The Shoebox Miracle The odds of ever having lived this dance called life are staggeringly low. My great-grandfather was born so small and fragile that the hospital sent him home in a shoebox. He was 4.5 months premature. That box was intended to be his final resting place. He was expected to die. He weighed about one pound. One pound of stubborn life. The doctor said there was no chance he would survive. “We’re sorry. There’s nothing we can do. You may take him home.” A nurse lowered the tiny...

The Friend Who Believes In Nothing A Bolivian dancer at Carnaval de Valencia I have a friend who believes in nothing. He is unfazed by the 1:4 trillion chance of living a human life, and the seven trillion functional nerves in the human body. The way everything fits together. He ignores those among us who have seen signs or received communication from beyond the confines of the living world. He is very pessimistic, to the surprise of no one. His heart is closed. His energy field is a small...

The Joy of Losing Oneself A girl in Warsaw, lost in a floating sea of bubbles. Feeling lost? Good. That means you’re searching. Searching means you’re on the edge of something real. I beat my mid-life crisis to the punch. At 38, I had a successful marketing business. My income was increasing by the month, but I spent almost every waking hour at my desk. I was lost. I booked a flight to Greece without a plan. On a tiny island, after five days of fasting, I interrogated myself and scrawled some...