my class load wasn't much heavier than I'd had in the past.   I didn’t think that the coming months would be exactly easy, but there was no particular indication that it would be worse than any other pair of terms I'd run across. Then the assignments started rolling in, like the initial rumble of an avalanche before it sweeps down on top of you and pile-drives you off the mountainside.   I found myself staying up later and later to keep up with the demand, on top of the late nights I had to work for my job.   The early hours of the morning became my almost constant companion.   I had literally zero time for a social life outside of church and brief conversations with my roommates.   My goal of going on a date a we...

In Spanish, the word "esperar" can mean to hope, to wait, and to expect.   The most powerful kind of hope is less wishful thinking and more expecting something so ardently that you're willing to wait for it until it actually happens. That's a daring thing. It means to carry on looking for it even though it hasn't arrived yet, in the face of the prospect that it may never come. And one of the most daring things to hope in that way for is a better world. There is a lot of sadness and pain in this one.   Sometimes our own personal world feels a bit drab.   There are people looking for something, just one thing, that means more to them than anything else, and it's the one thing they can't seem to find.   Someone I respect once said: "Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he’s been robbed. The fact is that most putts don’t drop, most beef is tough, most children g...

Are there any truly big acts of kindness, or just small ones masquerading as greater things?   What makes a good deed big or little?   Are there any truly little acts of kindness, or is every good deed inherently big but subtle? These are the things I have been thinking about this week. On one hand, any act of kindness, if it is performed when the beneficiary is at a critical life junction, can have a big impact.   Life turns on small hinges.   A well-timed good turn can change everything about a person's life. So does that mean that mean there are no small acts of service?   Because their influence at any given time can be big? On the flip side, there are many works of kindness that pass almost unnoticed, even to the people receiving them.   There have been numerous occasions when someone has smiled, said hello, held an elevator, or slightly inconvenienced themselves for another's benefit only to have the act forgotten secon...