Word: awe
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...would be delightful to think that he actually uttered those words, looking for sermons in the shaking stones. In any case, Muir was alone in the moonlit mountains, and so he could indulge his charming 19th century awe. When the earth turned in its sleep, it crushed much landscape in the folds, but somehow the event could keep its innocence. When nature does something awful, after all, is it part of the electrical display of God the Father, or merely geography rearranging itself, obeying an impersonal agenda...
...past 13 centuries the same trapezoidal tract has also been Islam's holiest site after Mecca and Medina: its Al Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock honor the spot whence the Prophet Muhammad is said to have ascended to the seventh heaven. Christians too hold in awe this place where Jesus walked. Now a controversy has arisen over whether, and when, a new Jewish Temple should be built...
Hazelwood's special joy -- and gift -- was sailing. Fellow members of the Sea Scouts, an advanced Boy Scout group for teenagers, remember with awe the time they were sailing a 65-ft. schooner across Long Island Sound, and a violent storm blew out the mainsail. "Some of the boys were crying or vomiting," recalls one sailor, but Hazelwood volunteered to climb the 50-ft. mast to haul in the sail and its hardware. "Jeff related to sailing like a pro golfer who swings a club for the first time," recalls Sea Scout Ralph Naranjo, who today runs a local yacht...
Still, there are many heartening signs of change in Japan. Miwako Kurosaka, a longtime environmental activist, says with some awe that she has been invited to address a prestigious Keizaikai study group for senior executives that ordinarily devotes its sessions to business and politics. Diet member Kosugi points out that meetings of his environmental subcommittee, which used to draw five or six legislators to a small room, now draw 40 or more, forcing a move to larger quarters...
Through the centuries, few natural phenomena have inspired as much fear and awe as solar eclipses. The ancient Chinese used firecrackers and gongs to drive away the spirit they thought was devouring the sun. Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee, aware that a most timely total eclipse was going to occur, escaped being burned at the stake by King Arthur's knights when he predicted that the sun would disappear. A benign form of sun worship continues to this day, not only among beachgoers but also by a group of intrepid American astronomy buffs who have traveled around the world...