Articles

WHAT SHE WANTED WAS A HORSE. Perhaps the quintessential little-girl's wish, but it was what she desired with all her heart.

After almost 20 years on the fast track to success in broadcasting, I hit the roller coaster known as "over 40 and overqualified. " I'd grown accustomed to having a high-powered, high-profile career, and when the bottom fell out for me as a result of downsizing in the industry, I wasn't able to find another job with the same salary or status.

When Marilyn Reason joined the tennis team at a local junior college, the other players were skeptical. The problem? They were college-age teens and early-20-somethings.

Last summer I decided to quit thinking that I was too old to start riding a bicycle again. So I jumped into my red convertible, drove down to the bicycle shop, and bought myself a two-wheeler.

WORK WAS MY LIFE. For years I believed that if I worked really hard, I'd have everything I'd ever dreamed of—including all the things I could ever want.

I WAS IN PENNSYLVANIA. HE WAS IN TEXAS.

  How will we today find within ourselves the fidelity, strength, and unity to fulfill Mary Baker Eddy's vast expectations for the Christian Science she discovered and the Church she founded? HUMANITY'S BUILT-IN SPIRIT OF LOVE, when stirred, can accomplish tremendous things. That surely happened in the aftermath of both the recent tsunami and the attacks of September 11, 2001, when heroism and unselfed love quickly followed.

I'D HIT A SNAG in Sunday School class: the Beatitudes. As Jesus' introduction to the Sermon on the Mount, these statements have been handed down for two thousand years as descriptions of what leads to supreme happiness.

It's been called the Holy Scriptures, the Good Book, and "the chart of life. " Science and Health, p.

" OH YES, YOU DID LAUGH, "  Gen. 18:15 (NRSV).