New Florence reader,

Below are ten photographs you may enjoy.

I love Antoni Gaudí and his Basilica of the Holy Family, the Basilica de la Sagrada Família, in Barcelona, Spain. I've paired the world's best work of sacred architecture with some of the world's best sacred musical language, in a sweeping Rachmaninoff-inspired score -- and am pleased to share from my soul to yours these two luminous minutes of beauty, glory, wonder, and awe.

All my best,

Mike

Two minutes of Gaudi's Basilica set to Rachmaninoff

Paintings, like almost all works of culture, are a subjective experience. With great art, as with most of life’s best experiences, we can do little more than share our discoveries with each other. But sharing our discoveries lies at the heart of our personal and shared quests for excellence and the good life. So here we go.

In my view, these are the seven greatest Christian painters of all time. Ranked from #7 to #1:

7. Leonardo da Vinci
6. Raphael
5. Francisco de Zurbarán
4. Edward Burne-Jones
3. Salvador Dalí
2. Titian
1. Michelangelo

And this is the focus of my new 10 and a half minute video, A Lift toward Heaven: The Seven Best Christian Painters. Seven Christian painters -- one visual and musical journey into sacred beauty, Christ, Heaven, and the life of our soul:

A Lift Toward Heaven - Mike Goodenow Weber

In this video, I bring together great Christian paintings, carefully chosen music, and a contemplative cinematic approach designed to let the paintings breathe.

These artists open different doors into Christian beauty and spiritual experience: mystery, prayer, tenderness, sacred imagination, divine radiance, Christ, Creation, and Heaven. The final Michelangelo movement culminates in the Sistine Chapel, The Creation of Adam, The Last Judgment, and a deeply personal encounter between the artist and Christ.

If you love Christian art, religious paintings, sacred beauty, Renaissance art, paintings of Christ, or the visual culture of Christianity, I hope you find my video a meaningful experience.

All my best,

Mike

Interested in one of these seven artists? Click on the name for the minute to three minutes of the video about him:

00:00 Leonardo da Vinci
01:11 Raphael
02:08 Francisco de Zurbarán
03:12 Edward Burne-Jones
04:26 Salvador Dalí
05:45 Titian
07:14 Michelangelo

These are my 20 favorite images that I’ve co-created with ChatGPT-5 and OpenAI Art since December — of 19 of my favorite cultural creators from history. I share them with you here in alphabetical order.

Do you use AI to co-create art? What do you think of bringing history more alive with AI images? And what do you think of these?

All my best,

Mike

Dante Alighiere

Louis Armstrong

Jane Austen

Honore de Balzac

William Blake

Pedro Calderon de la Barca

Geoffrey Chaucer

Leonardo da Vinci

Charles Dickens

George Eliot

(Mary Ann Evans)

Elizabeth Gaskell

Friedrich Holderlin

John Keats

Michelangelo

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Johann Pachelbel

Raphael

William Shakespeare

Titian

Walt Whitman

Just published my latest video. It’s been an extraordinary seven-day spiritual experience making it. It’s the most meaningful thing I’ve ever created. And I hope you have a meaningful or even a spiritual experience as you are watching it.

(You can also click on just one great creator of Christian culture below, for a minute or two video of that creator.)

Please pass it along to anyone you think might find it uplifting, of value, or both.

All my best,

Mike

Magnificent Treasures of Christian Art, Music, and Literature

Journey through the greatest Christian art, music, literature, sculpture, and architecture ever created.

Across the centuries, the Christian imagination has asked one extraordinary question: How can art awaken in the human soul more love, goodness, wisdom, truth, beauty, awe, and joy?

Magnificent Treasures of Christian Art, Music, and Literature is a 21- minute ascent through the sculpture, architecture, literature, and music that the greatest Christian creators have given to all of us.

This video is a visual and musical journey into sacred beauty, transcendence, compassion, worship, moral imagination and the human encountering of God and Christ.

0:00 Nicola & Giovanni Pisano | Christian Sculpture
0:37 French Cathedrals | Stained Glass, Sculpture & Worship
1:40 Dante Alighieri | The Divine Comedy
2:54 Michelangelo | The Sistine Chapel
5:15 Shakespeare | Hamlet vs. Rosalind
7:03 Bach & Handel | Baroque Sacred Music
7:59 Mozart | Sublime Joy
8:51 Jane Austen | Social Virtues of the Soul
10:07 Charles Dickens | Compassion, Redemption & Joy
12:44 J.R.R. Tolkien | Christian Faith & The Lord of the Rings
13:59 Sergei Rachmaninoff | Orthodox Sacred Music
15:19 Antoni Gaudí | Sagrada Família
16:45 Contemporary Christian Spiritual Music
17:11 Chandler Moore | Devotion
17:37 Enya | Transcendence
18:36 Jonathan David Helser | Ascending into the Divine Presence
19:42 Bono & U2 | Returning in Love

All my best,

Mike

Helen Keller -- Mike Goodenow Weber

In my new video, My 20 Favorite Novelists of All Time, I celebrate twenty writers whose stories have helped form my understanding of what it means to be human.

This is the record of one reader’s lifetime among novels. Some of my choices—Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, J.R.R. Tolkien, Agatha Christie, George Eliot—will be familiar. Others, including Rudolfo Anaya, Albert Murray, Elie Wiesel, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Vasily Grossman, make the list more distinctly my own. (Full list provided below.)

I wanted the video to do more than display portraits, book covers, and literary judgments. Each novelist receives a brief visual and musical world shaped by the atmosphere and moral imagination of the stories.

Together, the twenty profiles become a story of stories—a cinematic journey through some of the worlds in which readers have learned how human beings suffer, choose, fail, grow, and begin again. I hope this video reminds you of why certain novelists have earned your love and introduces you to at least a couple new ones who come to enrich your life.

All my best,

Mike

My 20 Favorite Novelists of All Time -- Mike Goodenow Weber

00:00 Erich Maria Remarque — #20
00:22 Elizabeth Gaskell — #19
00:48 Sinclair Lewis — #18
01:16 Isabel Allende — #17
01:45 Dave Eggers — #16
02:16 Thomas Keneally — #15
03:00 Rudolfo Anaya — #14
03:45 Agatha Christie — #13
04:32 Arthur Conan Doyle — #12
05:24 Hermann Hesse — #11
06:22 Jane Austen — #10
07:21 George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) — #9
08:22 Honoré de Balzac — #8
09:28 Elie Wiesel — #7
10:32 David Foster Wallace — #6
11:40 Albert Murray — #5
12:50 J.R.R. Tolkien — #4
14:06 Charles Dickens — #3
15:31 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn — #2
16:53 Vasily Grossman — #1

As you might have suspected, I’m largely self-educated. But I did attend undergrad classes three different times in my life, totally up to five and a half years. I switched my major multiple times and never got all that interested in earning a bachelor’s degree.

I especially enjoyed my theater and literature classes, and took more than a dozen. I recently got interested in how to provide people a short immersive experience of some of the better plays of the past four centuries. And, with hope that I’ve achieved my goal, I’ve just posted my new 19-minute immersive video Gotta Love Theater!: Step into 10 Plays.

If you have time to watch, I hope you have an engaging and meaningful experience. And I hope you have a blast.

You can also click on just one of the segments of the video, if you have a particular interest in one of the ten plays.

All my best,

Mike

Gotta Love Theater!: Step into 10 Great Plays

INDEX

00:00 The Storytellers
01:06 As You Like It
02:14 Hamlet
03:10 Life is a Dream
4:26 A Christmas Carol
6:49 Faust
8:24 You Can't Take It with You
9:40 The Crucible
10:51 The Diary of Anne Frank
13:36 The Winter's Tale
15:35 The Pitmen Painters
18:06 Coda

ONE. From eternity was the Creator God. God’s Divine Essence has always been Love and Wisdom. God has always been Wise Love.

Divine Love is God’s eternal desire to bless beings other than God. Divine Wisdom is the perfect understanding through which Love knows how to fulfill its purposes.

From eternity, God’s Primal Intent was to create living beings who could receive life from God; who could awaken, respond, and choose in freedom; who could grow in love and wisdom; who could enter into loving communion with God and with one another; and whom God could bless with love, wisdom, and joy in the spiritual universe – in Heaven – to eternity.

To begin to fulfill this Divine purpose, God first created the spiritual universe and then the natural universe: a spiritual order in which human life could continue toward eternity, and a natural order in which stars and planets, oceans and continents, living organisms, conscious animals, and human beings with souls could through time arise.

From God began to proceed into the spiritual universe the Warmth of Divine Love and the Light of Divine Wisdom. In the spiritual universe, the life-giving presence of God began to appear as a Divine Sun, radiant across the spiritual universe as our natural sun is radiant across the Earth.

And then, behold! God’s Great Music began.

Nearly 14 billion years ago, through the creative power of God, the natural universe was born. Dense and extraordinarily hot, it began rapidly expanding.

Within that first cosmic moment, quantum fields and particles began to interact through fundamental forces. Within tremendous energies, particle excitations were continually created and annihilated. They encountered one another, scattered, combined, and transformed.

Quarks and gluons became confined within composite particles. Among them were protons and neutrons.

In the newborn universe, some protons and neutrons combined into the nuclei of helium and small quantities of other light elements, while multitudes of protons remained as the nuclei of hydrogen. Matter’s long history began.

For hundreds of thousands of years, the universe continued to expand and to cool. At last, it became cool enough for electrons to remain bound to atomic nuclei.

Through electromagnetic interaction, electrons became bound to nuclei in stable quantum states. The first neutral atoms formed.

And behold! Light began to stream freely across the widening reaches of space.

Within the almost-uniform universe were regions containing slightly more matter than others. Through gravity, these denser regions drew in still more matter. Vast streams and clouds of gas gathered within an immense and evolving cosmic structure.

Across many millions of years, great clouds of hydrogen and helium contracted. Their centers grew ever hotter and denser.

And behold! Across Creation began to kindle the first stars.

Radiant energy poured outward into space. The darkness blossomed with light.

The stars shone. And they did far more than shine. They became great centers of cosmic transformation.

Through stellar lives and deaths—and through other powerful cosmic events—the universe became enriched with elements that had not existed at its beginning. New stars arose from matter transformed by earlier stars.

And so, behold! Creation did more than become larger. Creation unfolded. With each great transition, Creation came to be capable of something new.

Quarks and gluons became organized within protons and neutrons. Protons and neutrons formed atomic nuclei. Nuclei and electrons formed atoms. Gravity gathered matter into stars. Stars transformed the elements and scattered enriched matter through space. Through electromagnetic interaction, atoms bonded into molecules – making complex chemical wholes possible. And around stars, enriched matter gathered into rocky planets.

And so matter began to dance through God’s Great Music.

TWO. Behold! Among these hundreds of billions of galaxies was born the Milky Way—a vast, slowly turning gathering of many billions of stars.

Within the Milky Way galaxy, disks of gas and dust surrounded young stars. From these disks arose billions of planets: small rocky planets, immense gas giants, ice-rich planets – with many worlds circling close to their stars.

Some 4.6 billion years ago, gravity drew together a rotating cloud of gas and dust. Most of its material gathered at the center. Pressure and temperature rose.

And behold! There was born the star we call our Sun – and our Sun began to shine.

Around the young Sun, the remaining matter circled in a disk. Grains of dust collided and clung together. Small bodies became larger bodies. Across millions of years, through innumerable collisions, disruptions, and unions, eight planets came to circle the Sun, accompanied by dwarf planets, moons, asteroids, comets, dust, and countless smaller bodies.

And behold! Some 4.5 billion years ago, from ancient cosmic matter, the third planet out from the Sun took form: The planet Earth was born.

The young Earth was a turbulent world. Collisions, gravitational compression, radioactive decay, and heat remaining from its formation kept much of the planet molten. Dense materials descended toward its center. Lighter materials rose toward its surface.

And early in Earth’s history, there formed near our planet our Moon, which took up its enduring journey around the Earth.

The Earth differentiated into core, mantle, and crust. Volcanoes released water vapor and other gases from its interior. Water-bearing material arrived during impacts from asteroids and other bodies.

As the surface and atmosphere cooled, water vapor condensed. Rain fell upon the young world, liquid water accumulated, and oceans gathered in its basins.

The Earth’s interior remained hot and active. Great tectonic plates moved slowly across its surface. They separated and collided. Some descended again into the mantle.

Continents assembled and divided. Mountains rose and eroded. Oceans opened and closed.

Rock was broken by wind, water, heat, cold, and chemical transformation. Sediment accumulated. And much later, life-enriched soils spread across the lands.

Upon the early Earth were liquid water, minerals, carbon-bearing compounds, continuing sources of energy, and many environments in which increasingly complex chemistry could unfold.

Molecules formed, separated, combined, and transformed.

Energy flowed through sunlight, atmosphere, ocean, rock, volcanic systems, hydrothermal vents, tidal pools, and shorelines.

And for all this time, God’s Great Music has resounded throughout the natural universe and throughout planet Earth.

The Music sounded in gravity gathering matter into stars and galaxies;

in fusion kindling starlight;

in stars and stellar remnants forming new elements;

in worlds assembling around later suns;

in rain falling upon the young Earth;

in oceans gathering beneath the Moon;

and in molecules entering into new combinations, relationships, and transformations.

THREE. Upon the Earth, physical and chemical history gradually brought together the conditions and elements for the next great transition: Water flowed. Energy passed through complex environments. Molecules reacted, assembled, separated, and assembled again.

And by three and a half billion years ago, somewhere upon the Earth, organized chemical systems crossed a threshold – and acquired all the characteristics necessary for a new kind of existence.

And behold! Creation on the Earth gave rise to life.

Living organisms could actively preserve and renew themselves. Living organisms could respond to their surroundings, grow, reproduce, vary, and evolve.

Molecules became constituents of cells. Molecules began to participate in organized processes that used energy, maintained internal conditions, preserved and transmitted biological information through material structures, and enabled continuation of each process and system. Molecules became cells.

The atoms were ancient. The molecules were natural. The physical interactions remained ordered. Yet their organization was new.

For immense reaches of time, every organism remained a single cell. Life on Earth was a living world of single cells dwelling in oceans and sediments, within rocks and waters, wherever they could persist and endure. Water passed through the cells. Minerals and molecules entered and departed. Energy flowed through their ceaseless activities.

Each cell maintained a boundary between itself and the world around it. Each drew in matter and energy, transformed what it received, regulated its internal conditions, repaired its structures, grew, and reproduced.

And then, behold! In one of life’s great transitions, organisms that had once lived separately entered into enduring unions. One cell became integrated within another.

Cooperation deepened. Multicellularity arose more than once and in different lineages. Cells remained together. They communicated, coordinated their activities, and divided their labor.

Some microorganisms acquired the power to capture energy from sunlight. Through photosynthesis, they used light to build the materials of life. Some forms of photosynthesis released oxygen into the surrounding world.

In some forms of multicellular life, cells became highly differentiated. Some absorbed nutrients. Some provided structure. Some enabled movement. Some transmitted signals. Some participated in reproduction.

Across oceans and lands, plants and fungi entered sustaining relationships with water, air, stone, soil, and one another. Plants developed roots and tissues that carried water and nutrients, while stems and leaves reached toward the light. Fungal networks absorbed and decomposed matter, nourishing plants and helping transform weathered rock into living soil.

And behold! Across the lands, forests began to rise. Roots entered deeply into the earth and trees lifted their crowns toward the Sun. Forests created shaded and layered worlds—worlds of canopy and branch, bark and root, shadow and opening—in which other organisms found nourishment and protection, danger and opportunity.

Flowering plants spread and diversified. Plants acquired thorns and toxins, hard coverings and nourishing rewards, and alluring colors and fragrances.

And so, across billions of years, God’s Great Music kept flowing through living organisms on Earth, through life-bearing beings, through life.

FOUR. And behold! From among multicellular life there arose animals.

Animals obtained nourishment from organic matter produced by other living beings, acquiring it in an astonishing variety of ways. Many developed muscles and coordinated movement. They swam through water and crawled across surfaces. They burrowed into sediment, attached themselves to reefs, and propelled themselves through open seas.

Some of animals’ cells became specialized for receiving signals. Others transmitted signals across the body. Still others contracted together, enabling the animal to change its position, pursue nourishment, withdraw from danger, and act upon its surroundings.

Within many animal lineages, signaling cells became organized into diverse nervous systems, enabling increasingly integrated relations among sensation, bodily condition, and movement.

And God’s Great Music resounded through the oceans, which came to teem with living bodies.

In the oceans, some animals came to possess shells, plates, spines, or other forms of protection. Others moved with speed or flexibility. Mouths and grasping structures appeared in many forms. Eyes and other sensory organs opened animals to features of the world around them.

Predators pursued prey. Prey burrowed and fled, hid and formed defenses, or entered new environments.

Organisms competed and cooperated. They scavenged, filtered water, grazed upon living surfaces, and fed upon decaying matter.

Among the ocean animals, flexible supporting structures were joined by vertebrae and skulls, differentiated sensory organs, and bodies capable of powerful and coordinated movement.

And behold! Fish diversified through oceans, rivers, and lakes. Some possessed jaws. Some developed armor. Some acquired light and flexible skeletons. Some used lungs or lung-like organs to breathe air in waters poor in oxygen. Vertebrates multiplied in the waters.

And behold! Some animals entered the land.

First came the arthropods. Millipedes and other small beings moved through vegetation and decaying matter. Spiders and their relatives pursued prey. Insects diversified into a multitude of forms.

The land became inhabited from below and above: Within the soil and upon its surface. Among stems and leaves. And beside pools, streams, and the waters at its margins.

Some fish inhabited shallow waters, wetlands, and places transformed by tides, seasons, and drought. Across generations, descendants of lobe-finned fishes acquired weight-bearing limbs, strengthened skeletons, and other capacities useful in shallow water and upon land. Branching lineages of animals combined aquatic and terrestrial ways of life.

