Category: christianity-twilight

Witness to a Miracle
Guys I’ve Done Time With: Houston Marshall 1948-2017 Hootie Marshall was just a guy: if I’ve ever known anyone that phrase applied to, it was him. I met him when I was five years old and we were in day camp; while the initial experience was bewildering to me (though I eventually loved camp), he showed ...
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Too Pretty for Him
Why I Volunteer II In my volunteer job at Urban Ministries of Durham, that Thursday was a weird day; a tropical storm was headed our way, so a lot of people hadn’t come out. On the other hand, and this happens periodically, street people who don’t qualify for the homeless shelter (perhaps because they drink or ...
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Nights of Terror
Seven Days of One Long Moment The question—which I’ve asked on this website before—is: what is the nameless dread that I feel before sesshin begins, the fear that periodically grips me in the pit of my stomach? What am I afraid of? I seemed to have less of it this year. I had uneasy moments, but didn’t ...
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Why Volunteer
I had finished my Thursday volunteering stint at Urban Ministries and was tidying up when Brittany came back. “David, would you mind taking one more person? She says she’s sick.” I said I’d be happy to. I wasn’t in a hurry. “She’s a new client,” she said. The woman who came back didn’t look like a lot of ...
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Can’t Face It Anymore
When the Life Force Can’t Fight the Death Wish I was talking to a friend I meet every week for lunch and we were catching up before we ordered. “I had to go to a funeral this weekend,” Tom said. “I told you my neighbor died, didn’t I?” “I don’t think so,” I said. “How did he ...
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He Showed Up
Levi G. 1953-2017 I won’t say that Levi was my best friend in the world—I have many wonderful friends—but he was the friend with whom I most resonated. When I was in Asheville we met every week for a couple hours, having breakfast and drinking coffee. As soon as we sat down we fell into the ...
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Man’s Search for Meaning
While Life Goes On All Around When spiritual pilgrims went to visit the great Indian saint Vimala Thakar and unexpectedly got to see her, they asked her the purpose of life. “To live,” she said. A Zen Master couldn’t have said it better. When I was in high school I read—with what I remember as an utter lack ...
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Overwhelmed
The Happiness that Takes Some Time to Ripen We had sat down for the reception at my niece’s wedding—tables of eight arranged all around the room—when I realized how my brother had seated us. It was the three living siblings from my generation—Bill, Rusty, and me, with our wives—along with our sister’s oldest child Tade and ...
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Why Can’t We Live in Paradise?
Reflections on the Words of a Homeless Man At the homeless shelter where I volunteer, I was interviewing a man who was being admitted, and was following the prompts of a questionnaire. “Do you have any disabilities?” I said. “No. No disabilities.” “Let me read the list,” I said. The last one was Drug Abuse. “Yes,” he said. “Drug abuse. ...
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My Father’s Gaze
Is That Me or Is It Him? I look into the mirror sometimes these days and see—to my astonishment—my father’s face staring back at me. The man died 52 years ago, and didn’t reach nearly the age I am now; he was 47, and I’m 68. Life had been hard on him at the end, wasted ...
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