This Week’s New Articles

Answer to the travel picture on Home Page: Sea of Galilee, Israel

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In the lush, emerald canopies of Costa Rica, time pulls up a chair and takes a nap.

Watching a sloth navigate the treetops inside Cahuita National Park is a lesson in intentionality. Every movement is a calculated, three-minute-long decision. They are the undisputed zen masters of the canopy, turning clumsiness into a slow-motion ballet.

Out of the blue, the zen was shattered. Between the clicks of tourist cameras, a shout rang out, “A sloth just fell!”

A glitch in the Matrix? Sloths’ tendons are designed to stay closed in a grip of the tree even when they’re asleep. Seeing one on the forest floor is like seeing a cloud fall out of the sky. We ran to the site and found him—a heap of shaggy fur on the damp earth, looking bewildered and in pain.

How did the ultimate climber lose its grip? Was it a miscalculation? A weak branch? Or was it just the inevitable betrayal of an old body?

As I watched that creature struggle to regain its dignity in the dirt, I couldn’t help but feel a sharp, personal pang of recognition.

Lately, I’ve become a bit of a sloth myself—minus the ability to sleep 15 hours a day without a guilty conscience. Tasks that used to be automatic now require a “pre-flight check.”

Is it the “new normal,” that bittersweet phase of life? As humans, we have the luxury of adaptation. We get canes, install grab bars, and move to single-story houses.

But what about the sloth? There are no retirement homes in the rainforest. There are no tiny sloth-sized walkers for them.

When a sloth gets old, its grip weakens. Its reaction time slows even further. In the wild, aging isn’t a transition. To fall from the tree isn’t just an embarrassing tumble. For a sloth, the ground is a place of predators and helplessness. It is a quiet, lonely end to a life living in the clouds.

There is a profound sadness in watching a master of its environment become a stranger to it. Whether it’s a sloth losing its hold on a Cecropia branch or a human losing their “grip” on the physical feats of their youth, the sting is the same.

However, there’s a bit of humor to be found in the shared absurdity of it all. Gravity is the one thing that eventually catches up to everyone, no matter how you move.

About that fallen sloth? A rancher from the national park arrived together with a vet. They’ll treat him and put him in a “retirement” community with low-hanging trunks. He wasn’t done with life yet, and neither should I at my age. I might move a little slower. As long as there’s a branch to reach for, I’ll keep climbing until the day God calls me home.

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“The eyes are the windows to the soul” means that by looking into someone’s eyes, you can sense their thoughts and feelings and see the true side of their inner being. The eyes give us vision, allowing us to see colors and shapes of the outside world. This information is sent to the brain and processed through multiple steps, eventually becoming our subjective judgments. We not only perceive surface beauty or ugliness but also grasp deeper meaning. As the saying goes, “Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.” Between lovers, it’s not just about appearance, but also a connection of souls.

Since my youth, though I’ve forgotten who taught me, I learned that when speaking to someone, I should look into their eyes as a basic courtesy. I took this literally. When I talked to people, I focused only on their eyes. What they looked like, their build, what they wore, or what accessories they had, I simply didn’t notice. As a teenager, when a group of boys talked about which girl in class was the prettiest, I didn’t feel that kind of inner struggle. To me, every girl was the same—if she was willing to talk to me, I was happy to chat.

As I grew older, I came to understand that eyes do more than show whether someone is attentive in conversations. There is something called a “look” or “expression in the eyes.” Subtle changes in how wide the eyelids open or how quickly they move can convey messages. Among friends and family, a single glance can say, “I want to change the subject.” In a group, it can even serve as a quiet warning—be careful, you’re stepping into dangerous territory. Combined with other facial expressions, the eyes communicate a range of inner emotions without a single word. A blink or an eye roll can clearly reveal one’s reaction at the moment.

Since the 1960s, psychologists have explored how the way we move our eyes reflects the inner workings of our brains. Though these movements aren’t robotic, they provide a fascinating glimpse into a person’s deeper thoughts. In counseling, for instance, eye patterns can help verify if someone’s words align with their genuine feelings. Looking ahead, this data may even prove vital in teaching artificial intelligence how to better understand human emotions.

Last week, a friend brought over her baby, not yet one-year-old. The little girl had bright, lively eyes. I used finger tricks to attract her attention and gain her trust. Holding this adorable child, I began communicating with her through eye contact and showing her the scenery in the backyard.

Among Native Americans, there was a tradition of wrapping newborn babies tightly in cloth during the day, immobilizing their limbs and securing them to a cradleboard until they were nine months old or even longer. This made it easier for mothers to carry them while working, and it also trained infants to observe their surroundings with their eyes, and to engage with the world through their senses—hearing, smell, and other faculties centered in the head.

Being able to open our eyes and see the world is truly a gift from God—but what we choose to look at is up to us. When interacting with others, I still choose to look into their eyes, observe their facial expressions and body language, and listen to what they say, in order to know who they really are.