And behold! There arose the reptiles: turtles, lizards, snakes, and crocodiles.

Some reptiles walked close to the ground. Others raised their bodies upon more upright limbs. Some returned to the waters. Some climbed trees. Some became immense. Some remained small. There were armored grazers and long-necked browsers, swift runners and immense predators, and small animals clothed in feathers.

And behold! Small feathered reptiles entered the air. The first birds took flight.

Feathers afforded warmth and display, protection and gliding, and eventually powered flight. The bodies of birds became organized around light skeletons, powerful muscles, efficient breathing, and exquisitely coordinated movement.

Birds crossed oceans and continents. They entered forests and grasslands. They nested up on cliffs and shores. And they filled the air with motion and sound.

All along, life unfolded through competition. Living beings competed for nourishment, resources, and places in which to live. They consumed one another, defended themselves, exchanged materials, and altered their surroundings.

And life unfolded through cooperation. Organisms entered into symbioses through which each made possible forms of life that neither could have sustained alone.

FIVE. And behold! There arrived the first mammals!

This lineage of animals acquired distinctive jaws and teeth, transformed structures of hearing, increasingly effective regulation of body temperature, and coverings of hair. And mammalian mothers produced milk to nourish their young.

Many mammals were small, and numerous lineages adapted to nocturnal life, to forests and burrows, and to other environments in which they developed varied ways of finding food and avoiding danger.

Some mammals ran across open lands. Some climbed and leapt through forests. Some dug beneath the ground.

Marsupials gave birth to highly undeveloped young that continued growing in close dependence upon their mothers. In placental mammals, offspring developed for longer periods within the mother’s body. In many lineages, offspring remained dependent upon their parents for extended periods.

Many animals were social. Both insects and fish coordinated their actions. Birds guarded nests and fed offspring. They formed enduring partnerships or changing groups and crossed immense distances together.

But mammals added to animal social life a new depth. Family relationships, group defense, cooperation and competition, migration and other forms of social life became central to the survival and development of many mammals.

And some land mammals returned to the sea, and across millions of years their bodies became transformed for life in water. They emerged as whales and dolphins.

SIX. And behold! Within the flowering forests of Earth, there arose the first primates.

In many primates, grasping hands and feet enabled flexible movement among branches. Nails replaced claws upon most digits. Forward-facing eyes supported precise, visually guided movement. Mobile limbs, sensitive touch, and dexterous hands enabled primates to reach and hold, explore and manipulate the things around them. Primates ate fruits and leaves, seeds and insects, and many other foods.

Primates generally produced relatively few offspring and invested substantial time in their development. Their young learned within enduring relationships with parents and other members of their groups.

Across evolutionary history, primates branched into lemurs, monkeys, and apes. Among the apes arose gibbons, orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos.

Some primates lived largely alone. Others lived in pairs, families, troops, or changing communities.

Primates competed and cooperated. They formed alliances and protected offspring. They communicated through calls, expressions, postures, gestures, and touch. And they learned and developed through their encounters with one another.

SEVEN. And behold! God’s Great Music now resounded within the lived experience of animals.

Consciousness made the world present from within.

As mammals and primates consciously protected themselves, pursued possibilities, cared for others, and acted with flexibility, they experienced pain and fear, desire and attachment, perception and expectation. Nourishment could be attractive, warm shelter comforting. Fear could direct attention toward danger. Curiosity could draw one into the unknown.

Through its mind, a conscious animal apprehended the world. Each animal perceived and attended, remembered and learned, felt and valued, recognized and anticipated.

Through perception, animals became actively related to portions of their surroundings and their own bodies. They oriented and explored. They sampled, listened, watched, and touched. They followed scents and moved in response to what they encountered.

Attention gave priority to some features of experience while others receded. A sound could interrupt feeding. A movement could signal danger. What mattered to an animal helped shape what it noticed and what it did.

Through memory, earlier experience remained influential within the animal’s continuing life. A remembered pathway could be followed again. A place of nourishment could be revisited. A predator or rival, offspring or companion, or another member of the animal’s group could be recognized. Through retained changes, the past helped shape later perception and feeling, expectation and skill, choice and action. In some species, animals engaged in practical deliberation, foresight, and planning.

Through its will, the animal directed its activity. Through its will, the animal desired and pursued, approached and avoided, initiated and inhibited action, persisted toward purposes, and changed course as conditions changed.

The animal’s perceived and remembered possibilities became objects of pursuit and avoidance, preference and choice. An animal could seek nourishment, escape a predator, defend itself, pursue prey, explore unfamiliar surroundings, or withdraw from conflict. It could persist toward a goal. It could restrain an immediate response. It could abandon an unsuccessful course and attempt another.

Consciousness was embodied. It was active. It was situated within a world. And consciousness was relational. It was social.

The presence of another animal could be experienced as threatening or familiar, reassuring, or welcome. One animal could experience another as familiar or strange, trusted or threatening, desired or unwelcome.

Other animals were no longer merely parts of an environment to which an organism responded. They could become consciously encountered beings:

offspring to be protected;

parents to be followed;

companions to be approached;

rivals to be watched;

predators to be feared;

familiar members of a group whose presence — or whose absence — mattered.

In social animals, calls and gestures, postures and scents, facial expressions and touch, imitation and play, cooperation and conflict helped shape what individuals perceived and remembered, valued and desired, chose and did. Parents and offspring recognized one another, and the cry of an offspring could redirect a parent’s attention and actions. Companions established bonds. Group members coordinated movement and defense, migration and hunting, care and play.

Conscious relationship opened richer forms of attachment and caregiving, communication and play, cooperation and conflict, and learned social life. In some species, it even opened grief and reconciliation.

Animals learned their worlds. Some learned through exploration and repeated experience. Some learned by watching and imitating others. Young animals acquired skills through play and practice and through prolonged relationships with parents, siblings, companions, or groups. What one animal discovered could sometimes influence the conduct of others and be carried through social learning into later generations.

In some species, learned practices became shared traditions. Ways of obtaining food, using objects, communicating, traveling, and relating could endure beyond the life of one individual. Biological inheritance was joined by a growing inheritance of learned behavior.

Within God’s Great Music, mammals and primates came to perceive and remember, explore and value, avoid and seek, and choose and take action.

And now, behold! There would emerge on Earth a being capable of fulfilling God’s purpose for creating the spiritual and natural universes: to live our lives on Earth from God’s Love — and then live blessed by God to eternity with Heavenly love, wisdom, and joy.

I’ll jump right in . . .

First, if you’re one of the 3.7 billion adults on this planet who is a theist, you choose your theology. (If you’re not a theist, you skip this step.) Those of us who believe in God, gods, Deity, a Divine Being or Beings, and/or a Divine dimension of reality — we clearly start with this as our foundational Ultimate Reality. If you’re one of us 3.1 billion adults who are classical monotheists, you’ll probably basically believe all or almost all of this. (Which is pretty close to my view.) Once you have your theology, everything else you believe will be integrated into your theology (if you care to do so and take the time to do so).

Second, if you’re one of us 4.8 billion adults on this planet who believes that we have a soul that survives the death of our physical Earthly body, you choose your personal eschatology. Which is also sometimes called (or may overlap with) the philosophy of the soul, philosophy of mind, and philosophical psychology. (If not, you skip this step.) There are many views of life after death. I take my view from accounts of near-death experiences (NDEs) and Emanuel Swedenborg, so my view of the time after we die is here and my view of Heaven is here.

Third, science. You choose how detailed a picture you want to carry in your mind of how Nature and the cosmos work and what is happening around you and within you that science can reveal. And you choose how closely you wish to adhere to what we might call the established consensus-based scientific picture of natural reality.

That established consensus-based scientific picture starts with quantum and electromagnetic and other fields and states, within which:

• quarks bound by gluons form protons and neutrons

• protons and neutrons form nuclei

• nuclei with electrons form each atom

• atoms of different elements can combine to form chemical compounds

• atoms and molecules compose nearly all matter

• some molecules become organized to make cells

• one or more cells constitute every living organism

• animals with a brain and nervous system have a range of capacities for sensation, movement, learning, memory, emotion, and action

• and this succession of forms arose — and enabled the emergence of increasingly complex and flexible capacities — through cosmic, chemical, and biological evolution.

  

  Fourth, psychology. You draw from various fields of psychology what is most meaningful to you about the human experience. Our motivations, personalities, psychopathologies, traumas, healing, optimal psychological health and functioning, intelligence, creativity, self-actualization and growth. Much of this backed up by a healthy dose of neuroscience. And you may well choose to include a clear, comprehensive view of human development across the lifespan. You integrate your meaningful views from psychology into your view of the soul and/or of Deity in a way that is consistent with your view of Nature. My approach: babes, toddlers, children, youth, rising adults, (the "orange-to-green" continuum), midlifers, and elders.

Fifth, philosophy. You draw from various branches of philosophy anywhere you want to sharpen your thinking and gain clarity about any of these matters: perception, sensation, emotion, memory, imagination, embodiment and mind-body relations, mental representation, personal identity, rationality and other thinking, embodied and extended cognition, morality and ethics, values and character, personhood, selfhood, dignity, freedom, identity, and, very broadly, human nature.

Philosophy can shed light on phenomena in Nature such as cause and effect, emergence, dynamics, organization, states (and even fields), and properties. Cosmology is philosophical as well as scientific, and the philosophy of nature takes on the broad interpretation of the whole natural world.

There is the whole area of philosophy, if you believe the will is both spiritual and natural or that we have both a spiritual will and a natural will, of intentionality, desire, motivation, motives, free will vs. determinism, agency, and responsibility.

And philosophy (and the new field of consciousness science) can help us a great deal to think clearly about consciousness — mostly animal and human consciousness — especially what is called the Hard Problem of Consciousness, which has about a dozen possible solutions. The Hard Problem — the problem of the subjective experience of reality — stands where physics, biology, neuroscience, philosophy, ethics, and theology meet, challenging every worldview to explain how subjective life belongs within reality.

I’ll admit to having done very little thinking in these areas — and it’s my loss, and I intend to rectify it, starting immediately.

Sixth, social interaction. You choose your way of understanding what is going on — and the ideal we are reaching for — when two or more life-bearers or wills or minds or consciousnesses interact with each other. Life is relational. Conscious living beings encounter each other and interact. What is unhealthy, what is normal, what is ideal?

Social reality involves communication, power, influence, conflict, cooperation, trust, and human dignity, flourishing, shared shaping of possibilities, empathy, compassion, and love. We also ask what we are reaching toward together. What would a good relationship look like? Which ideals should shape and organize our life together?

For me, this is simple: the ideal is to intend, think, communicate, and act toward every other human being from pure motives — and a sense of pure-motived usefulness. You surely have your own approach.

Our social views are about whoever is present with us right now. And we take what we conclude about person-to-person interactions and extend it out to encompass all human interactions.

And seventh and lastly, integration. You choose how important coherence is to you and how much time you want to invest in achieving it. We all live with some contradictions, and most of us have some desire to integrate the parts of our worldview into a more congruent and seamless vision of reality.

We don’t do this in one pass. We revisit our worldview throughout our life. New knowledge, experience, suffering, love, discovery, and reflection may deepen or revise it.

There is no perfect or complete worldview — something a “worldview perfectionist” like me must ultimately resign himself to, with chagrin. None of us can answer every question. We are trying to discover what is true and what it all means for who we are. Our worldview can include mystery, uncertainty, probability, provisional judgment, and open questions. And we can stay open enough to revise our worldview every time new evidence demands it or a deeper understanding becomes accessible to us.

Almost everything else we think about either involves a subject not directly bearing on our worldview — mostly, more practical subjects — or the application of our worldview to a practical matter. Even when applying our worldview to the context or situation in front of us, we are applying just what we remember of our worldview in the moment — or communicating and acting from the intuitive sense our worldview provides us as it recedes into the background of our mind, behind our conscious awareness.

And it bears remembering — especially by people with restless, driven, ever-questing, ever-roaming minds like mine — that there is much more to a richly lived life than our worldview, practical thinking, and the life applications of both. Our life is, at its best, full of pure wonder, awe, joy, relaxation, rest, play, games, fun, humor, and wholehearted enjoyment.

This includes at least 1.8 billion adults who identify as Christians, at least 1.25 billion adults who identify as Muslims, at least 40 million religiously unaffiliated classical monotheist adults, at least 26.5 million adult Vaishnava Hindus, at least 3.5 million adult Shaiva Siddhanta Hindus, and at least 3.5 million Jewish adults who adhere to the theological tenets of Judaism.

Incredibly, then, at least 3.1 billion people on this planet age 18 and older — including more than three billion adult Christians and Muslims — would, if asked point by point, agree (with a few qualifiers from Hindus) with almost all of the following statements:

The Eternal Creator God

From eternity is the one Creator God: uncreated, self-subsisting, self-sufficient, without beginning and without end. God is the source of all being but receives being from nothing beyond Himself. Everything other than God exists because God freely created it and continually sustains it.

God is the Ultimate Reality, Being, and Source. God is one, eternal, infinite, living, good, loving, wise, truthful, and perfect. God possesses these perfections not partially or precariously, as creatures do, but eternally and without deficiency. God’s love is perfectly wise; God’s wisdom is perfectly good; God’s power is inseparable from God’s knowledge and truth.

God is absolute, uncreated, living Reality. All created substances depend upon God for existence, but none of them is God or a god or a portion of God. God is the source of every created power and of the intelligible order through which the universe exists and develops.

God’s Being is uncreated, self-subsisting, self-sufficient, eternal, and independent. God is not one being among other beings but the uncreated source upon whom all created being depends. God transcends time and space because time and space belong to creation. God has no spatial dimensions, geographical location, temporal beginning, development, or decline.

God is the ultimate source of all truth, intelligibility, meaning, wisdom, and order. The truths perceived by created minds are possible because creation is grounded in the wisdom of God. Whatever is genuinely true, wise, loving, and good reflects, however finitely, the perfection of its Creator.

God is the Creator. God created both the visible and invisible dimensions of creation—the natural universe and the orders of spiritual or unseen existence. God created them freely through divine knowledge, wisdom, will, goodness, and power. Creation is a reality distinct from God, called into being and continually upheld by God.

The heavens and the Earth display the wisdom, power, generosity, and beauty of their Creator. Every created truth points toward the source of truth; every genuine act of love reflects the source of love; every good gift bears witness to divine goodness; and every created light may remind the soul of the uncreated Light from whom all being, life, intelligibility, and goodness ultimately come.

God is Goodness. God loves, blesses, gives, sustains, and calls created beings toward goodness. Divine love seeks the true good of the beloved. Divine love wills life, flourishing, communion, and reconciliation. God’s goodness is divine love expressed in blessing; God’s wisdom is the perfect knowledge by which love acts rightly; and God’s truth makes known what is good.

God is Like the Sun. God is or includes divine light or can be described as light. Divine light signifies God’s goodness, glory, wisdom, truth, self-revelation, and life-giving presence. As physical light enables the eyes to see, divine illumination enables minds and souls to recognize truth and goodness.

Likewise, as warmth gives life and vitality to the body, divine love awakens, sustains, and vivifies spiritual life.

Thus, God may be said to be to our souls as the sun is to our bodies: the giver of light and life.

God is omnipresent. God is immediately present and active throughout creation through divine knowledge, will, power, wisdom, and sustaining care. God is always and everywhere present, yet God is not contained by space, distributed across space, or extended like a material field. God transcends every place while being intimately present to every place. God is present to all creatures through divine knowledge, power, will, and sustaining activity.

God is nearer to every being than any created thing can be, because every being depends upon God at every moment for its existence. Yet the distinction between Creator and creation remains absolute: no creature is God, and no creature is a portion of God.

God’s presence within creation therefore does not mean that God and the universe are identical. The universe exists through God, depends upon God, reveals signs of God, and remains continually present to God; nevertheless, creation is not divine. God exceeds every created reality and cannot be enclosed within the totality of created things.

God is present and active without being spatially extended; transcendent without being absent; near without being contained; powerful without being arbitrary; wise without learning; loving without need; and self-sufficient without indifference.

God is omniscient. God eternally and perfectly knows all things: everything actual and possible, visible and invisible, outward and inward, past, present, and future. Nothing is hidden from divine knowledge. God knows every creature more completely than any creature knows itself.

God is omnipotent. Nothing external limits, constrains, or overrules God. Yet divine omnipotence is inseparable from God’s perfect nature — from God’s divine wisdom, goodness, and truth. God acts freely and faithfully according to God’s own perfect nature.

The laws and regularities of creation express God’s wisdom. They are not powers above God or independent constraints upon Him. Through them, created realities possess authentic natures, relationships, capacities, and forms of causation. God ordinarily sustains and governs creation in an ordered and dependable manner, while remaining sovereign over everything that exists.

God may act through created means—through natural causes, living beings, human freedom, revelation, angels, communities, and historical events—but every such intermediary remains a creature dependent upon God.

God is knowable. God is beyond every adequate image and definition, yet God is not unknowable in every respect. God is known through creation, conscience, reason, revelation, worship, moral transformation, and divine self-disclosure. Human beings can know God truly without knowing God exhaustively.

All my best,

Mike

No one was closer to Robin Read Brunelli than her first cousin Juli Sullivan Briggs, who was born the same week as Robin in 1943. “Robin was always trying to better herself,” Juli would observe. “She was very sensitive to others and their needs. She always wanted to help others succeed by bettering themselves too.”

In the days after her death on June 2, 2016, the commemorative online page for Robin was filled up first by others who had shared her life in Shenandoah, Iowa.

Pat Henkel, Robin’s classmate from kindergarten through high school graduation, said, “She will be missed. Robin was a beautiful lady inside and out and I am sure she is still making great plans.”

Michael Longstreet remembered Robin’s “vibrant personality and infections smile.” Harriet Welty Rochefort commemorated Robin as a “gracious, charming, and lovely hostess” as well as “her bright spirit and grace.”

