By: Andy Hale on August 31, 2022
Two very distinctive leaders, taking on two wildly diverging paths for the same pursuit, equality, and equity in South Africa. Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela could be compared to the spiritual and political contemporaries, Nehemiah and Ezra. Tutu was said to be the moral compass of South Africa, while Mandela was its father, guiding the…
By: Jonathan Lee on August 30, 2022
Nelson Mandela, the recipient of the Nobel peace prize in 1993, grew up battling the evil against human rights and racial equality in South Africa. In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela recreates his lifelong destiny and struggle in overcoming apartheid in South Africa. And Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the author of No Future…
By: Henry Gwani on August 30, 2022
Long Walk to Freedom discusses South Africa’s democracy from the perspective of one of her most beloved sons. It chronicles the life of Nobel Laurette Nelson Mandela from birth at Mvezo, a South African rural area in a province that was then called The Transkei, to becoming the country’s first democratically-elected president. The journey includes…
By: Kayli Hillebrand on August 28, 2022
I spent most of the summer in Nelson Mandel’s Long Walk to Freedom. I chose to read it in entirety, compelled to know as much as I could about this global figure. Only ten when he was released from prison, I have limited memories of what was on the news surrounding his release and international…
By: Roy Gruber on April 28, 2022
An actual conversation I overheard last week: “Did you hear? There was another shooting.” “Yes, I did. We shouldn’t be surprised, though. Jesus said it would get worse and worse before the end.” “We are seeing that playing out right now. Maybe Jesus will return very soon.” “I sure hope so; it’s getting really dark.”…
By: Denise Johnson on April 27, 2022
The one’s mind is an amazing organ that can collaborate with others to solve the most seemingly unsurmountable challenges. Yet those same brilliant, and incredibly gifted individuals can become fixated on the numbers that substantiate their certainly. [1] Hans Rosling with his daughter-in-law Anna Rosling Rönnlund and son Ola Rosling joined forces in challenging the…
By: Elmarie Parker on April 27, 2022
Daniel Kahneman in his book “Thinking, Fast and Slow”[1] introduced us in the fall semester to the contrasting fast thinking of intuition (which includes perception, memory, and the mental shortcuts of heuristics), naming it System 1, with the slow thinking of effortful deliberation or System 2. Hans Rosling, in his book, “Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re…
By: Troy Rappold on April 27, 2022
In Hans Rosling’s 2018 book, Factfulness, our assumptions about the nature and the state of our world are challenged. Rosling organizes his book with “10 reasons why we’re wrong about the world, and why things are better than we think” (p.7). He devotes one incorrect perception with our world per chapter. A brief summary concludes…
By: Nicole Richardson on April 27, 2022
Perception is reality. Well at least that was the worldview of the leadership of a church I served in Pennsylvania. It was perception that partially led to my firing. I do not like this idea that reality is grounded on perception. Reading Hans Rosling’s Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why…
By: Kayli Hillebrand on April 27, 2022
Global health expert, Hans Rosling, spent much of his career redefining how global health was perceived and engaged with. In his final book, Factfulness, Rosling challenges the reader to look at current global realities from a different perspective. While the world can feel as if little to no progress is being made in multiple areas,…
By: Andy Hale on April 26, 2022
Everyone should read this book, especially those with whom I disagree. Or maybe I got that wrong from the first chapter as the Roslings explain why we have us versus them mentality. The late psychologist’s final work on sociology and critical thinking while battling pancreatic cancer collaborated with his son Ola, a statistician, and daughter-in-law…
By: Mary Kamau on April 26, 2022
The mention of trauma does not seems to draw so much attention and it has not been given significance as a crisis in society despite of the ‘epidemic’ that it really is. Covid19 was declared an epidemic and disrupted every aspect of life but it has been dealt with accordingly, because it was given the…
By: Eric Basye on April 24, 2022
If you have the wrong worldview, you will make the wrong decisions. This is the premise of Factfulness, a social psychology book written by Hans Rosling and his son and daughter-in-law. After years of attempting to teach a fact-based worldview to his students, Rosling found that despite the stats before them, many intelligent and well-rounded…
By: Denise Johnson on April 21, 2022
Over the years I have used the image of the Star Trek spaceship Enterprise, under attack to illustrate the human response to threatening circumstances and relationships. This picture seemed to accurately illustrate the positive and negative effects of our unconscious, spontaneous reaction to protect ourselves. Although, our shields initially provide a safe barrier they continue…
By: Henry Gwani on April 21, 2022
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma is by far the most significant book I have read on mental health. It is about how trauma has reached epidemic levels in our societies and the various ways in which the body responds to it. These include tightened stomachs, shallow…
By: Elmarie Parker on April 15, 2022
It happened over dinner. My friend’s demeanor changed in an instant. A family member of my friend had made a comment, and that was all it took. My friend got up and left the table. I followed. Over the next few hours, I entered the sacred space of hearing the memories triggered by the family…
By: Jonathan Lee on April 14, 2022
Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk, the author of The Body Keeps the Score, has been studying and treating trauma for over thirty years. He is the founder and director of the Trauma Center in Brookline, a professor of psychiatry at Boston University, and has been a leading researcher of traumatic stress. In this exceptional book…
By: Nicole Richardson on April 14, 2022
There I was, standing on my yoga mat in a Warrior 2 position, Fear is a Liar was playing in the background, and then the instructor invited us to look back over our shoulder gazing at our fingertips. She then said, “bring to mind those times in your past that hurt. See that they are…
By: Denise Johnson on April 14, 2022
I do not know anyone who is a long-time resident of the Puget Sound area that does not have some level of awe and appreciation of Orcas. Whale watching and particularly, searching for the fascinating black and white Killer Whale is a major tourist attraction. Reading Daniel Nettle’s Personality: What Makes You the Way You…
By: Roy Gruber on April 14, 2022
His name was Herb. He attended our church on the east coast and saw that we sought a custodian. I hired him, knowing he had a history of changing jobs frequently. All went well until summer came. Forest surrounded the church and became lush and green as the weather warmed. A nearby army munitions plant…
