$30,000 Dumpster Dive
Artist Michael Daube was rummaging through a dumpster near his Jersey City loft, looking for sculpture materials, when he came across a David Hockney drawing worth $30,000! The son of a steel worker and a housewife, neither a high school graduate, Michael took off for India. While working at Mother Teresa's mission in Calcutta, he asked her how he might practice compassion $18,000 richer. She sugg... posted on Apr 30 2006, 1,503 reads

49,000 Grandmothers of Nepal
Twenty years ago, Nepal's infant-mortality rate was 133 for every 1,000 births, with most of the babies claimed by pneumonia and diarrhea. By the 1980s, they had found the culprit -- lack of Vitamin A in the Nepalese diet. But no one could implement an effective program to deliver a low-cost vitamin-A capsule that could be taken as infrequently as twice a year. That was until Ram Shrestha hit up... posted on Apr 26 2006, 2,743 reads

One-word Sidewalk Sermons
Talk about a man with an eternal message. At least 50 times a day for more than 30 years he wrote the word 'Eternity' in chalk all across the public streets and sidewalks of Sydney. For years no one knew who this mysterious one-word sermon was authored by. Arthur Stace's story is fascinating. Born into a deeply troubled family, he grew into a homeless, recovering alcoholic who could barely write h... posted on Apr 25 2006, 5,089 reads

The Bravest of the Brave
"The bravest of the brave," "The greatest man I have ever known." These are the words of those who knew Capt. Mbaye Diagne, a young Senegalese army officer who served in Rwanda as an unarmed U.N. military observer. He was a hero, in the spirit of Oskar Schindler in the 1940's. From literally the first hours of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, Capt. Mbaye simply ignored the U.N.'s standing orders not ... posted on Apr 23 2006, 1,564 reads

A Dog with Infinite Patience
Are you the kind of person who has a hard time waiting for anything? Here's some inspiration for you: Hachiko, Japan's most celebrated canine. A dog who walked his owner to the train station every day and came back to receive him in the evening after work. When his owner died one day while at office, this faithful dog refused to go home and waited patiently at the station -- for ten years(!) -- un... posted on Apr 22 2006, 5,260 reads

The Paradoxical Commandments
Sometimes ripples take time to spread. Written in the turbulent sixties, when student activists were seizing buildings, throwing rocks at police and shouting down opponents, Kent Keith’s Paradoxical Commandments provided an alternative voice. Kent wrote them as a booklet for high school leaders when he was a 19 year-old at Harvard. "I laid down the Paradoxical Commandments as a challenge," he sa... posted on Apr 18 2006, 2,251 reads

Bridging Art & Spirituality
Meet Sister Wendy Beckett, Britain’s self-taught art nun turned international celebrity -- who never watched TV before she was on it. A nun in the contemplative tradition, she lived most of her life in silence and seclusion before a chance encounter led to her becoming the unlikely presenter for a series of highly acclaimed art documentaries. Today she is one of the world’s best known and best... posted on Apr 16 2006, 1,741 reads

Many Acorns, Many Oaks
Fact or fiction, can't say, but it's inspiring, and it's about the difference a single determined person can make in the world when they put their mind and body to the task. Elzeard Bouffier, a pre-WWI shepherd in solitude, takes it upon himself to restore the ruined ecosystem of the isolated and largely abandoned valley in the French Alps by singled-handedly cultivating a forest, tree by tree, pl... posted on Apr 15 2006, 1,654 reads

A Billboard Filled With Gratitude
A liver transplant patient was so happy with the treatment he received at a hospital that he put up a billboard poster in a busy street thanking the entire staff. A hospital spokesman said Mr. Sullivan's thanks had "gone that extra mile."... posted on Apr 14 2006, 1,588 reads

A Symbolic Quest for Better Living
A dangerously obese man has captured the heart of America by walking alone across the country to lose weight and find his soul. Steve Vaught was in a car accident in which two people died, sending him into years of depression and comfort eating. Hitting 400+ pounds, he realized that he would die if he carried on. After a year and more than 2300 miles on the road, his journey has become a symbolic ... posted on Apr 13 2006, 2,011 reads