Kathryn Sjulin Lonowski recalled the “many lovely, classy celebrations in the Reads’ lovely home” and Robin’s “amazing energy.” Carl Sjulin remembered how “grace and enthusiasm were Robin’s great hallmarks” and how Robin “always went out of her way to forge friendships and help people in whatever way possible.”

In Albuquerque, where Robin lived from 1961 to 1982, Donna Haltom reflected back across five and a half decades of friendship with Robin, beginning when Robin was a doe-eyed freshman at UNM in Fall 1961, already filled with a sense of wonder about the world.

“Robin saw the best in everyone,” Haltom reflected. “She would do whatever she possibly could to ensure that every person she was involved with would succeed. Robin’s gift was to empower everyone she met to do their best, to declare what is important, to find their voice, and then to act.”

Haltom drew our attention to the reality that “Robin was always teaching – whether it was a friend, a student, a colleague, or a child. How many of us called Robin over the years to help us through an impasse when we could not see a solution? Quietly, she would lead you to the conclusion that was hidden within you but you were not able to recognize.”

When Robin left Albuquerque for Washington in January 1983, Donna Haltom had no doubt things would go well for her friend in the nation’s capital. “Robin had an innate ability to reinvent herself. New situation, new challenge, same resolve, same integrity.”

Anne Taylor, Robin’s friend of more than four and a half decades, reflected that “Robin knew about the good, about what’s true, and about life, and she had an instant rapport with people. Coupling that with her psychic nature, her sixth sense, she had an uncanny sense of what people needed in their lives.”

Anne concluded that “Robin was of the Earth – very earthy, very sophisticated – and yet she brought to each venue, small or large, her sense of beauty, joy, harmony, and love. With her enthusiasm and deep respect for others, she transformed so many lives.”

From among her high school students from 1978 to 1982 at Manzano High School in Albuquerque, Marty Lee Martinez wrote, “Robin was loved and adored by all her students and anyone fortunate enough to have met her.”

Montine Gibbons reflected that Robin was “far more than a teacher, she was the ultimate life coach. Each of us understood that her confidence in us was genuine. We trusted that if Robin felt we could do a job well, we could. And so we believed in ourselves.”

“So many of us, decades later, consider her to be the most influential teacher we ever had,” said Donna Robinson. “Robin pushed us to achieve things we never dreamed we had the capacity to achieve. Robin let us know that she believed in us as young adults who were capable of taking on any task.”

Of the dozens of her most committed students, “there were no failures,” Cary Tyler observes. “We all stumbled and fell, but we all made something of ourselves. As an African-American kid, getting that push from Robin was very important.” Tyler feels that much of the impetus and many of the skills he needed to “cross the color line and succeed” came from “what Robin did for me. And I’m eternally grateful.”

“Far too soon,” said Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. Senator Harrison “Jack” Schmitt when he heard the news. Schmitt had first met Robin in 1975, during his successful campaign for Senate. “What remarkable gifts! Truly a Renaissance woman.”

U.S. Navy Rear Admiral James J. Carey met Robin shortly after she moved to Washington. Robin and Carey remained friends the rest of her life.

“I am honored to have been Robin’s friend,” Admiral Carey, now retired, said. “Robin worked tirelessly and accomplished a tremendous amount. She contributed so much to America that continues to benefit our nation. I have great respect for her life of commitment to others and for all she did for humanity. She was superbly talented, a truly kind and caring person, and a woman of loyalty and courage. Robin set the example for the rest of us and so many of us owe her a great deal.”

Jim Lafferty, one of the first people to work with Robin in Washington, recalled that “I have never known anyone with comparable unselfish energy and compassion. As a co-worker and a friend, Robin filled every room with brightness from deep in her soul.”

“A finer lady there never was,” Robin’s friend Mallory Lawson posted. “Robin was smart, gorgeous, generous, warm, funny, quick, honorable, capable in many areas, friendly, sincere, sweet, thoughtful, informed, and sophisticated. Robin was an all-round exemplary woman, the closest to a perfect person I have ever known. She was exceptional in every way. She had a deep concern for people, a drive to make a difference in the world, an ability to juggle a gazillion things, and the capacity to accomplish many things at the same time.”

“From the day I met her, Robin made me a better person,” Robin’s friend Beth Clay reflected. “Her grace, dignity, intelligence, strength, wisdom, and can-do attitude showed us all how to get things done in government, in society, and in life.”

“She was a rose,” said friend Virginia Harris, “beautiful yet so resilient. She was an angel on Earth, a pure vessel of God’s Love and Light.”

On behalf of the Kemp family, James “Jimmy” Kemp made this statement: “Robin Read Brunelli was a champion for the American Idea and shared a passion for the possible with my dad, Jack Kemp. In this country, the condition of one’s birth does not determine the outcome of one’s life, and Robin was a public servant who was inspired by our founders’ vision of the possibility inside each and every person. The Kemps are grateful for Robin’s life and love.”

From the National Council of La Raza, on behalf of “the NCLR Familia,” President and C.E.O. Janet Murguia issued this statement:

NCLR is deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Robin Read Brunelli, a dedicated two-term board member. During a difficult time of the immigration debate, she added a thoughtful and compassionate voice to the issue. Even after her board service, she remained engaged and supportive of NCLR’s efforts to strengthen and lift the voice of the Latino community.

As was often said and will be remembered fondly, Robin was generous of heart and generous in her professional efforts. She was a fierce advocate in promoting women and women taking leadership in all sectors of society, particularly elected office and civic engagement.

And, of course, her generosity carried through to NCLR. Robin was generous in her support of our leadership transition to me, as NCLR’s first female C.E.O., and in opening up her networks and relationships to opportunities that increase visibility of NCLR leadership and promote understanding and partnership.

We will miss Robin and thank her for her service to the Latino community in the United States.

Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez of California took to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to commemorate Robin. In her speech, Congresswoman Sanchez declared that “Robin Read Brunelli leaves behind an amazing legacy of service and will remain a model for young women to exemplify.”

Jack Kinsey remembered Robin’s “ready smile and warm hello” and her “grace and love of humanity” and he noted that Robin’s “vibrancy, intelligence, and positive outlook, no matter what the circumstances, were remarkable.”

Becky Schergens observed that “Robin’s constant support and enthusiasm for the establishment of a national women’s history museum in Washington, D.C., was one place her work was and will be evident over time.”

On behalf of the National Women’s History Museum, President and C.E.O. Joan Wages said that “it was an honor to be the recipient of Robin’s vast knowledge and experience.” She expressed her gratitude for Robin being such “an outstanding colleague and board member” and so “deeply committed to the Museum.”

From Dallas, long-time Texas State Representative and former NFWL Chair Helen Giddings said that “Robin was a woman who empowered women. Robin was a true treasure who cared about the women and men she worked with. She was a true public servant and a caring, thoughtful, wonderful person. We have lost one of our best, but we will never lose all that she has given to our work.”

Especially touching were the words of Millie Hallow, a long-time friend and ally of Robin’s and NFWL board member: “Robin emanated from her inner being a principled strength, a sense of calm, a depth of love, and a grace that we could see in her gait and bearing and could hear in the cadence of her voice. What richness she brought into our lives!”

Bill Richardson, former New Mexico Congressman and Governor, U.S. Energy Secretary, and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, stated that “from her classroom and realty office in New Mexico, Robin Read Brunelli emerged as one of our nation’s most gifted, gracious, and determined leaders. She has done as much as any individual in American history to empower America’s elected women leaders. From the Land of Enchantment to the shores of the Potomac and in all fifty state capitals, her influence, impact, and legacy will be felt for decades.”

Congressman William Lacy Clay of Missouri stated publicly that “Robin was an extraordinary person and public servant. She was vivacious, vibrant, dynamic, compassionate, thoughtful, and brilliant. She inspired everyone around her and encouraged all of us to work hard and be the best we could possibly be. Robin could quickly analyze complex problems and then resolve them in such a way that everyone involved was happy with the solution.”

At 4:00 p.m. Eastern time on June 9, 2016, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Paul D. Ryan, made his public statement: “I first met Robin and Sam when I worked for Jack Kemp at Empower America. They were close friends of Jack’s and The Power Couple for state government officials. Robin and Sam shared a passion for public service and for making government responsible, through its elected representatives, to the American people. She was loved, and she will be missed.”

At 2:00 p.m. the following day, U.S. House Minority Leader and former and future U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made her public statement: “Robin Read Brunelli was a tremendous trailblazer and proud public servant. Robin strengthened our nation with her service, inspired generations with her leadership, and empowered others with her energetic resolve to create a better world.”

By then, the board of directors of the National Foundation for Women Legislators had issued their statement: “Robin Read Brunelli was a pioneer and a remarkable and amazing woman. Robin didn’t just lead NFWL; she breathed life into this organization for more than two decades. Thank you, Robin, for your service, for giving so much of yourself, for your groundbreaking actions on behalf of women, and for breaking barriers for women everywhere.”

“What a unique personality Robin had,” New Mexico State Representative and former NFWL Chair Pauline Gubbels would reflect. “Such a unique presence and manner. Her internal beauty always came through, she had a lot of optimism, she almost always had a smile. She had such dignity, and there was that way she looked up, that special something elevated in her eyes. How could you not want to emulate her?”

Gubbels observed that “the way Robin viewed people, she saw the good in you and she saw your potential. Usually it was potential we hadn’t even seen in ourselves. She put you in a position and she helped you grow, and your self-confidence would build.

“Robin treated each woman leader as very special. She treated us royally. Everything was first-class. She expected excellence and she was herself a perfect role model. She brought out the best in each and every one of us.”

County Commissioner Joyce Dickerson of South Carolina would say that “my life’s never been the same since I met Robin and I’m so blessed by those years working with her. The experiences were so rewarding. She taught me to have such confidence and she made me believe I could do anything.

“Everyone gravitated around Robin, because we could learn so much from her and because of the beauty, love, and light she demonstrated for each of us, shared with us, and instilled in us. She made all of us women leaders feel special, she opened doors for us, and we bonded with each other, all of us, and helped each other develop and grow.”

Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, a state legislator then and now a U.S. Senator, reflected that “Robin was a people magnet. She was interested in you and she drew you to her and never let you go. Robin delighted in motivating and inspiring women to challenge themselves to succeed. She would push you to think outside of the box and continue to push a project, to win an election, to pass a bill, till the job was done.”

The three women who hired Robin in 1992 would look back and express their high esteem for her.

“Robin took us to a whole new level,” South Carolina State Representative Joyce Hearn would observe. “She gave us a completely new outlook. She was very innovative. She developed the whole organization. She shook us out of the doldrums and brought us into the 21st century.”

“Robin was the kind of leader we wanted,” Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell would remember. “She fit the bill perfectly and we very much appreciated her leadership. She was courteous and kind, but she didn’t suffer fools. She made us work, but we enjoyed the work. She inspired confidence in us all. And when you showed you were willing to work, when you put in the effort, you had a friend for life.”

Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer of New York was equally pleased and proud. “My goodness! Her vision, the way she looked nationally and globally, her ideas, and her enthusiasm, pushing us along that road she envisioned! Robin led us to a place way above anything we dreamed the organization could be.”

At the memorial service for Robin in Washington, D.C. on June 18, 2016, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia would tell us, “When I looked in Robin’s eyes, I saw her soul and it was pure. Have any of us ever met a more gracious and kind person? We live in a troubled world and a divided country. I can tell you one thing: If there were more Robin Read Brunellis, this would not be a divided country. It would be a loving place.”

Ambassador Swati Dandekar spoke on behalf of NFWL at the memorial service. “Behind every woman leader, there was Robin Read,” said Dandekar. “Robin was always there, a relentless force, devoted to raising women up, in both our personal and our professional life. She was our fearless leader, lifting us up when we felt powerless and sharing her strength to make us unstoppable.”

Mary Wilson of the leading 1960s band the Supremes sang at Robin’s memorial service in D.C. She said, “Robin was Ms. Personality. She was so kind and giving, always thinking of someone’s needs.”

In the main eulogy of the memorial service, Governor Mary Fallin of Oklahoma recalled, “With her sweet spirit, her special empathy, and her zest for life, Robin developed hundreds of transformational personal and professional relationships with leaders across the United States. She empowered all of us to be our very best.”

Sam’s daughter Dara Brunelli O’Hara and her four sons spoke at the Washington memorial service, followed by Sam’s daughter Tia Brunelli Mahaffy and both of her daughters.

“Robin was such a strong woman and compassionate teacher and she had such a magical, playful, and caring spirit,” Dara reflected in her tribute. “And she empowered everyone she interacted with. When with Robin, you felt like you were the only person in the universe who mattered.”

“Robin amazed me with everything she could do perfectly,” Tia proclaimed, “and she could do everything – I mean everything. She had no limits on what she could do and she did it all 110 percent. And she believed that my sister and I could do anything and everything too.”

Dave Hoppe managed Empower America – the policy organization chaired by Jack Kemp and William Bennett – in the 1990s, and he served as Chief of Staff to U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan. He also attended Robin’s memorial service.

“I count getting to know Sam and Robin as one of the great privileges of my life,” Hoppe said. “For the many years we have known each other, I have admired the work they have done. The work Sam and Robin did was not easy. Still, they both persevered and they both sacrificed to continue their work with legislators. Sam and Robin kept leading the fight for good values and reasoned solutions to our nation’s problems, and for their efforts our politics and the American people are all the better.”

Says Matt Bordonaro, who was mentored by Robin and Sam and became one of their closest friends, “Robin seamlessly flowed, like a movie star, from scene to scene. From her first waking moment, she did not hesitate to jump in and share the task at hand, and always the million-dollar smile.”

When Matt asked Robin in 1990 if he should go on a date with fellow staffer Molly Hering, Robin responded, “When life hands us a rose, we open our heart to the rose.” Matt and Molly began dating, fell in love, and wed each other, and they remain married three decades later.

Molly Bordonaro says that “every day, Matt and I are still endeavoring to see the good in each other and to respond to each other as gifts from God.”

Matt says that “I’ve never met another couple like Sam and Robin. They were on a definite mission to change lives. They taught us that we are all gifts of God and that when He puts people in our lives, we cherish them. Sam and Robin believed in all of us – in our God-given talents, abilities, and potential – often exceeding what we’d perceived in ourselves. And so each of us took our game to a whole other level. Sam and Robin set the bar for all of us, and here we all are, three and four decades later, still striving to attain their image of us and still striving for the goodness they’ve embodied.”

Jennifer Rosen, Robin’s longest-serving NFWL staff member, remembers how “there was a lot happening and Robin would give you a project and tell you to go for it and then she’d let you run it. She even trusted you to interact with legislators and Members of Congress. Robin was fantastic at rooting out young talent and then pushing us beyond our limits to places where we never dreamed we could go.”

Rosen learned time and again that even when Robin’s ideas and plans seemed unusual or impractical, “as they all came together, they were like magic, like nothing you’d ever seen. There was a true genius in her thought process.”

Rosen reflects that “I am so lucky, so blessed, to have worked for Robin the first decade of my career. She was so intelligent. Who has ever been better at looking at each new situation and putting the dots together? I’ve carried with me and always will carry with me that sense of confidence she gave me, that empowerment, and that drive and capacity to get things done.”

In her eulogy, Governor Fallin had said, “One of the most inspiring things I’ve witnessed in my life is the tremendous love story between Sam and Robin. What a model couple!” Molly Bordonaro called Sam and Robin’s love “truly a love for all the ages.”

At the close of the memorial service for Robin in Washington, all eyes turned to Sam. “The outpouring of love for Robin and all the loving memories you’ve shared over these past three weeks has taken my breath away,” Sam said. He acknowledged that there would many difficult days ahead for him, but that he hoped his pain would be tempered by being “so privileged to share every day for 31 years with this special and unforgettable soul.”

He took his time remembering the night that he and Robin met and danced for an hour and a half in another ballroom, at the Washington Hilton, just a mile from where he now said his public goodbye to her. Lost in reverie, Sam invited the audience back to that night at the California Inaugural Ball for President Ronald Reagan in January 1985. “Imagine Robin with that spotlight shining on her. Imagine me as I walked up and asked her, ‘May I have this dance?’”

Sam reached for the words to sum up their entire 31-year adventure and love story. “I knew that Robin was an angel the moment I met her. I am profoundly blessed that she became my best friend, my soulmate, the love of my life, my everything.”

Moments later, Sam concluded, “I hope with all my heart that on that day when the good Lord calls me home, He allows me to spend the rest of eternity with Robin in Heaven. Imagine Robin there, her angelic soul fully glowing with the Light of God. Imagine me, walking into Heaven for the first time, with my football in one hand and my red rose in the other. And I will ask Robin, ‘May I have this dance?’ And we will dance our way, two souls made one, into life eternal.”

My 2016 memorial tribute video of Robin

My book about Sam and Robin

During the first few months of 2009, people around Robin noticed that she wasn’t feeling well some of the time. Much of the time, physically and mentally, she was not performing at her peak. These concerns prompted people on a number of occasions to urge her to cancel some of her meetings and activities. Robin was determined to do all the things that, in her view, she needed to do. She kept pushing herself very hard.

On the morning of July 7, 2009, Robin was at her desk in her office. Sam was at a table a couple rooms over. Jennifer Rubin was at her desk, right across from Robin’s. It was an all-glass office, so Robin and Rosen had only a glass wall between Robin’s office and Rosen’s cubicle.

Robin had been feeling poorly the day before but had insisted on going forward with a meeting that morning with a veterans’ association. It was due to start in a few minutes, and in the meantime Robin was on the phone with her mother Maribelle’s personal assistant, Ana Ruiz.

Suddenly, Robin was repeating words and then said her own name several times. Rosen sensed that something was terribly wrong and got up and walked into Robin’s office. Then Robin’s face changed and her arm fell forward. Rosen, now alarmed, called out for Sam as she took the phone from Robin’s hand.

