Teenager hospitalized after working out too much

We all want to make a mark in the world, to do something that will outlive us.

Prior to last night’s game between the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers, Sports Illustrated opined that “LeBron James is good enough to steal the NBA Finals.” Then Stephen Curry set an NBA Finals record with nine three-point shots as the Warriors defeated James and the Cavaliers 122-103.

Mortality is a fact of life, on the basketball court and everywhere else.

A teenager in Houston was hospitalized last week with an unusual and potentially deadly disease. Rhabdomyolysis causes a breakdown of muscle tissue, releasing a protein into the blood that can damage the kidneys. The cause? He worked out in the gym too much.

Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that a volcanic eruption less than thirty miles from Guatemala’s capital killed at least twenty-five people yesterday. Meanwhile, eruptions of the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii have stranded nearly a dozen people in an area cut off by lava.

And this morning’s New York Times profiles two elite climbers who fell to their deaths while scaling El Capitan in Yosemite last Saturday. Tim Klein had reportedly climbed El Capitan more than one hundred times; Jason Wells had climbed it many times as well. The men were tethered together when they fell one thousand feet to their deaths.

The news reminds us of our mortality every day.

“What counts in life”

Nelson Mandela observed, “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.”

Consider an example I discovered over the weekend.

A friend recently gave me Stephen Mansfield’s Lincoln’s Battle with God: A President’s Struggle with Faith and What It Meant for America.

I have long been fascinated by President Lincoln’s remarkable life and tragic death. A few years ago, I visited Ford’s Theater, where Lincoln was shot, and…