Reprinted from Life Tides by permission of Sarah Tarbox. Copyright (C) 1993. Published by Skinner House Books, an imprint of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Hollow bones, streamlined feathers, and wings shaped to push aside the viscosity of air are not what make birds fly. Birds let go of...

Excerpted and adapted from Scott Russell Sanders' book, A Private History of Awe (New York, North Point Press, 2006).In his book A Private History of Awe, Scott Russell Sanders remembers a spring day when he was a young boy, old enough to run around and small enough to be carried in his father's...