Sam rushed in and began tending to Robin. Rosen called 911, then sent an intern out to the front sidewalk to meet the paramedics. The paramedics moved Robin onto a stretcher, rolled her out to and into the ambulance, and raced her to George Washington University Hospital. In the office, the ambulance, and the hospital, Sam never left Robin’s side.

Rosen returned to the NFWL offices and stood there in shock. Then she sent the rest of the staff and all the interns home.

In the emergency room, the imaging revealed a major blood clot. The standard treatment was applied. It usually takes an hour to work. After 15 minutes, there was no improvement.

In an unlikely and extremely fortunate twist, two top GWU doctors were both present that morning at the hospital. One doctor was a specialist on the brain and a medication called TPA. The other doctor had the skills to deliver ATP directly to the blood clot via the blood vessels. The two doctors were put together.

“Give her some time,” one of the doctors told Sam after the 15 minutes.

“It’s not working!” Sam said.

The doctors explained to Sam that they could get the ATP directly to the blood clot in Robin’s brain.

“Let’s do it,” Sam insisted.

They had him sign papers waiving liability. The ATP broke up the clot.

In the afternoon, Rosen went to the hospital, where she sat a long time with Sam and Robin. While she could not speak, Robin was conscious. Robin would squeeze Sam’s hand to answer “yes” each time he asked her a question.

Days later, a nurse at GWU Hospital had the audacity to show Robin the ward where terminally impaired patients lived out their lives, including patients in vegetative states. Robin later cracked that she looked at her nurse and thought something her mother Maribelle had said over the years: “you’d be a lot more convincing if you weren’t chewing gum.”

Sam was disgusted and offended. Robin left the hospital and Sam began taking Robin for daily treatment time in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. He’d used chambers to accelerate treatment from injuries when he was with the Broncos, and the technology and its management had advanced considerably in the four decades since. Robin soon recovered 90 percent of her mobility and made stunning progress in her speech as well as her cognitive and other brain functions. In just one month, she came back to work at NFWL full-time.

Nonetheless, Robin’s last four years leading NFWL were exceedingly challenging for her. Her spirit was as strong as ever, but her spirit now had to work through a much less cooperative brain and body. She met the new challenges from the center of her being, with steadfast resolve. However, in 2012, Robin’s health challenges became progressively more difficult for her. She was having more trouble with her mobility, energy, strength, thought processes, and communication.

Here she was, a brilliant leader, an active networker and manager, and an adept problem-solver, confronting burdens so arduous that they frequently frustrated and upset her. She kept up appearances, but the stroke slowed her down and by 2012 bouts of heart failure were slowing her down even more. In Fall 2013, Robin retired after 21 and a half years as NFWL President.

ROBIN’S FINAL STRUGGLE

Throughout the seven years after her July 2009 stroke, Robin remained a blessing in so many of our lives. She inspired us to absorb adversity, to remain strong through struggle, and to endure through suffering.

In August 2015, Robin suffered heart failure while on a flight from Tampa to Shenandoah. In September, she was hospitalized and hovered near death.

Robin hovered near death again in January and February of 2016. We all watched – most of us from a distance – as Robin continued to struggle through health crises and recoveries. And we all watched as Robin continued to be nurtured and blessed by Sam’s tender care.

From 2008 to 2016, while he tended to Robin’s ever-present health challenges, Sam largely neglected his own Parkinson’s disease. Right up to the end of Robin’s life, Sam paid almost no attention to his own increasingly debilitating medical condition.

It isn’t clear how severe Robin considered her medical condition to be. Certainly, death had become an ever-present reality to her. Between 2003 and 2016, Sam and Robin were rocked by the deaths of many people about whom they’d cared profoundly. Joseph Coors passed in March 2003, President Ronald Reagan in June 2004, Robin’s father Robert Read in February 2007, Holly Coors in January 2009, Coach Lou Saban in March 2009, Jack Kemp in May 2009, Robin’s mother Maribelle Read in October 2011, and Robin’s friends Nadine Hogan in December 2012 and Juanita Head Walton in April 2016. Robin could not have been oblivious to the temporal limits of her own natural life.

On May 21, 2016, Robin’s condition turned ominous. Sam tended to Robin as a driver rushed them to the Nebraska Medical Center, more than an hour away in Omaha. She was diagnosed with kidney failure and one of her lungs had filled with fluid. The next day, Robin was rushed into surgery to drain and reinflate her lung; then she was moved into the intensive care unit. For the third time in a year, she hovered near death.

Robin rallied, floundered, and rallied again. But by the last day of May, Robin seemed to be slipping away from us. The first day of June passed in agony and trepidation. That afternoon, Robin regained consciousness for a while. She gazed lovingly, one final time, into the eyes of her soulmate of 31 years and uttered her last words: “Sam, sweetie, let’s get pregnant and have a baby.” Then she slipped back into unconsciousness, which lasted until visiting hours ended that night, and Sam had to return to his hotel room.

Sometime between 1:30 and two a.m., a nurse called Sam and let him know that he’d want to return to the hospital to be with Robin. Sam arrived at her bedside. She hadn’t regained consciousness since she’d spoken to him that afternoon.

Sam sat and held Robin’s hand for three hours while she remained unconscious, stirring occasionally. About 4:30 a.m., in the predawn hours of June the second, while Sam looked helplessly on, Robin breathed her last breath on Earth and was gone.

Behind every woman leader, there was Robin Read. Robin was always there, a relentless force, devoted to raising women up, in both our personal and our professional life. She was our fearless leader, lifting us up when we felt powerless and sharing her strength to make us unstoppable.

Ambassador Swati Dandekar

In 1938, female lawmakers from several states founded the National Order of Women Legislators. By 1992, NOWL had served for 54 years as a networking forum for women state lawmakers. However, almost all the networking was happening in state capitals, among women legislators in each state. Nationally, the organization was moribund. The 1991 annual conference had drawn only forty attendees. There were lots of state OWLs but no real NOWL.

The board decided to revive and expand the national organization. “It was so old-fashioned,” remembers Joyce Hearn, the State Representative from South Carolina who was serving as President of NOWL at the time. “At our annual conferences, we were doing little more than exchanging cups with each other. We wanted to get rid of that nonsense. We needed a whole new outlook.” The board tasked three national officers -- Hearn, State Representative Jodi Rell of Connecticut, and Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer of New York – with finding a new Executive Director.

The Executive Director for several years, Joy Stone, was leaving to start a health care policy association called Women in Government. Stone recommended to the board that she be succeeded by Robin Read Brunelli and she began working to persuade Robin to be her successor.

When Robin first heard of the job, she had both interest and reservations. It seemed like a good opportunity, a chance to lead and manage something of her own, and a great act of public service. However, Robin was just seven years into her 14-year appointment as a deputy to the governors at the Federal Reserve System. Robin could hold onto her prestigious and secure job at the Fed for another seven years, until 1999. She thought that taking the NOWL job would be a very risky career move.

But as NOWL officers Hearn, Rell, and Pheffer all interviewed Robin over the phone, Robin got more interested. Representative Rell interviewed her a second time, this time in person, in Connecticut. As she realized they were moving toward offering her the job, Robin signaled that she’d take it if offered.

“We were very impressed with Robin,” Rell recalled, “and her being at the Federal Reserve – and her being willing to give that up.” All three made the decision to recommend Robin to the board, the board voted to hire Robin, and Representative Rell then worked out the contract with her.

Under the arrangement, Robin held two posts: Executive Director of NOWL and – with the title she always used publicly – President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Foundation for Women Legislators. NFWL, formed in 1987 and always chaired by NOWL’s woman-lawmaker President, held NOWL’s management contract. For the next 21 and a half years, Robin would be known in Washington and the 50 state capitals as the NFWL President and C.E.O..

ROBIN LEADS A TURNAROUND

In Spring 1992, Robin hit the ground running. The transformation of the organization began immediately.

After outgrowing her small offices in Georgetown, Robin moved the NFWL offices into the first floor of The Christian Science Monitor’s glass tower building a block from the White House. This set of offices became the place where hundreds of lawmakers and business and nonprofit leaders would see and hear Robin in meetings, on the phone, networking, lifting, and inspiring.

Robin worked 60 to 70 hours per week. She often started working at four in the morning and it was not unusual for a legislator or C.E.O. to get a 5 a.m. phone call or voicemail from her. Whether she was raising funds, putting a conference together, or building a team for a project, Robin was persuasive, and even the most powerful people found it very hard to say no to her.

Robin grew in talent and skill as a fundraiser and soon became prolific. Her first year as NFWL President – from April 1992 to March 1993 – she raised $190,000, her second year $327,000, and her third year $607,000. By her fourth year in 1996, Robin had built a $1-million-per-year organization and the organization was hitting on all cylinders.

“Robin was unstoppable,” says Mary Fallin, who was reelected Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma in 1998. “And she empowered all of us to be our very best.”

EMPOWERING AMERICA’S ELECTED WOMEN LEADERS

Robin’s goals were always clear. The words varied just a little, but it was always something like this: “We’re here to assist and support elected women leaders,” she’d say. “To help them learn, confer, discuss, and engage on the issues, on policy. To help them share legislative strategies and tactics. To help them network, form alliances, and foster their professional and personal relationships – many of which will last a lifetime. To help them handle their duties in the statehouses, to mold public opinion, to win debates, and to develop and reach their potential as effective leaders.” Across the 21 years of her leadership, these goals remained constant.

By 1996, Robin was providing women leaders with a wide range of workshops on communication, including media relations. Each lawmaker could take the opportunity for a one-on-one consultation with a media expert to improve her speaking and interviewing style. The 1996 conference also included a session with pollster and political analyst Kellyanne Fitzgerald (the future Kellyanne Conway), who reviewed with the lawmakers the results of the 1996 election.

The Leadership College that Robin established in 1994 was thriving by 1996. Forty women state legislators spent days going through personalized coaching regarding their unique leadership effectiveness (after an evaluation), listening to speakers, and sharing stories with each other from their struggles and successes as public leaders.

State Senator Jan Brewer of Arizona called the College “the most dynamic learning experience I’ve ever attended. These skills will be invaluable to me in advancing in my career as a successful public official.” A dozen years later, Senator Brewer got herself elected Governor.

Other legislators say the College helped them to sort out their beliefs and the set of responsibilities involved in leadership, to gain insight into how they interacted with other people, and to get better at team-building. They felt they walked away much more confident in their leadership effectiveness.

In the 2000s and early 2010s, Robin continued to ensure that elected women leaders performed at their best in all media. Year by year, she always made sure that NFWL conference attendees knew what issues and messages were most resonating with voters.

Among Robin’s most reliable experts were two rising stars in polling and political analysis, Democrat Celinda Lake and Republican Kellyanne Conway. Each year, Lake and Conway spoke to a full NFWL audience – hundreds of women lawmakers and other attendees – and then participated in a panel with one hundred to two hundred attendees. In 2010, the Lake and Conway duo teamed up to bring out their groundbreaking book about female voters, What Women Really Want.

As social media emerged in the mid-2000s along with the new normal of a 24-hour news cycle, Robin remained proactive. Beginning in 2008, she made sure that women legislators knew the best practices for handling Facebook, Twitter, and other new social media. She made sure that NFWL conference attendees remained at the forefront of digital media and round-the-clock news.

It all added up to empowering more women leaders. “If I’m going to be more effective as a young legislator, I do need some help,” acknowledged State Representative Deborah Capano of Delaware. “I’m proud and glad that there’s a women’s organization that helps me funnel my abilities and my energy into being a more effective and more successful person in serving my constituents.”

State Senator Diane Allen of New Jersey remembers the strength women lawmakers drew from their time and work together. “So often in legislative meetings, you’d be the only woman in the room. You had to learn to cut through, to have your voice heard. Robin and NFWL really helped us develop our leadership skills.”

Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer of New York gets to the heart of Robin’s efforts: “Even in the 1990s, women leaders didn’t like to talk about their achievements,” Pheffer recalls. “Male legislators would just stand up and say, ‘I passed this bill, I’m working on this legislation, I did this and this and this, and I need money for my campaign.’ Women were not like that. We weren’t raised to assert our own worth. Robin brought in people – experts, consultants – at each conference who taught us to talk about our legislative work, to generate publicity, to create awareness about our bills and achievements, to ask for money, and to raise funds for our campaigns. We learned about ourselves and we came to believe in our worth.”

I exclude two categories. First, A.I. It’s way too early to assess anyone’s impact or legacy. Second, elected or appointed public officials and political commentators. I’m sidestepping what divides us ideologically about public policy. And it’s unclear to me which politicians or political opinion makers will be remembered well (or at all) in 50 years.

So with these exceptions, who has had the most positive and impactful legacy on human life as of 2026? And in 2076, who will also have an enduring legacy and be well regarded (or at least remembered) for their positive impact? This can’t be anything other than a subjective exercise, of course, but after four decades thinking about my generation and many hours considering hundreds of possible great Xers for this ranked list, I offer you this as my best effort:

#40. Ryan Tedder (1979-)

The singer-songwriter and frontman for OneRepublic and his bandmates have delivered 15 great songs generating more than 14 billion listens on Spotify and views on YouTube (combined), including 11 energizing, forward-driving, and aspirational songs — meaning they’ve provided the most motivational energy for daily life for the most people by any musicians ever.

#39. Jeanne Gang (1964-)

Our generation’s most defining architect, who’s best known for reimagining the apartment tower and whose work is likely to shape urban living for decades to come.

#38. Rolando Jose Alvarez (1966-)

The Roman Catholic Bishop who has stood up to the dictator Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and Ortega’s regime, and who’s been exiled to the Vatican after receiving a 26-year prison sentence for his outspoken criticism.

#37. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (1967-)

The artist whose electronic works are highly interactive, with audience participation as an essential part of the art itself.

#36. Olafur Eliasson (1967-)

The artist whose large-scale works bring together art and science with original perceptions of light and space.

#35. Scott Harrison (1975-)

Leader of charity: water, which has brought clean water to millions of people in developing countries.

#34. Gary White (c. 1963-)

Co-founder of Water.org, using microfinancing to make safe water accessible to people in 11 developing countries.

#33. Jessica Jackley (1977-)

Co-founder of Kiva.org, enabling all of us to directly support budding entrepreneurs in the developing world with microloans.

#32. Jackie Joyner-Kersee (1962-)

One of the greatest athletes of all time. The heptathlete who won every contest she participated in for the dozen years from 1984 to 1996, including winning four Olympic gold medals in a row.

#31. Leyma Gbowee (1972-)

Leader of the peace movement in Liberia who helped end her nation’s second civil war – and who will remain a model of successful grassroots nonviolent action.

#30. Enya (1961-)

She’s given the world 21 great songs (arguably 25) that many of her listeners find to be the most soul-enriching music ever composed.

#29. Cate Blanchett (1969-)

Our generation’s finest actor, setting the standard for character-driven performances. In addition to 20 stage productions, Blanchett has performed at least seven major roles in nine major films: Elizabeth, The Aviator, Blue Jasmine, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Don’t Look Up.

#28. Jony Ive (1967-)

The greatest consumer tech designer of all time, shaping the look and feel of daily life for billions of people. As lead designer at Apple, Ive led or played a significant role in the design of the iMac, the iPod, the Apple Watch, Apple stores, the ringed Apple headquarters, the iPad, and the iPhone.

#27. Christopher Nolan (1970-)

The innovative filmmaker who explores themes of identity, truth and its value, and philosophical topics including metaphysics and ethics. His seven major films: The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk, and Oppenheimer.

#26. Peter Jackson (1961-)

The filmmaker who brought The Lord of the Rings trilogy to our screens. Jackson turned the greatest novel of all time into three of the greatest films of all time.

#25. Matt Damon (1970-)

The defining actor of our generation, with ten major roles in ten major films: Good Will Hunting, Saving Private Ryan, The Rainmaker, three Bourne franchise films, Contagion, Invictus, Ford v. Ferrari, and Oppenheimer. An exemplary yet accessible actor with grounded, humane, civic, and moral intelligence. A defining Gen X presence. And the co-founder of Water.org.

#24. Fred Swaniker (1976-)

The founder of training and educational institutes across Africa, focusing on developing the continent’s future leadership. Enables many Africans to study at universities around the world. Has trained thousands of African leaders with the goal of training millions.

#23. Narges Mohammadi (1972-)

She’s pushed for human rights in Iran and led civil disobedience against oppression and for freedom, and when they’ve sent her to prison she’s brought attention to abuse of detainees.

#22. Sal Khan (1976-)

He’s extended access to high-quality education to millions of people worldwide. In 2004, he founded the Khan Academy and has served as its CEO ever since. Khan’s 6,500 free video lessons, mostly in science and math, have received more than two billion views.

#21. Michael Lewis (1960-)

The best nonfiction storyteller of our era and one of the best of all time. Every book is a riveting narrative from a clear-eyed and insightful observer. Lewis has shown us that our systems fail because of human weaknesses and flaws – which shape outcomes for all of us. His seven key books: Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, The Blind Side, The Big Short, The Fifth Risk, The Premonition, and Going Infinite.

#20. Dave Eggers (1970-)

Our generation’s warmly humane, keenly aware, and richly insightful master storyteller. He’s given us The Circle and The Every, the two best novels (thus far) of the 21^st Century. The two dystopian novels point us toward staying human in an all-encompassing privacy-stripping world of info-tech that saps our wills and degrades our minds.

He’s given us other great and near-great books, including Zeitoun and his coming-of-age memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. And in most of his work, he’s been helping us ditch postmodernism for something better.

Eggers’ mind is subtle and fluid as well as wry, observant, and perceptive. He captures his thoughts precisely, conveys genuine emotion with no false notes, and offers pitch-perfect dialogue.

