Author Archives: JR Stanley

Growing up, I recall being terrified of mummies. The dried skin clinging to the shriveled body, the decayed head and bony hands. The vestiges of the embalming process present as loss wrapping hung now limply around the shrunken skeleton. Whether in a museum or book, the death and the customs surrounding the death were foreign in aContinue reading “A numbing adaptation”

    This is as political as this blog will get. The fact that this topic is construed as political is concerning. Somehow what is, in reality, a human and an earth problem, has been relegated to a small portion of political bickering in much of the modern world. A bit of history. Originally thereContinue reading “We must care…”

Whether in science, faith, investments, or relationships you can always talk yourself out of the next thing. The next experiment. The next exercise or experience. The next trade. The next friend. There will always be ways to convince yourself to stick to the status quo, to stay where you are, to play it safe. ItContinue reading “What a Journey”

One form of chronological snobbery that I often hear, and yet am convinced is erroneous, is the condemnation of previous generations as bigoted, racist, sexist, etc with the belief that were we to live in those times we have gone about life differently. The haunting question for us, for our generations, is “what do weContinue reading “All we do not see…”

Honestly, and the antithesis, lying, are simple in concept, but can become inordinately complicated to consider practically. When children are young, it is simple and sensible to imbue them with what they take as the hard and fast principle that one should never lie. The humorous, classic example is when a child eats a candy,Continue reading “On Honesty and Lying”

At the end of everything, when all is said and done, it will be how we allocated our time and leveraged our talents for the benefit of others that will matter. No one is the same. People are given vastly different amounts of time. Some a handful of years, some a century or more. People areContinue reading “Time and Talents”

Over pad thai with a friend, a question arouse: how would you be different, how would your life be different, if you did not have your faith?  This question provides perspective not only on faith, but on many aspects of life including friends, careers, hobbies, and dreams. Often aspects of our life that “feel” important orContinue reading “If I did not have ________.”

We are a people driven by movements. Whether we are looking for a feeling of belonging, pursuing a greater meaning in life, or merely looking for an entertaining pastime, we are often drawn to movements. Over the past two weeks I have noticed the refrain of “joining a movement” and “starting a movement” in everyContinue reading “The Me in MoveMEnts”