#19. Ronaldo Nazario (1976-)

The best pro soccer player of his time and one of the best of all time. A complete forward and prolific scorer. Powerful, agile, fast, and technically brilliant, Ronaldo excelled at the attack, the assist, the dribble, staying balanced, nimble footwork, and ball control.

#18. Michael Jordan (1963-)

It was said in the 1990s that Michael Jordan played basketball better than anyone else on the planet did anything. He defined what it meant to be a champion. He embodied the desire to be the best, the fire to compete, and the indomitable will to do everything it takes to win — and inspired us all to live our lives the same way.

#17. Jimmy Wales (1966-)

He’s democratized knowledge as the leader of the world’s free online collaborative encyclopedia. With its 7 million articles, Wikipedia is the largest and most-read reference work in human history.

#16. Wynton Marsalis (1961-)

Trumpeter, composer, music instructor, and Lincoln Center artistic director, Marsalis has done more than anyone to keep raising jazz to its rightful, respected place in our global culture.

As our beloved philosopher of life, he’s also been a champion of personal and social excellence, calling us to a life of humility, respect for the grandeur of the past, passion, and commitment to solve problems in our society and make a unique contribution to the world – all while finding our swing.

#15. Xu Zhiyong (1973-)

A founder of China’s Open Constitution Initiative and the founder of the New Citizens’ Movement. He campaigned against corruption. He openly discussed China transitioning to democracy. And for this, in April 2023, he was sent to prison for 14 years.

#14. David Brooks (1961-)

Long after the dozens of other political pundits of this generation have largely faded from memory, the three most recent books by David Brooks will still be read, cherished, and lived out in people’s lives. The Road to Character, The Second Mountain, and How to Know a Person are so essential to leading a good life that they will endure for a century and probably well beyond.

The books take us through three major steps in life: Developing our individual character. Growing beyond hyper-individualism to meaningful, fulfilling relationships with others, including being a good neighbor and community member. And learning how to truly value, truly listen to, truly see, and truly understand the people in our lives and the person in front of us in this moment.

#13. Jon Stewart (1962-)

The defining satirist of our time and the greatest and most influential comedian of our generation. And a writer, producer, director, political commentator, actor, and television host.

We’ve experienced decades of Stewart’s wry moral authority — and his integrity — as he’s deployed comedy to reveal truths. Comedians will be influenced by him, even rely on him as a guide to greatness, for decades, perhaps centuries, to come.

#12. Aaron Sorkin (1961-)

Our generation’s greatest screenwriter and teleplay writer. There were at least eight great films, all with his rapid-fire dialogue and his moral and intellectual seriousness: A Few Good Men, The American President, Charlie Wilson’s War, Moneyball, Steve Jobs, The Social Network, and (also as director) Molly’s Game and The Trial of the Chicago Seven.

On television, there was the unforgettable Newsroom. And, week after week for seven years, the incomparable West Wing.

The West Wing gave us several main characters with integrity, dignity, professionalism, courage, and magnanimity. The West Wing raised our standards and made it cool to exercise the classical virtues, to have a well-honed intellect, to be knowledgeable and super-well-informed, and even to be noble.

#11. Gao Zhiseng (1964-)

The human rights attorney and dissident has defended activists and religious minorities in China and has documented abuses by his government. For this he was severely tortured by China’s secret police. Next they tried to assassinate him by arranging a traffic accident. And then, since September 2017, they’ve disappeared him.

#10. Timothy Snyder (1969-)

The most important historian of our generation. Author of three indispensable books: On Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom, and On Freedom.

With his deep and extensive knowledge of the past, Snyder coaches us on what we must do as citizens to keep our democracies from eroding into authoritarianism or falling into tyranny. The leading global voice advancing the vital work we can do to preserve our freedoms.

#9. Anne Applebaum (1964-)

The most important political journalist and commentator of our generation. And the author of four indispensable books: Gulag: A History, Red Famine, Twilight of Democracy, and Autocracy Inc.

Applebaum focuses us on the dangers facing the four dozen nations on Earth that are not fully-free democracies – and on our own personal roles as citizens, including in fostering civil society and in defending our freedoms from authoritarian forces.

#8. Alexei Navalny (1976-2024)

The human rights activist and opposition leader in Russia who came to global prominence with his videos exposing corruption. In August 2020, he was severely poisoned by a nerve agent. In January 2021, he returned to Russia – knowing he would likely be martyred to this cause – and was imprisoned. And in February 2024, after three years of being underfed and mistreated in prison, Alexei Navalny was poisoned with the neurotoxin epibatidine, and he died.

#7. Esther Duflo (1972-)

Our generation’s most important economist. Transforming the way money is spent to lift up the world’s poor – that is a major achievement. Making the money do effective work – even better. Duflo’s evidence-based policy assessments – including controlled trials comparing two or more policies in action – have been highly consequential.

Duflo’s most important finding: targeting tutoring for remedial and other struggling students works, big-time. Policies like these – empirically proven to work by her economic “lab” – have already touched the lives of 600 million people across our planet.

#6. Tawakkol Karman (1979-)

The Yemeni journalist and human rights advocate led protests for reform and helped usher in the Arab Spring movement. Her legacy of advancing both women’s rights and press freedom will be an enduring one, reaching far into the future.

#5. Chris Martin (1977-)

The primary emotional voice of our time. Globally the most listened-to band of the 21st Century — and the band has given us at least 15 great songs.

Coldplay has built its greatness on earnest songs that convey our angst, fear, doubt, confusion, isolation, loss, pain, sadness, and longing and convey our hope, positivity, gratitude, happiness, joy, human connectedness, and even transcendence.

And the humane vibe of Chris Martin, Johnny Buckland, Guy Berryman, and Will Champion is more than a vibe. The band’s public commitments include human rights, poverty reduction, migrant aid, cancer immunity efforts, and ocean cleanup, especially the cleanup of plastic.

#4. Maria Ressa (1963-)

The investigative journalist was a prominent critic of the authoritarian President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte – for which she was persecuted by the Filipino government. She remains a prominent global champion of press freedom, freedom of expression, and government accountability.

At Rappler since 2012, Ressa has practiced the best of 21^st Century journalism: still independent, still truth-centered, still resisting authoritarian power, and still engaged courageously in the all-important work of investigative journalism. She is especially effective at exposing when social media platforms are being weaponized to distort reality and undermine democracy.

#3. Srdja Popovic (1973-)

The most influential 21^st Century strategist of nonviolent resistance to authoritarianism. First he was a leader of the student movement that helped topple the brutally-authoritarian and war-criminal President of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic. Then he went on to train pro-democracy activists in more than 50 countries.

#2. David Foster Wallace (1962-2008)

Our generation’s best and most important literary writer. A daring acrobat of the written word, giving us writing packed with dazzling energy, brilliant intelligence, and edgy provocations.

His writings will keep English-Lit grad students busy for centuries. What does he offer the rest of us? Help: help in understanding our inner life as we make our way through life in today’s culture.

Wallace diagnosed the condition of our consciousness in contemporary life. And he offered something beyond irony and cynicism: awareness and authentic feeling – and he did this in that rollicking, erupting brilliance that jazzes us up about life without a trace of naivete.

He delivered, in 1996, our generation’s greatest novel: Infinite Jest. In every story, each and every character, no matter how minor, is morally real.

And he was the greatest essayist who ever lived. His best include “E Unibus Pluram,” his essay on television that remains the best essay ever written by any writer on any subject. Wallace remade the essay into a blend of reportage, memoir, and philosophy that included moving from observation to ethical inquiry even while sharing his own biases and confusion.

In every piece of his writing, we witness Wallace’s mind mirroring its own overstimulation and overthinking – just like ours does. And we hear the voice of a young man who tapped into the zeitgeist not only of the 1990s but of our generation’s rich, multi-layered inner and shared experience.

#1. Bono (1960-)

In 50 years as a band, U2 has garnered 42 Grammy nominations and 22 wins. There are at least 20 great songs, including the greatest song of all time, “Bad.”

As the rock band’s frontman and primary singer and songwriter, Bono has provided much of U2’s earnest, ardent, passionate, and (often) spiritual voice and vibe. Larry Mullen, Adam Clayton, and the Edge are vital to each anthemic song, especially the Edge’s radiant guitar chords.

In U2’s songs from the 1980s, we hear Bono sing about a crowd walking arm in arm in Poland, united as one. About dead bodies – news he can’t make go away – after British soldiers have shot 26 unarmed Irish civilians, killing more than half of them. About hearing the cries and the heartbeats of victims tortured and killed by a Latin American regime. And about shots ringing out in Memphis, taking the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., alongside lyrics about the crucifixion of Christ.

In their songs from 2026, we hear Bono sing about Sarina, the peaceful protester killed in 2022 by her government in Iran. About Awdah Hathelee, the nonviolent activist and filmmaker murdered in 2025 – with his murder not regarded as a crime worth prosecuting. About Ukrainian soldiers heroically defending their homeland. And about our need to COEXIST in a world void of moral leadership.

Then there was Bono’s extraordinary act of global leadership. In 1997, he looked at one billion people who lived on less than a dollar a day – and who had no voice – and he became their voice. With empathy, intelligence, and savvy, Bono led the Drop the Debt movement – successfully pushing the world’s bankers and heads of state to cancel $100 billion of debt owed by the world’s poorest nations, including all the debt of 23 nations.

In the two decades since, new schools and clinics have been built in these countries, many millions more people are getting medical care, many millions more children and youth are going to school, and many millions of lives across the planet have been transformed.

Bono’s moral authority flowed from his status as the world’s leading rock star, from his deep dedication, from the moral weight of his argument, and from his very simple faith: indifference is bad and love (both Divine and human) is good.

“‘Love thy neighbor’ is not advice, it’s a command,” Bono reminds us. “We’ve got to start bringing Heaven down to Earth – now.”

As young adults, nearly all of us move away from home and become independent of our parents. As rising adults, we work, explore vocational possibilities, gain knowledge and expertise, establish ourselves in the world of work, and build our career. Most of us start and build a family. We vote. We serve in institutions. And we test out our values amid real-life experience.

As rising adults, we provide the muscle and energy of society. And we learn to convert our ideas and dreams into plans and projects.

As we establish our first adult identity, we usually consider our choices in occupations, friends and peers, intimate relationships, and values. We are now capable of making commitments independently, and each of us tries to balance keeping our options open with making firm and lasting choices.

We step into our new roles, and these roles become important parts of our identity: I work at this job. I volunteer in this way in my community. I am a husband. I am a wife. I am a father. I am a mother.

Ideally, as we choose which goals to value, we learn how to balance self, family, work, and society. On the one hand, we develop intelligence and ability, reason and creativity, autonomy and independence, a healthy ego and the ability to assert ourselves, and personal drive and dedication to work. On the other hand, we enter into warm empathy, rapport, and attunement with other people, improve our capacity to listen and communicate, and become more adept at acting to benefit other human beings.

Mentally, many of us master the knowledge of a domain, including knowledge of objects and images, symbols, theories, works, rules, and human players. We internalize the ideas of a field; we master the canon of a domain.

Our values become active. We also struggle to balance our desire for status and our desire for authenticity.

In our early rising-adult years, ideally, we make the shift from dependence to responsibility. Everyone must die to his or her own child and youth ego — die to the dependent and obedient child and youth within, and even die to the inner youth who thinks that life is primarily about self-discovery.

And so we are inducted into the life of this world and we turn into a responsible adult. We must intend to be an adult, find the source of life, and derive from it new energy, power, and self-assurance.

Our rising-adult years usually end up being about mastering work and social roles. To be a rising adult usually means to tap into our will for life. In these years, many of us see life as a heroic struggle and we see the world as something to be met and dealt with, loved and learned from, and even fought with.

For most of us, our twenties and thirties involve mastery and performance. We master and perform a variety of tasks and roles. We are ambitious. We take on challenges. We invest ourselves in our projects. And most of us believe that everything can be mastered and controlled by our will — that with effort, everything is possible.

We drive toward success. We compete. We try to win out over our rivals. We develop our ego and our persona to deal with our job, family, and other social roles. We strive to prove ourselves to the world. And we draw much of our identity and self-worth from work, from achievements, and from competing and winning.

In our late twenties and early thirties, usually, we find worldly life enchanting. We retain much of the innocence and magic of youth. We hold onto our ideals, our glorious dreams, our vision of perfection, and our heroic view of life — although we often do so by ignoring, denying, or fleeing from tragedy, evil, and other sobering realities.

Because we assume that we are in control of our life and everyone else is in control of theirs, we also generate plenty of guilt, shame, and blame. When things go awry, we tend to think that it is either our personal fault or someone else’s personal fault.

Friendships usually thrive in our rising-adult years.

As young adults, we spend time together and share in activities, laughs, good times, and adventures, including some late-night conversations. The friendship is sustained by mutual interests, by relaxation, games, sports, and fun, by shared music, meals, and trips, or by shared volunteer work. And we can just be together. Ideally, through pressures and challenges, we help each other to broaden our horizons and to experience the world with passion and depth.

As young adults, friends help each other to establish themselves and their families and to be better parents. We give each other help moving furniture, painting the house, making decisions, and minding each other’s children.

Usually, we seek companions who mirror the best parts of our self-image. In our twenties and thirties, we may ask, Does the friendship still validate who we are: a maturing young professional and a husband and father or wife and mother? If not, the friendship is likely to fade.

Men usually form friendships with other men with whom they agree on issues and activities.

Males tend to talk (in groups) about business and work, sports, their political views and topical events, money, sources of personal pride, and what they like about other people (and, sometimes, marriage). Male conversation is more about power, winning, getting the upper hand, coming out on top, and being strong and heroic. Male conversations involve wit and one-up contests. Although avoiding failure is a major theme of men’s conversation, asking for advice is often regarded as weakness.

Men avoid personal revelations and rarely discuss their feelings. Men tend to be rugged and self-reliant, and men’s warmth and affection is directed into jokes and fun, anecdotes and stories, acts of loyalty, and doing things side-by-side, including finding, getting, buying, making, or fixing something or fighting for something. At the same time, most men will act heroically in a dangerous situation, and many men will risk or even sacrifice their own safety or life to rescue another person.

Women tend to look for friends with whom they are emotionally compatible. Women friends disclose more about themselves, including their fears and their feelings toward parents and other friends. Female conversation tends to be one-on-one and face-to-face, and women are more likely to use conversation to discuss their feelings, to establish a connection, to support and affirm each other, and to reach consensus.

In a close friendship, each friend cares about the other’s well-being. We reach out to each other with interest and empathy, and we contribute to each other’s lives and growth. We are committed, loyal, trustworthy, and helpful, and we stick by each other.

As close friends, we begin to know the inner workings of each other’s minds and wills. Our close friendships are marked by mutual fondness and trust, both of which are deepened by difficult events.

Close friends help each other get through stressful events like money problems, marital disruptions, and job failures. We stay with our friends through illness and the death of a loved one. We provide solace and keep each other’s spirits up through setbacks, loss, grief, and other dark and difficult experiences.

As close friends, we believe in each other, contribute to each other’s growth, and share a passion for each other’s goals. We support each other as we explore the world, develop our skills, make the most of our talents, live out our dreams, and fulfill our promise and our destiny. And when our friends are flying high, we share their happiness and soar alongside them with joy.

As true, close adult friends, we are sincere and truthful — free of deceit. We open up and speak freely, sharing our hopes and fears, our fantasies and dreams, revealing our inmost thoughts and feelings, and expressing our real selves. We keep confidences as we open up and share our full humanity with each other. We provide reassurance, comfort, and help. We offer each other constructive support, and each of us is open to reflective, sincere, and honest criticism.

We both know that the other is a flawed human being but we esteem each other anyway. We accept each other’s quirks. We indulge and forgive one another. We see each other at our worst and keep encouraging each other to be our best. We give each other advice and help each other wrestle with problems. We help each other face personal issues and tough truths, we hold each other accountable, and we challenge each other to lead a life of integrity.

In a comforting and exuberant friendship — in which it matters to us enormously that we matter to each other — we connect as two whole and total persons. Both friends are affirmed and validated and enter an enduring state of mutual trust. Many of our adult friendships are emotionally close and long-lasting.

Most rising adults are parents, so let’s look at the challenge and aim of parenting infants, toddlers, children, and youth. (Even if we’re not parents, we usually play a role in the life of some minors.)

As parents, we act from a deep spirit of family love. We respond to our children with happiness, wonder, pride, and love. We step into family commitments, obligations, and duties, we act responsibly, and we try to do the right things for our children.

To the best of our ability, we provide for our family, and do so into the future. We participate fully in the management of our family home. Amid the chores, homework, curfews, schedules, rules, and discipline, we shape our children’s values and habits. While playing together, praying together, sharing traditions and stories, and handling the inevitable tensions and clashes, we challenge, support, encourage, and affirm our loved ones.

Juggling work and family responsibilities, having fewer leisure hours as we engage in caregiving, and enduring the financial strain of having children can all be stressful. But we also find parenthood profoundly rewarding.

We know that family members can have distance, differences, and dissent while still thriving, flourishing, and drawing self-esteem and joy in close, supportive, and committed relationships.

We are responsive to our children’s needs and their bids for attention. We do the best we can to protect our children and satisfy their needs. We nurture, support, comfort, and care for our children, and show them that they belong and that they are lovable — and how to love. We provide them with stimulating play and foster their autonomy and individuation, and we are there for them when they are frightened, tired, or stressed. We model a range of behaviors for them.

We do our best to show and teach our children how to live a life full of interest, enjoyment, cheerful engagement, serenity, satisfaction, well-being, and self-existent delight even through adversity. We let them know that it is possible to live our life in a state of profound emotional well-being.

We are enduringly committed to each child’s well-being. With hope, faith, trust, patience, and humor, we nurture and love our children, and we do our best to support them as they pursue their goals. We stir our children, move them, give them direction, shape their identity in positive ways, and help them find the meaning and purpose in life.

We support the growth and well-being of each child, follow his or her interests, and affirm each child on his or her journey. We let our children explore, experiment, falter, and regroup — all without shame — and we carry our children through times of desolation and defeat.

In short, we help guide our children into a social life in which they engage in empathy, attunement, validation, trustworthiness, magnanimity, and useful service.

We aim to build families full of love, support, and commitment. We share the struggles of life together as each family member develops his or her empathy, kindness, self-esteem, and trustworthy character.

We are warm but firm parents. We smile at, praise, and encourage our children, and show them plenty of affection. We are empathetic, caring, enthusiastic, and affectionate, and we respond empathetically to our child’s feelings. We are loving.

Being warm yet setting and enforcing firm and reasonable rules, we aim to raise healthy children who have lifelong empathy, moral values, and good character.

We are not only warm but firm. We set clear and reasonable rules and we consistently enforce them. We have high but realistic expectations and demands for our children’s behavior, especially their helpfulness and overall maturity. We set limits, criticize misbehavior, and discipline our children with proper and balanced punishments, all while encouraging our children to become independent.

We encourage responsibility and give our children increasing levels of responsibility. We listen to our children and remain open to them. We balance high standards and expectations with unstinting love.

We do our best to positively shape our children’s values and habits. We do our best to guide them into good moral and ethical development. We do our best to shape their values in the direction of goodness.

We help guide our children through the intensity of youth, when they want to be independent but also want to belong and be accepted by their peer group. We continue to be warm and supportive. We enforce a reasonable set of rules. We monitor their comings and goings. And we include them in decisions.

If we are spiritual people, as they mature, we transmit truths to our sons and daughters and awaken their spiritual perceptions. We guide them to learn, to become intelligent and compassionate, to encounter spiritual realities of their own volition, and (to the extent we believe in these things) to experience for themselves the blessings of a life lived in awareness of consciousness, the Field, the soul, and Deity.

All my best,

Mike

Like my ranked lists of 100 great people from the previous 21 generations, this ranked list reflects my own sense of this generation’s exemplary achievers. Who are yours?

#25. Daniel Goleman

His 1995 runaway bestseller Emotional Intelligence reshaped how we understand human behavior and success, showing us that our relational sense and skills matter as much as our intellect. Social Intelligence (2006) extended that vision. Goleman clarifies the seven core traits we most need in life: motivation, self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, attunement, social skill, and social coordination.

#24. Shigeru Ban

The Japanese architect has emerged as one of the 20 best architects of all time. Ban has been incredibly innovative in designing his structures and making extraordinary use of materials.

#23. Elizabeth Diller

The best American architect of her generation, the most influential living designer of cultural spaces, and one of the 20 best architects of all time. Through projects like the High Line and major museums and performance venues, she has reshaped how we experience public space.

#22. Oliver Stone

He’s always had a point of view, and whether you accept his point of view or not, you always walk out of the theater respecting his take on power, ambition, and the moral complexities of public life. Five of Stone’s most high-impact films: Wall Street, The Doors, Nixon, W., and Snowden.

#21. Steve Wozniak

The engineering genius behind the early personal computer. Developed the Apple I in 1975 and designed the Apple II in 1977. Influenced the original conceptual development of the Macintosh from 1979 to 1981. Cofounded Apple.

#20. Vint Cerf

A principal architect of the Internet. Chaired the International Network Working Group beginning in 1972. Co-wrote the Internet’s Transmission Control Program (TCP) in 1974 and co-designed the TCP/IP protocol suite in 1976. Helped develop the Internet’s first commercial email system (MCI Mail) in 1989. His work and leadership made the Internet possible.

#19. Tim Berners-Lee

In 1991, he completed his software for creating online documents with hypertext links — with a system for online addresses and rules for linking and transporting online pages. The World Wide Web was born.

Since the early 1990s, we’ve had Tim Berners-Lee’s Web software with browsers (hypertext readers). Browsing Web documents, people anywhere on our planet — without complicated commands — have been able to receive text, graphics, pictures, and sound (and, a bit more recently, video). And the information arrives with links to related material, allowing us to move easily and quickly to whatever interests us next.

#18. Daniel Day-Lewis

A method actor who extensively researches each role, fully immerses himself in it, and fully devotes himself to performing it. To name the big five: He drew us into a raw and intimate experience of life with cerebral palsy in My Left Foot. He excelled as a charismatic romantic hero in The Last of the Mohicans. He took us into a true story of wrongful conviction, anger turned into understanding, reconciliation, love, and grace in In the Name of the Father. He showed us the greed, ambition, and psychological dominance of a towering business figure in There Will Be Blood. And he revealed an archetypal leader in all his deeply human presence in Lincoln.

#17. Elton John

He’s given full emotional expression to our lives. Elton John and lyricist Bernie Taupin delivered one timeless ballad after another. Elton’s greatest songs include the pure and earnest Your Song, the lonely yet transcendent Rocket Man, one of the perfect songs of our lifetime — Tiny Dancer — the poignant Daniel, the evocative and heavenly Skyline Pigeon, the touching and uplifting Greatest Discovery, the pumping and chanting Philadelphia Freedom, and the dramatic, brilliant, and powerful Someone Saved My Life Tonight.

#16. Ken Wilber

Quite arguably, he’s the world’s leading living thinker. Wilber focuses on the development of the human being across the lifespan in a way that includes the transpersonal domain of human consciousness. We could call Ken Wilber a developmentalist transpersonal philosopher — the first in the history of the world. His Integral worldview is unquestionably the most comprehensive worldview of our time and the most comprehensive of all time. And as with any great thinker, he challenges us — profoundly — and when we disagree with him, we grow intellectually as we figure out why.

#15. Oprah Winfrey

On TV, beginning in the mid-1980s, Oprah Winfrey led daytime ratings as she brought intimacy and empathy to the talk-show format. Her rapport, her immediacy, and her focus on personal issues created a revealing, confessional atmosphere — all embedded in positive thinking with spiritual uplift. Then she went on to support girls’ education in low-income nations with hundreds of millions of dollars in key donations.

#14. Denzel Washington

He decides, he leads, he takes a stand, he falls, and out of all the moral struggle and moral authority under pressure, he and those around him usually hold onto their dignity and emerge redeemed. His most ethical, morally courageous, and civic roles include Steven Biko in Cry Freedom, the truth-seeking journalist with integrity in The Pelican Brief, the Naval commander guided by conscience and moral judgment in Crimson Tide, and the teacher who cultivates and elevates young minds in The Great Debaters. And off-screen Denzel Washington has remained, across the decades, one of our most exemplary cultural figures.

#13. Tom Hanks

It is a rare actor who is a larger-than-life noble hero and yet who we feel we know and understand as a regular person and as one of us — who seems to think like us, who does what we would do, who is us. Tom Hanks is that rare actor. And no actor has done more to bring alive American history during and since the Second World War. He’s played an attorney dying of AIDS in Philadelphia, a World War II military officer in Saving Private Ryan, attorney James Donovan in Bridge of Spies, editor Ben Bradlee in The Post, Commander Jim Lovell in Apollo 13, Congressman Wilson in Charlie Wilson’s War, and the captain in Captain Phillips. Hanks was also co-producer of the powerful World War II miniseries Band of Brothers and The Pacific.

#12. William Bennett

Bennett’s leadership as U.S. Secretary of Education from 1985 to 1988, along with his millions of books sharing stories of exemplary, virtuous role models with Millennial children and youth, has left a massive and enduring legacy in the lives of Millennials and Zoomers.

Bennett led the “excellence movement” — a nationwide push for higher academic standards, stronger civics education, and character education in American schools. Primarily with Bennett’s leadership, the 50 states enacted thousands of education reforms, raising course requirements and academic expectations and standards. Within a few years, far more students were completing rigorous programs in English, math, science, and social studies, and the groundwork was laid for generations of higher achievement. At the same time, Bennett’s writing — especially his widely read collections of moral stories — helped introduce the classic virtues to millions of young people.

His message was simple: teach students to read, reason, and solve problems—and also to be responsible, self-disciplined, honest, and respectful. And he made much of this happen. Count how many Millennial and Zoomer Americans there are today — about 200 million — consider all those challenging courses and twice the homework time of GenXers, and we’re looking at the largest leadership legacy of any Boomer.

#11. Robin Williams

The greatest comedian of all time and one of the greatest improvisational actors of all time. Again and again, Williams astonished us with his non-stop zap-zap-zap wit and performances. Yet beneath the dazzling wit was something more enduring: a spirit of exuberance and deep humanity.

Williams on screen often seemed to perform with total freedom, but there was great discipline behind his work. Besides the frenetic zaniness, Williams had an endearing manner, innocence, enthusiasm, and knack for looking at the world in all its glory.

His unforgettable and moving films — with plenty of serious dramatic roles — include Dead Poets Society, Awakenings, Good Will Hunting, Good Morning Vietnam, Mrs. Doubtfire, What Dreams May Come, and Patch Adams. From TV to films to standup to talk-show appearances, Williams will always be remembered for his rapid free-association humor, his breadth of talent and gifts, his total aliveness, and his humane soul.

#10. Meryl Streep

The Big Band Generation (born 1902 to 1924) produced the greatest character actor of all time: Laurence Olivier. The Boomers produced the second greatest character actor of all time: Meryl Streep.

There is her command of dialects; for Sophie’s Choice, she learned the Polish language and mastered speaking both German and English with a Polish accent. There is her technical precision. There is her versatility and range, taking us into such a wide variety of human experiences. Above all, Streep subsumes herself into each character and transforms herself into each one, becoming the person in each new role, becoming before our eyes a new human being.

Almost everyone has their favorite Meryl Streep films, and they usually include some of these 14 films: Sophie’s Choice, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Silkwood, Out of Africa, The House of the Spirits, A Cry in the Dark, Music of the Heart, A Prairie Home Companion, The Devil Wears Prada, Mamma Mia!, August: Osage County, Doubt, The Iron Lady, and The Post.

#9. Steven Biko

The brilliant and wise anti-apartheid activist who was martyred to the cause. In September 1977, South African police arrested the 30-year-old medical student and carried out a 22-hour interrogation of him, during which he sustained fatal brain damage. But Steven Biko had never been found guilty of a crime. His “crimes” were founding the South African Students Organization and being a leader of the Black Consciousness Movement. He was murdered by the police solely for his convictions. Biko left us eternal truths like this: “The most potent weapon in the hand of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”

#8. Liu Xiaobo

The human rights activist, dissident, and prisoner who never stopped advocating for multi-party democracy in China. No one has shown us more courageously how to testify to the truth. Xiaobo will forever remind humanity that “freedom of expression is the foundation of human rights.”

#7. Kailash Satyarthi

For decades, he has led the global movement to liberate and educate the young. He leads the global movement against child labor. He leads the global movement for the universal right to childhood education. And no one in human history has done more than Satyarthi to move children and youth out of exploitation and into freedom, education, and a future with real opportunities.

#6. Lech Walesa

Even while the Soviet regime had the Polish activist constantly placed under surveillance, fired from his job as an electrician, repeatedly arrested, and at times imprisoned, Lech Walesa built the Solidarity movement to ten million people. Solidarity was outlawed, Poland was placed under martial law, and still his pro-democracy movement remained unstoppable, culminating in freedom from Soviet rule in 1989 and full democracy in 1990, which turned this dissident into a national and global statesman.

#5. Bill Gates

At Harvard in early 1975, Paul Allen, Bill Gates, and Monte Davidoff developed a software program that turned the first personal computer into a useful machine. Soon their company, Microsoft, produced MS Excel and MS Word — software that eventually achieved near-monopoly status for PCs along with its Windows operating system. Then Gates gave almost all his money away to fight disease and improve education.

#4. George Lucas

The creator, writer, director, editor, and producer of the 1977 film Star Wars — the film that restored life-affirming mythic heroism to a world that badly needed it — and the second trilogy of the Star Wars series. The producer and story creator for the second, third, and seventh Star Wars films. The story creator and producer of the first four Indiana Jones films and producer of the fifth. In addition to this extraordinary cultural legacy, Lucas has been one of our greatest philanthropists.

#3. Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel has given us dozens of exceptional songs, including several in the 2020s, in his seventies. There is the Passion C.D., with 21 songs that mark Gabriel as an emissary to our souls from some profound transcendent realm, some spiritual oasis with its own sacred frequencies. And almost all of his music is consciousness-expanding, including songs he’s begun releasing in these first months of 2026.

There is the heart-aching sadness and dream of connection with more tender souls in Mercy Street, the upbeat sense of our connectedness in life’s holistic flow in i/o, receptiveness to our deeper awareness in Red Rain, the aliveness of our rejuvenated body and reawakened mind in Road to Joy, the miraculous blessing of healing love in Love Can Heal, a new openness to living wisely in Here Comes the Flood, our yearning for a more authentic and loving life in Playing for Time, consoling hope through our hardest times in Don’t Give Up, a sublime epiphany and transformation in Solsbury Hill, and finding a deeper spiritual presence with each other and / or with the Divine in In Your Eyes.

And, ultimately, there is the grief-filled, distraught-filled hymn that is a eulogy for Steven Biko — summoning us to stand against torture and against the silencing of voices and to stand for essential freedoms and for resisting autocratic regimes — the greatest human rights anthem of all time: Biko.

#2. Steven Spielberg

The most successful filmmaker of all time. In his sentiments and sensibilities, Spielberg seems free of irony or cynicism. Most Spielberg films involve innocence, nostalgia, yearning for home, hope, and optimism. In most Spielberg films, there is a spirit of exuberance, populism, decency, and reverence — and usually some courage and some ingenuity.

What a repertoire! Consider our experiences watching just these 16 movies: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., the first three Indiana Jones films, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, Amistad, Minority Report, Munich, Lincoln, Bridge of Spies, and The Post.

#1. Steve Jobs

In the Bay Area in 1975 and 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak developed their first Apple computer. In 1977, Jobs and Wozniak brought Apple’s first personal computer to market, the Apple II. In 1984, Jobs brought Apple’s Macintosh to market — the first mouse-driven computer with a graphical user interface. And in his second act in the 21st Century, he worked with Tim Cook and Jony Ive to bring us the iPhone.

Steve Jobs’ six-part legacy: He made computing matter to us. He shaped how we use computers. He unleashed our creativity. He made computers aesthetic. He made computer use intuitive. And he shaped how we felt about the future.

Steve Jobs died on October 5, 2011. Before losing consciousness on October 4, his last words express his sense of wonder — our sense of wonder — even as he summed up his life and the life, achievements, and legacy of his generation: “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.”

Before we Christian fans of U2 start acting special or superior in any way, let me say that I think U2 has taken us to a place in our Christian faith that is deep enough to disturb us into the realization that 12 songs — both the music and the messages — feel more Christian than church. We are being challenged, not pleased, not fed false pride that we can reclaim U2 as a Christian band.

For those of for whom U2 was our favorite band in the 1980s — the band we replayed on our CDs every day — 2026 is has brought a surprise blessing into our lives. Our band has come back to us. The U2 we came of age with has delivered something epic — something glorious that gives us those old feelings again, lifts our spirits, and enlightens us. Bono, the Edge, Adam, and Larry have poured out their souls to us, painted landscapes and visions in our minds, and delivered a message that the world needs at this very time.

Me and almost all of my closest friends loved U2 in the 1980s because they were spiritually earnest. And we’d never experienced music like this before. They brought their earnest spirituality into their music and applied it to the real world around us.

For me, eight U2 songs from the Eighties endure — and one between then and last year. I still listen to them all the time.

In these eight songs, we hear Bono sing about a crowd walking arm in arm in Poland, united as one. About dead bodies – news he can’t make go away – after British soldiers have shot 26 unarmed Irish civilians, killing more than half of them. About hearing the cries and the heartbeats of victims tortured and killed by a Latin American regime. About shots ringing out in Memphis, taking the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., alongside lyrics about the crucifixion of Christ.

If you had asked me any time in the past two decades, I would have told you that U2 gave us nine songs that are great songs and also personally meaningful to me. So it has been a wondrous gift to have U2 give us this year 11 new songs that I regard as both great and meaningful to me.

And now there are 12 more U2 songs from 2026 that are regard as both great and personally meaningful to me. How to absorb these 12 new songs into my longstanding U2 playlist with eight songs?

It is awfully challenging and a bit foolish to rank these great, meaningful U2 songs from #20 to #1. But I’ve decided to do it, if for no other reason that to expand and reorganize my U2 playlist.

We hear Bono sing of sorrow, weeping, dust, deep and driving snow, being beaten down, walls holding us inside, and loveless, lifeless, hearts of clay. Of twisting and turning away, torn in two. Of dislocation, suffocation, desperation, separation, isolation, desolation.

He asks us how long we’re going to stay on this borderland. And he sings of light in the distance, across fields, and of building a bridge across the sea and land.

He reminds us that all we have to do is to surrender, to let go, to let the walls come down, and to reach out. We are here on Earth to love, and if we’re not sleeping, if we’re wide awake, we can reach out and touch the flame, we can walk into the Light.

So let’s not look back, Bono urges us. Let’s set our spirits free. Even if they take our lives, they cannot take our pride. It’s time to heal. Time to feel the sunlight on our faces. To come home to that higher place. To go there with each other. To love and to be as one.

Each title’s song is a like to a YouTube version of the song:

#20. “Wildpeace”

The music is met by a reciting of lyrics by Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai. The band gets out there a bit doing something experimental. Message: Let’s rest with our wounds as move into the light.

#19. “American Obituary”

The righteous anger of this protest song is so intense it gives us chills. Reminds us who we are at our best, and calls us to rise with strength and love through America’s current struggles to confront power with truth.

#18. “New Year’s Day”

Features solid and tight drums, piano, and a perfect guitar solo. It’s a warm, passionate, gripping tribute to the Solidarity movement in Poland.

#17. “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” involves great drumming, great guitar playing, and a great blending of the two. It expresses bewilderment and raw anger for the senseless suffering in Ireland. Since neither side can “win,” the song calls both sides to move beyond their conflict and into unity.

#16. “Song for Hal”

A beautiful, majestic, and soaring anthem of friendship and faith. The moving beat immediately has us going somewhere, and the subtle and even cool choruses tell us where: toward the sacred. The sacredness of when we make our close friends laugh. And the sacredness of Heaven — and where music is made, and yes, you will be there — Heaven as resonating frequencies, Heaven as a tune we are learning. The flowing, uplifting music reminds us of that song we hear — the song of Forever — where we’ll live after we disappear from photographs here on Earth.

#15. “Resurrection Song”

A song of awe and life and faith and love — so uplifting it sounds like Heaven. Heaven is waiting. Heaven is better. There is nothing better. Love is in the air, and fearing to love is a form of death, so let’s get the Bread and breathe in all the shared Love of Heaven we can. Let’s love extravagantly. And let’s love without regret. Heaven’s got that for us, and death is merely crossing a boundary into our next and better life with a fullness of love.

#14. “Mothers of the Disappeared”

Stands out for its Spanish guitar melody. The song evokes the anguish of mothers who’d lost a son or daughter who had opposed an evil regime and had then disappeared without a trace, never to be seen again. We’re taken into the suffering of the innocent – the kidnappings, torture, and murders – in the lands of dictatorship. The terror of death squads is intense – tragic, profoundly sad, ominous, and haunting.

#13. “Easter Parade”

A transcendent song that reaches deep into our souls. A smooth click-clack-snap is joined by a drumming feel and then an electronic progression as Bono tells us he has one more transcendent “gravity-defying song” left in him. A large choir joins in as he sings of devotion and of surrendering in worship and of the ego death that leaves us free of fear. He worships what he cannot keep — worships what cannot be owned or controlled — worships the invisible Presence Who knows he is there. And he closes out with a chanting cry of “Kyrei Elieson”: “Lord Have Mercy.”

#12. “Love Is Bigger Than Anything”

Love is infinite and love is a powerful force. This song gives us the confidence to get out there and tackle our challenges and to overcome our obstacles as well as bridge our differences with people in our life.

#11. “Pride (In the Name of Love)”

A powerful anthem about Christ and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., driven home by The Edge’s guitar and the voice of Bono, who pours his heart and soul into the song. It’s full of passionate spiritual energy and evokes a sense of enlightened freedom and courage.

#10. “In a Life”

A magnificent, brilliant, uplifting song that makes us feel alive and deepens our friendships and other relationships. The streaming, rolling upbeat tune matches the song’s promise — our promise as we sing it — to meet other souls in any place, at any time, in their pain, in any mood or state of mind they may be in, even in their poorer qualities. We taste it all in life, and too often we do not see the comic in the tragic. But we can. Love can absorb the trauma. We can transcend again and meet in joy. Let’s keep glimpsing our true selves as we glance in God’s Eyes and glance in each other’s eyes. And at the end, we will reach and enter together the eternal Circle.

#9. “A Sort of Homecoming”

This song has an entrancing energy to it that triggers a spiritual experience. It’s rousing and uplifting and makes you ache for the beautiful dream that life could be.

#8. “Scars”

This song goes deep into our pain and takes us to such a great place - a place of love and light and comfort and hope. Through all our troubles, we’ve kept kicking open the doors of our hearts. We’ve defeated every tyrant outside of our self. Now the only tyrant left is the one inside our self. But we are already broken. We cannot be broken again. So let’s look skyward, let’s reach for the light. Let’s leave our history behind. And let’s show the world that our scars are us, our scars our beautiful, we are beautiful. Let’s transform our pain and suffering into the best part of us and the best part of our life. Cuz there is a Presence Who sees our scars as sacred and sees who we are. Let’s put our fingers in His wound, and we’ll see there is nothing sweeter than His wound, his scar, which all the world can see and touch.

#7. “Where the Streets Have No Name”

Starts with the best beginning to a song ever. It’s slow, dramatic, and swelling and it transports you into the greatest sense of awe and feeling of expectation you’ve ever experienced. As if the sun is rising on what’s going to be the most glorious day of your life. Truly sublime. Then you realize you’re listening to an epic anthem, speaking deep into your soul, calling you to transcend all borders and divides and limits and to enter into a primal and spiritually pure freedom. It’s a song of yearning and anticipation for the soaring possibilities in our imaginations. And if you believe in the afterlife, it’s a song about Heaven.

#6. ”Song of the Future”

This song pays homage to Sarina, the 16-year-old Iranian girl killed by her government in 2022 for participating in peaceful protest. And it honors the tens of thousands of Iranians killed by their government since. It’s done with a fervor, with urgency, calling to attention and to a future of freedom over dictatorship, especially for the Iranian people. It is tragic yet filled of love.

#5. One Life at a Time

This powerful song shakes our souls and carries us to a new place. There are compelling lyrics about what map each of us has in our head to understand events. What we know and what we feel (and the story we’ve been sold) shapes what we see and where we stand. Yes, love drives out fear, but how will this ever happen in the Middle East? The world will align one life at a time.

The song commemorates Awdah Hathalee, a nonviolent activist and filmmaker — who filmed illegal settlement activity on the West Bank — and whose murder on July 28, 2025, was filmed. There is no prosecution and no justice, meaning there is no law — or no law that recognizes this murder as a crime.

#4. Tears of Things

Brooding, powerful, profound, poignant, and raw — which adds up to being stunning. Every line of Bono’s poetry is brilliant. The Divine Being has not only created each of us but created each of to be an instrument. Each of us is waiting to be released from marble the way David was released from marble by Michelangelo. As we consider tragedies like Fascism and the Holocaust, we should “be open to be broken.” David weeps as he witnesses the rage of those who’ve been caged up, when no one is them or us because “everyone is my people.” We’re made to worship, and our exiled souls yearn for home to the Creator who desires our company.

#3. COEXIST (I Will Bless the Lord at All Times?)

This is a compassionate, pure, and healing lament and Bono’s singing is haunting. He sings of spiritual aspirations in a spiritually ideal life for all of us. He sings of each new day when we’re surprised by the rising sun. He sings of the loveliness of each child — each child with no armor and no hate.

And then he takes us into the dark realities of our broken world. A world collapsing. A world with no moral direction, corrupted by damaged souls. A world of violence and trauma. In case we might miss his meaning, he does not sing but intones the words, “Drones hover without any consciousness over war crimes.”

Then he turns defiant. Changes are coming. It will rain on this parade. He is not afraid. At all times, he chooses to praise God, to bless the Lord. (While seeming to provocatively question whether government and military leaders and soldiers are doing so.) He is defiant and unafraid to remain faithful to his spiritual vision in this broken world. Love cannot always control outcomes, or change things, or fix or resolve things, or save the people who deserve saving. But love can remain present. And love can meet people’s basic needs for shelter and food.

And he ends the song by crying out to the Lady of Guadalupe.

#2. “Yours Eternally” (with Ed Sheeran)

This song honors the frontline Ukrainian soldiers who have faith in each other and keep each other alive and find ways to share in laughter and beauty and hope. They “still dream about waking up free” and sacrifice “for the glory of a world that we can’t yet see.” The song couldn’t do more to connect us with the heroes of Ukraine as they provide daily defense of their homeland under attack by a brutal aggressor. For all those of us who stand with these soldiers in spirit, it is an anthem. Slava Ukraini! Glory to Ukraine!

#1. “Bad” (“Wide Awake”)

And then there’s “Bad”, which I’ve always called “Wide Awake”. From empathy and depth, the song conveys something universal and eternal. It calls us to break free from everything that tethers us to our wounded, scarred, earth-bound, mortal self and enter a higher, more open sphere. To leave behind our inner turmoil and to be elevated into that space. To be liberated. To step into the beauty of the Light, to heal, to discover what’s best within us, and to grow into it.

In a thousand listens across four decades, this song has never failed to take me places. It expands my consciousness every single time — takes me into transcendent and sacred space no other “secular” song can take me into. For me, there’s no song even remotely like “Bad”. For me, it’s the number one song of all time. And for me, it’s a sublime spiritual experience.

All my best,

Mike

The generation born from 1925 to 1942 is usually called the Silent Generation, sometimes the Civil Rights Generation. I prefer the Folk Generation. But any of these names works.

Over the decades, I’ve studied at least 300 people from these two generations combined. How I got down to a list of their 20 greats — it was not easy. And how I ranked them from #20 to #1 — which I just did over the past 24 hours or so — I’m not quite sure how I did that. Nothing could be more subjective, and yet I think it’s a worthwhile exercise.

Who do you most admire and strive to emulate from these two generations? Whose thinking most influences your own? Here’s my list:

#20. Eugene Kranz

NASA’s Chief Flight Director for Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions. The flat-topped mission control guy who embodies technical mastery and professional competence.

#19. James Webb

NASA Administrator from 1961 to 1968. The leader who took us to the moon.

#18. Neil Armstrong

The aeronautical engineer, naval aviator, test pilot, and professor will forever be remembered as the astronaut and Apollo 11 mission commander who became the first human being to step foot on the moon.

#17. Vaclav Havel

The poet-playwright-essayist who stood steadfast for freedom in Eastern Europe from 1967 to 1989, and then — when totalitarianism fell — became a national leader and global statesman.

#16. Dieter Bonhoeffer

Facing the monstrous dimension of evil in Germany – something unprecedented, something outside all normal contingencies – this Protestant pastor participated in the Resistance to the Nazi government. He was involved in a conspiracy and in underground and clandestine activities. He was involved in espionage. He was involved in lies and deception. He was involved in military plots. He was involved in treason. Ultimately, he was involved in the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Adolph Hitler. And for all of this, he gave his life.

#15. Desmond Tutu

In 1979, Anglican Bishop Tutu backed a worldwide boycott of South Africa. He emerged as the leading anti-apartheid activist. In 1994, South Africans of all races voted. After the election, Archbishop Tutu became Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

#14. Arthur Janov

One of the great psychologists of all time. The pioneer of depth psychology — with his Primal Therapy — Janov showed how trauma and other pain in our first seven years of life causes neurosis, and how reliving the original trauma or pain cures neurosis and frees us up to live a far more fulfilling life.

#13. Gloria Steinem

In 1972, state laws across America began banning discrimination against women. By 1990, American women were advancing freely in professional ranks and across the range of employment opportunities. Much of the credit goes to attorney Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and much of the credit goes to Gloria Steinem, a founding editor of Ms. magazine and the leading public advocate in the U.S. for the equality and empowerment of women.

#12. Andrew Grove

Joining Intel at its founding in 1968, Grove led the corporation from 1979 to 1998. Grove turned Intel into the world's dominant producer of microprocessors and made it the world’s seventh largest company with a market cap of $197 billion. Intel’s chips drove the revolutions — at the dawn of the Digital Age in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s — in personal computers, software, and the Internet.

#11. Bill Moyers

Throughout his decades as a broadcast journalist and commentator, Moyers made us care, passionately, that big money was sabotaging, even eating away at, our democracy. He made us care about corruption, greed, and the abuse of power. Moyers told us hard truths because he believed journalists should hold leaders and organizations and even their fellow journalists accountable.

#10. Walter Cronkite

As the anchor of The CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1980, Cronkite was television’s most trusted presence in most Americans’ living rooms. His influence matched his perceived credibility and trustworthiness as he guided Americans through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of President Kennedy, the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the Apollo moon landings.

#9. Timothy Boyer

In 1969, physicist Timothy Boyer proposed the Zero Point Field. By 1995, Boyer and other scientists had shown that the universe owes its structure to the Field, all matter is surrounded with zero-point energy, and zero-point energy generates the world of matter.

Humanity is just beginning the journey toward understanding a universe that includes the Zero Point Field and both animal and human consciousness. But it is already obvious that every second of our lives the Field is in interplay with our consciousness and with our brain and our body. Indeed, zero-point energy and zero-point information may be consciousness.

#8. Michael Murphy

In 1961, Murphy co-founded the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. In 1965, Murphy co-founded the human potential movement — all about the growth of our consciousness, developing our latent capacities, and becoming self-actualizing. And in 1988, Murphy delivered one of the most extraordinary books ever written: The Future of the Body: Explorations into the Further Evolution of Human Nature, which drew on 10,000 research studies to paint a picture of the full range of our physical and transcendent capacities.

#7. Elie Wiesel

The most important writer to emerge from the Holocaust.

In almost any of his 57 books, we encounter Wiesel’s moral imagination, which is sublimely deepening and lifechanging. He struggles with suffering and the imperative, however much it torments us, to remember. He wrestles with experiences that are difficult, painful, and even shattering. He ponders weighty and thought-provoking questions. And he explores psychology, philosophy, and religion.

Across continents and generations, across a range of beliefs and values, Elie Wiesel shows us how to endure the heartbreak and hopelessness and to keep yearning for meaning and to find our convictions. This wise soul guides us to take into hand, even after traveling the darkest terrain of the human experience, a sturdy ethical and moral compass.

#6. Clare Graves

The greatest developmentalist who has ever lived. Graves gave us eight stages that can help us understand human development across the lifespan— and help us understand every human being and every human group we interact with. It is a dynamic model of the human being based on what we most value in each of the eight stages.

#5. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Yes, his leadership secured passage in 1964 and 1965 of laws banning racial discrimination across America and securing the right to vote regardless of race. But for most of us, the Rev. Dr. King transcends that landmark legislation and embodies something much more profound. He remains a moral witness who still calls us to account against our conscience and our ideals. He still summons us toward a future in which we secure a higher moral order — a future in which we respect and honor the dignity of every human being. He still guides us to confront dehumanizing evil with morally uncompromising yet transformational love. And he still shows us that all of this is worthy of our suffering and sacrificing — perhaps even worthy of suffering the ultimate sacrifice.

#4. Stanislav Grof

The greatest thinker in the history of psychology and psychiatry. The founder of psychology’s Fourth Force — Transpersonal Psychology. The man who gave us the map covering the vast cartography of human consciousness — the territory of human experiences that include standard biographical experiences, perinatal experiences (including our life-shaping birth experience), traumatic experiences, and some two dozen types of spiritual and other transpersonal experiences in which our consciousness moves freely through space or time or both. And he did so, beginning in 1952, in large part by drawing on the psychedelic experiences of thousands of individuals. It is difficult to imagine anyone surpassing Grof’s paradigm for centuries to come.

#3. Abraham Maslow

Tens of millions of people have understood Maslow and been attracted to the goal of a self-actualizing life. Here’s a one-minute version:

Let’s seek a state of wholeness, fulfillment, integrity, and optimal psychological health. And let’s seek a life of goodness, faith, values, ideals, ethics, courage, beauty, poetry, music, art. A life that is about ideal behavior, kindness, generosity, friendships, compassion, self-sacrifice, love, joy, maturity, well-being, and fulfillment.

Let’s enjoy an ever-fresh appreciation for beauty, a sense of wonder, a good-natured sense of humor, playfulness, joy, and grace.

Let’s consistently choose good over evil. Let’s live with an earnest desire to improve the lot of humanity. With dedication to our mission. With creative responses to problems. And with healthy self-respect yet enough humility to be open to learning from other people.

Let’s keep our individuality even as we identify deeply with the human race. And even as we care about and respect other people in profoundly affectionate, even altruistic, ways.

#2. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

There are the three great novels — One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Cancer Ward, The First Circle. Ivan especially depicts the tragedy of the immensely cruel world of the Gulag. The prisoners face one harrowing decision after another. Each man copes with the unjust suffering amid stark deprivation and systemic evil. Some men wither. Others keep their dignity. Solzhenitsyn evokes an inner sense of justice, reaffirms the image of a free man as a moral being, and validates the intrinsic value of life itself.

Then there is his extraordinary nonfiction trilogy The Gulag Archipelago. Solzhenitsyn tells the story of millions through the eyes of 227 victims of the horrors of the Soviet system – and he does it in a voice that is vital, sardonic ironic, mordant, full of bitterness and outrage, and both sorrowful and hopeful.

Along with countless grinding day-to-day brutalities and indignities, one innocent victim after another is arrested, tortured, starved, frozen, beaten to death, executed. We witness the sinking of barges with hundreds of zeks aboard. It would be unbearable except that Solzhenitsyn shows us, amidst the inferno, the lights of humanity and spiritual fortitude.

The zeks are reduced to the life of rabbits but they are still men, carrying some modicum of their innate humanity and still having souls that carry the Divine image and likeness. They remain capable of the higher things that all of us are capable of.

In all six books, Solzhenitsyn preserves the truth of history, shows us individual lives and souls within an evil system, commemorates innocent people suffering oppression, and helps us understand inner freedom within the moral order. In his unparalleled indictment of the Soviet system, he speaks on behalf of millions of victims who have perished.

Solzhenitsyn shows us how even in the most adverse situations, out of the abyss, out of the abandoned depths, a person can build a new foundation and his or her soul can be reborn. Solzhenitsyn shows us how to be redeemed amid suffering, how to overcome the disfigurations of history, and how to restore the moral progress of our society.

#1. Vasily Grossman

The Ukrainian journalist and author became one of the few writers to see both the Holocaust and the Gulag. Then he authored four of the greatest novels of the 20th Century: The People Immortal, Stalingrad, Life and Fate, and Everything Flows.

During a lifetime observing the most terrible events of the 20th Century, after observing world war (twice), Nazism, and Stalinism – up close from the ground level – Vasily Grossman reached some conclusions:

Grossman declared the ultimate importance of “basic and sacred human rights, the right of each individual to live, to think, and to be free.” In Everything Flows, he declared that “there is no end in the world for the sake of which it is permissible to sacrifice human freedom.”

Given the voracious appetite human beings have to dominate each other, we must value individual freedom and never take it for granted. Each generation must know that freedoms won can be lost – that freedoms that seem inalienable and inviolable can be reversed. Freedom is never secure. We must be willing to fight for it and to sacrifice for it.

For Grossman, each of us must remain free for three reasons: So that we have the ability to be our true self. So that we can find positive meaning in life within life’s flow — and affirm it. And so that we can act in accord with the indominable force inside of us that aspires to what is good.

Even in the worst and most tragic of situations, we are still capable of altruism. Moved by another person’s condition, we are still capable of acting with courageous kindness. And each of these acts is a form of victory in the flow of life.

For Grossman, in each unique individual life “someone exists as a whole world that has never been repeated in all eternity.” And “the reflection of the universe in someone’s consciousness is the foundation of his or her power.”

And in the end, Grossman teaches us something obvious yet incredibly profound: We affirm the singular existence of each and every individual we encounter, because we find ourselves in utter amazement at his or her unique presence. Standing before us in this moment, as everything flows, is this one individual with this one life and fate.

All my best,

Mike

I’ve thought about both these two generations since 1990, but considering their greats at the same time was a new mental exercise for me. The Missionary Generation born from 1860 to 1882 and the Jazz Generation (usually called the Lost Generation) born from 1883 to 1901 were often in tension with each other — somewhat similar to how Boomers and GenXers have been. The Missionaries were highly spiritual and values-driven while the Jazz tended to be savvy pragmatists, grand-narrative-resisting Modernists, and quite infamous for partying their way through the 1920s.

Like the previous lists, this exercise is subjective. I have studied 250 people from these two generations, but in the end my choice of 20 and my ranking of them here are based on my own personal sense of their exemplary personalities, souls, minds, lives, achievements, and legacies.

#20. G.K. Chesterton

The journalist, literary analyst, commentator, and novelist who expounded on almost every subject. Perhaps the most quotable modern writer. And a promoter of both the classic virtues as essential guides in life and of wonder, joy, and humor as essential responses to life.

#19. Pierre de Coubertin

In 1889, the 26-year-old Coubertin set out to revive the ancient Olympic Games. His motto: Faster. Higher Stronger. His ideal: Sport forges character. His hope: Peaceful fellowship among nations. He led the first seven Summer Games from 1896, culminating in 1924 with 3,000 athletes from 44 nations — thus forging human potential for every generation since.

#18. Frank Lloyd Wright

One of the three greatest American architects and one of the greatest architects of all time.

#17. Henry Ford

Following the key breakthroughs of Daimler, Benz, and Olds, Henry Ford figured out how to manufacture and sell 15 million Model Ts. And he started franchising — giving us our local auto dealers.

#16. Alfred Sloan

He built General Motors — the largest industrial enterprise the world had yet known. He gave us annually updated models in five brands: Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac. All this with a big help from his key innovation in 1919: auto loans.

#15. Otto Rank

Rank courageously broke from his mentor Freud to become one of the greatest thinkers in psychology of all time. His message in a nutshell: Wholeness involves pulling off the most balanced dance we can, day by day, between our maximum individuated self and our maximum loving connectedness. Actively, consciously shape and reshape yourself — closer to your self-chosen ideal — a sublime experience. And the only thing more sublime is two people helping each other grow and develop by realizing the fullness of each person’s unique self.

#14. Albert Einstein

He gave the world three key insights: Matter is energy in a bounded form. The speed of light is constant. And space and time are relative. And the great physicist has become for many millions of people the archetypal scientific genius.

#13. Agatha Christie

Whether you call them crime novels, murder mysteries, or detective stories, with her masterful tales of two detectives — Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot — she sold two billion books (surpassed only by William Shakespeare at four billion).

#12. Walt Disney

The most influential figure in mass entertainment of the past century. The artist and studio executive who pioneered animated movies and television programs. The Academy Awards record-holder with 59 Oscar nominations and 22 Oscars. And creator of the major theme parks Disneyland and Disney World and visionary planner of the futuristic EPCOT.

#11. J.R.R. Tolkien

He wrote the three greatest novels of all time — The Lord of the Rings trilogy — a heroic legend of invention, scale, scope, power, depth, grandeur, and enchantment.

#10. Douglas MacArthur

Of the 11 greatest Allied military leaders of World War II (also including Generals Montgomery, Bradley, Patton, Groves, Arnold, and Vandergrift and Admiral King), General MacArthur stands out for his battlefield vision and tactics — especially maneuvers and mobility — and capacity to surprise the enemy. He’ll likely be remembered for centuries for his two major victories when outnumbered: in New Guinea in 1944 and the Philippines in 1945. His enlightened leadership of Japan from 1945 to 1951 transitioned it into one of the best nations in world history.

#9. Chester Nimitz

For the entire war, Admiral Nimitz commanded all Allied air, land, and sea forces in the Pacific. He secured victory in the Battle of Midway in 1942, built up major capacities in 1943, and then secured one victory after another, culminating in the high-casualty 1945 battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

#8. George Marshall

In coordinating Allied operations in both Europe and the Pacific, General Marshall (with Secretary of War Henry Stimson) expanded the U.S. military forty-fold. He excelled as an organizer and planner — known for decision-making that left no trace of vagueness — and he had a talent for inspiring other officers, in large part because they revered him as a rock of integrity. During his time as postwar Secretary of State, the Marshall Plan for rebuilding Europe earned him the Nobel Peace Prize.

#7. Dwight Eisenhower

General Eisenhower oversaw the Allied invasions of North Africa and Sicily and then, as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, the liberation of western Europe and the invasion of and ultimate victory over Germany. His successful leadership of Operation Overlord — the Normandy beach landings on D-Day and the two months that followed — will alone forever mark him as a great military leader.

#6. David Sarnoff

The most underestimated individual in world history — the founder of the radio industry and the television industry. Through 106 years now of broadcast news, opinion, music, and culture, no individual has had a bigger impact on billions of people than David Sarnoff.

#5. Louis Armstrong

There was the performer, holding nothing back from his audiences, making people weep, making people laugh, making people shake their heads in wonder. No one played the trumpet better. No one better understood the full power of sound. And he sang in everything from a light tenor to his jive talk to a low growl. He drew people into a heightened and even sublime space and, most frequently, into his own profound sense of joy.

There was the musical genius. Armstrong embroidered rhythms within rhythms as he alternated and blended power and grace. He grabbed one element from a melody or a rhythm and varied it, exaggerated it, sped it up. He built the beats, molded the beats, and made the beats flow into one unified tempo.

Such gifts, such mastery, such brilliance. His technical dexterity was astounding. His tone was electrifying. And his sense of harmony was superb. And he did it all with that deep feeling, that honest feeling – upbeat, festive, happy, fun, with a sweet lilt to it, and yet intense, even rough, and with heat and fire and the sharp sting of a realism he learned the hard way.

His 1928 “West End Blues” remains electrifying and remains the finest song he ever produced. With this song, jazz music arrived as an art form, equal to the highest orders of the world’s best music.

And there is the figure of global cultural history. He grew up with music with roots that reached back into the heart of Africa, back into the call-and-response of slaves – “Go down, Moses” – and back into the work songs of freedmen and freedwomen. Only in Louisiana did these strains of music mingle with strains of the mixed-race Creoles, with their sheet music (waltzes and ragtime) and their training in the European skills of notes, scales, keys, and chords. Only in New Orleans did African and Caribbean frenzied chants and swaying to the rhythm – found especially in the Old Sanctified Churches – mingle with the French, Spanish, and British instrumental music of the cornet, woodwinds, bass, and bugle. In Chicago from 1922 to 1929, Louis Armstrong drew from this rich New Orleans mix of music to produce music of world-historical quality and a sure sense of swing.

#4. Mohandas Gandhi

They called him Mahatma: “Great Soul.” For decades he worked toward India’s independence, which was achieved in 1947, just months before he was gunned down. But what looked like the end was the only the beginning — to movements for liberation and justice all over the world. Movements of nonviolence and fierce non-cooperation. Movements with shared purpose, love, and the moral power of truth. Movements in an Age that will never end: The Age of Soul Force. The Age of Mohandas Gandhi.

#2 and #2. Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt

It was the greatest act of public leadership in world history. When Fascism moved to extinguish Freedom, two leaders stepped into the crucible. The British Prime Minister with his speech impediment and the American President who could not walk rallied hundreds of millions of people with their vision of victory, their indomitable spirits, their strategic military command, their mobilization of industry, and their rousing oratory. They met history’s challenge and they succeeded. Fascism collapsed. Freedom prevailed. Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt turned Freedom’s darkest hour into humanity’s finest hour.

#1. Helen Keller

For years, the deaf and blind child moved through a fog, a phantom world, a nightmare. Then came April 5, 1887. She grasped that the tapping her teacher was doing on her palm represented the cool water flowing across her other hand. Everything had a name! Within hours, she’d learned 30 words. She learned to read in Braille. She learned to write. She learned to understand speech by touch. And she learned to speak.

Helen Keller became the leading light of her generation — the Missionaries — and a national and global leader. There she was, in public life, for another 81 years — authoring 12 books, giving speeches, advocating for people with disabilities, raising funds to help the blind, and leading an organization that researched vision.

She remains today one of the most admired people in human history. We likely do not expect to lead a scientific revolution, a massive corporation, an army, or a nation. But with Helen Keller inspiring us, each of us reminds our self just how minimal our own limitations are — and remembers how even our toughest obstacles can be overcome. With Helen Keller motivating us, we move forward to realize our potential and to reach our highest possible achievements and the most fulfilling life we can attain.

All my best,

Mike

LINKS:

My Substack article about the Missionary Generation

My YouTube video celebrating the Missionary Generation

My Substack article about the Jazz Generation

My YouTube video celebrating the Jazz Generation

However, I do stand in awe of these three generations born from 1792 to 1859 and their constellation of geniuses and great souls. Of course, it is totally subjective, this list, this ranking. And at times it seems foolish to try to rank them across their various fields of endeavor and their wide range of achievements, exemplary personal qualities, and enduring legacies to us. But here is my best effort:

#20. Antoni Gaudi

The architect who developed new geometric forms, applying them most stunningly to give expression to the sacred and the Divine in his La Sagrada Familia Church in Barcelona, which incredibly was just completed last month, 143 years after he began working on it.

#19. Frederick Law Olmsted

Central Park, the parks-and-parkways system in Buffalo, the Grand Necklace of Parks in Milwaukee, the Stanford University campus, Biltmore Estate in Asheville NC, et cetera et cetera et cetera. The great pioneering landscape architect who has affected the quality of life of many millions of people.

#18. Max Planck

The founder of quantum physics. In 1900, Planck showed that electromagnetic waves including light move in packets called quanta.

#17. William James

With his focus on our physical self, our social self, and our spiritual self, James was the first American college professor to offer a course in psychology and he authored the first major textbook in psychology, published in 1890. As a philosopher, he reached a rare clarity about free will. And he remains especially relevant to those of us who seek to integrate psychology into metaphysics, mysticism, religion, and / or spirituality.

#16. Arthur Conan Doyle

He gave the world the most famous literary character of the 20th Century. Sherlock Holmes embodied our modern minds when we are thinking at our best: observing, drawing on what we know, reasoning about possible explanations, and arriving at the best possible conclusion.

#15. James Clerk Maxwell

Showing that the electric field, the magnetic field, and light are one field was the greatest theoretical advance in physics since Isaac Newton.

#14. Louis Sullivan

Arguably the most influential architect since Palladio hundreds of years earlier. Along with advancing an appealing new aesthetic, Sullivan adapted the skyscraper to modern life.

#13. Daniel Burnham

The architect of Washington’s Union Station and the first great planner of our modern cities.

#12. Wilhelm Wundt

If there is a singular founder of the field of psychology, Wundt is it. He set up the world’s first experimental psychology lab in 1879. He made key early advances in cultural psychology, neuropsychology, and developmentalism. And he gave us the first comprehensive and unified theory of psychology.

#11. George Eastman

With his slogan “You press the button, we do the rest” and with his $10 price for both the film and the development of 100 photographs, Eastman mainstreamed photography, and the tens of billions of photographs taken over the past 13 decades have significantly impacted almost every human being.

#10. Andrew Carnegie

From 1875 to 1901, Carnegie’s constant innovation kept bringing down the cost of manufacturing steel in his factories, enabling the entire Industrial Boom that has benefited every one of us since. In the last 18 years of his life, he gave away 90 percent of his fortune ($7 billion in today’s dollars), most notably to build 3,000 American public libraries.

#9. Charles Darwin

Following on the natural history work begun by Buffon 110 years earlier and evolutionary theory by Lamarck 50 years earlier, in his 1859 book Darwin proposed natural selection as the main mechanism for animal evolution on Earth. Certainly, ever since, one could not have a coherent and accurate worldview — or view of human nature — without taking evolution into account in a major way.

#8. Alfred Russel Wallace

Presenting natural selection as the key to evolution the year before Darwin’s book, Wallace went on to propose that the development of consciousness, the advance to rationality and creative genius and other higher mental faculties, and the arrival of the human spirit have been brought about through the intercession of “the unseen universe of Spirit”. He believed that human consciousness could not possibly be entirely the product of purely material causes, and he suggested that the universe has a purpose and that that purpose leads to the development of phenomena as advanced as our own consciousness and soul.

#7. Honore de Balzac

One of the great novelists of all time. Taking us into the social furnace of our modern cities, Balzac asks us what our choices are making of us. Conscience is the intimate courtroom in which we all stand. Will we stay on the surface, merely strive with pride, and pursue nothing but our own advantage? Or will we remember who we are and reveal our souls to be noble, merciful, and trustworthy?

#7. George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

What other novelist has ever offered us so many characters who are morally and ethically interesting? Her characters are complex, dimensional, and subtly and intricately developed, and she takes us into their minds and their beings. As they face profound moral choices, sometimes their souls become more restricted and sometimes they develop, they grow, and their souls become fuller.

The depth and the breadth! Human nature with all of its narrow-mindedness, insipidness, deceitfulness, ambition, greed, corruption, selfishness, and cruelty as well as all of its ideals, decency, loyalty, fortitude, maturity, goodness, and redemptive love. Learning to see all this rightly is the work of a lifetime.

We could hardly ask for more from a writer. Eliot’s intelligence and insights can be found on every page. She was both brilliant and wise. She was a keen, perceptive, astute observer of people, relationships, and society. And she had a sense of humor.

#5. Alexander Graham Bell

In 1876, for the first time ever, the human voice traveled through a wire. It’s difficult to overestimate the impact of Bell and his telephone. Today, six billion people have an active, working cell phone.

#4. Abraham Lincoln

He brought the American nation back together after 11 slave states seceded. He freed four million living people and (most probably) millions yet unborn. And for both Americans and countless people all over the world ever since, he has been the archetypal leader of exemplary nobility, humility, magnanimity, essential spiritual goodness, and wisdom.

#3. Walt Whitman

Where do we start? 1855. There arrived on the scene the most daring of poets — chanting of our inclusive, generous selves — selves with dissolved boundaries. An egalitarian poet for those of us who know we are citizens of the cosmos. Walt Whitman — taking the open road, leading wherever he chose, again and again finding nestled the seed perfection, and knowing that our souls are eligible for every perfect thing. Walt Whitman, hearing us singing, each of us singing the song of our self, each the ruler of our own life, waiting for the right hour to reveal our grandeur and glories. And back of it all, some powerful phenomenon giving our lives profound significance.

#2. Charles Dickens

The Christmas novellas and ten great novels. The greatest novelist of all time. Arguably the greatest storyteller of all time.

His wit and humor make us laugh. His tender-hearted compassion toward the ground-down of this world makes us cry. He guides us to be aware of the struggles and suffering of the destitute, the malnourished, the neglected, and the unjustly treated. And ultimately he shows us that no matter how dark and sordid one’s situation may become, good-natured companionship and faithful love will get us through it – and maybe even win out in the end.

There is Our Mutual Friend, with at least a dozen exceptional characters – the most of any Dickens novel. It illuminates the individual soul and does so brilliantly. The hypocrisy, the snobbery, the callousness, the shallowness. And the wise and good among us and those who awaken and rise to become wise and good.

Our Mutual Friend is about the dying of the old self and rebirth of the new. It’s about regeneration and redemption. First we understand our situations and understand ourselves. Then we choose freely to act from integrity. We become aware of the precious gift of life and we move from cruelty to a loving heart. And we can even find human connection in a society in decay – and the like-minded can form themselves into an island refuge.

This last completed Dickens novel is serious but with some high humor. It’s got comic vision without sentimentality and social satire without cynicism. What more could we ask for? Well . . .

There is the sublime comedy called The Pickwick Papers. Men careening all over London through one hilarious adventure after another. At the same time, so much benevolence, unshakable fraternity, loving acceptance, and reconciliation. Pickwick calls us out of a cold and cramped and narrow and rigid life – out of being puppets – into a life of supernatural exuberance and joy. Dickens shows us that it is triumphant optimism that renders life’s darkness manageable.

And the ending! It doesn’t matter how they got there that night, but the characters are already in Paradise and nothing will take their spiritual ease away from them.

Ultimately, Dickens is daring us, isn’t this how life should be?: The Story exists for us, and we know it. We step into the land of people whose interiors reach the sky – and each of us becomes, fully and sublimely, our true immortal self.

#1. Thomas Edison

As if it wasn’t enough to found the lighting industry. And co-found the electricity industry. And found the audio industry. And found the cinema industry. But Thomas Edison became, as well, the most archetypal genius inventor of all time.

We have forgotten that he was, as well, the first media mogul. Choosing every music album Americans listened to. Choosing every moving picture Americans watched. Shaping our entertainment, shaping our culture, to his own values and tastes and sense of what would sell.

It’s really too much to take in. It’s almost beyond comprehension that one man did all of this in one lifetime.

All my best,

Mike

My videos with music, art, and some text about these three generations:

The Transcendental Generation of Dickens, Whitman, Lincoln

The Gilded Generation of Carnegie, Maxwell, Wundt

The Connected Generation of Edison, Eastman, Bell