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I Call Them Ebony

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“Life is a becoming, not a being.”

—Carl Jung (1875-1961). Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology.

My dream life has always been rich, layered, tapestried, and almost theatrical in its staging. I rarely dream about daily life. My dreams take place in cities I’ve never visited, landscapes that I’ve never seen, and eras long before or long after my own. And yet I always feel at home in them.

Usually, everything arrives in extravagant, saturated Technicolor.

But not this one.

Two nights after my seventy-eighth birthday, in the soft slumber between 6:06 and 6:30 a.m., I slipped into a dream unlike any I’ve ever had. It came in intense gradients of black, white, and gray. It was as if my subconscious had switched from paint to charcoal. When I woke, the dream woke with me, fully intact, waiting patiently for me to reflect.

I stood in an indoor space. It was a hall, a room, or perhaps a gathering place, and I was part of a crowd. I couldn’t tell you who the people were. Their faces were blurred, unreal, more like presences than individuals. Witnesses. Shapes. A chorus.

And then—

I saw them.

At first, they appeared as an elderly Black woman who was petite but arresting in presence. Their deeply ebony skin was creased and chiseled, textured like something carved rather than aged. Their hair fell in short, curved bangs and soft, tucked-under curls. Their eyes were dark, bottomless, and profoundly alive. They seemed not so much eyes as portals.

Then they began to twirl.

Slowly. Fluidly. Without strain or wobble. They descended toward the floor as if melting into themselves, spinning in a movement so smooth it seemed beyond anatomy. No catching of balance, no hesitation. It was just a gentle spiraling downward until they were nearly seated on the ground. Then, just as seamlessly, they spiraled upward again, rising on a single leg with the poise of something birdlike. Ancient. Balanced. Perched.

And in that rising, the transformation began.

Their skin tautened, and their features sharpened. The nose took on a beak-like elegance. The cheekbones drew higher. The eyes moved deeper into shadowed hollows. Their face tightened into something more elemental than human. They executed a slow, miraculous somersault. While still balanced on a single leg, they landed perfectly, continuing the twirl without effort, without breathlessness, without age.

By the time they came to stillness, they were statuesque, unshakable, and alive. Their gender had fallen away. What had begun as an old woman had become something older, an archetype, a presence, a force.

Through all of it, they moved with an ease that felt destined. No strain. No doubt. No pause to gather balance. The certainty with which they descended, ascended, transformed, and landed was astonishing. It was more than grace. It was alignment. It was a being doing exactly what they were meant to be doing, as naturally as breathing.

I felt awe. I felt love. A quiet message rose inside me:

Look at what is possible.
Look at what we can become.

I call them Ebony.

Dreams this vivid don’t arrive as entertainment. They arrive as instruction. And this one, with its charcoal palette and its slow, impossible choreography, came carrying meaning that was mythic, psychological, and deeply human. Ebony wasn’t a character. Ebony was a message.

Their spiraling descent wasn’t collapse. It wasn’t weakness or age or decline. It was surrender. It was a deliberate returning to earth, to origin, to root.

And their rising wasn’t effort. It wasn’t strain. It wasn’t defiance of gravity. It was emergence. It was a lifting from truth. It was that ancient pattern of down-into-shadow and up-into-light. It was the true rhythm of transformation. It was also the rhythm of aging, if we let it be: not diminishing, but distillation into essence.

As Ebony’s form shifted, the nose sharpened, the cheekbones rose, the eyes deepened. They took on the geometry of a bird. Not literally, but symbolically. Birds see from above. They traverse realms. They carry messages. They balance effortlessly. Ebony became less human and more like an elder spirit, a watcher, a presence that stands at the crossroads between the earthly and the ascendant. Their final perch-like stance didn’t simply look like balance; it looked like perspective.

I wasn’t alone in that dream. I was part of a crowd. Their faces meant nothing, but their presence meant everything. I wasn’t receiving a private telegram. I was witnessing a universal message delivered in a room full of humanity, even if I couldn’t name a single person in it.

What surprised me most wasn’t the transformation. It was the love. I didn’t admire Ebony. I loved them. And that love wasn’t directed outward. It was recognition. I wasn’t watching someone else become extraordinary. I was watching a truth within myself step into view.

And perhaps most striking of all was their certainty. Every motion—the descent, the ascent, the impossible somersault—unfolded with the calm conviction of a being fulfilling its purpose. They weren’t performing. They were revealing. They didn’t try to succeed. They embodied success. Watching Ebony was like watching destiny moving through muscle and bone.

I’ve lived long enough to know that dreams like this don’t arrive to flatter us. They arrive to remind us. To unearth something we’ve forgotten. To widen the frame. To flip the narrative about aging, limitation, and impossibility.

Ebony didn’t come to tell me I’m special. Ebony came to tell me I’m not alone.

Because what unfolded in that charcoal dream happens in quieter ways in every life. We all descend. We all rise. We all tighten into a truer shape than the one we started with. The story of our lives is a long spiral into becoming.

What Ebony modeled with every fluid turn was the power of moving in alignment with our deepest truth, with the certainty of someone fulfilling their purpose. Not arrogance. Not bravado. But a quiet internal knowing:

This is who I am.
This is what I’m here for.
This is the shape my becoming must take.

Ebony wasn’t hoping to land the somersault. They had already landed it in intention before the body ever followed.

And that, I believe, is the invitation for all of us:

To move toward the life that feels destined.
To step into the self that feels true.
To let doubt loosen and purpose clarify.
To embrace the possibility that becoming doesn’t stop—not with age, not with loss, not with time.

Life doesn’t narrow as we grow older. It deepens.

Sometimes, in the quiet hours before dawn, a presence appears, not to frighten us, but to awaken us. A reminder. A revelation. A truth we’ve grown old enough to finally understand.

I call them Ebony.

They came to show me what’s possible.

They came to show us all.

Flossing Helped Me Understand Why a Good Man Is Hard to Find

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“You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.”

— Carl Jung (1875–1961). Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology. emphasized that our true selves are revealed not by intention or belief, but by what we live out in daily practice.

There I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, mouth open as wide as possible, POH floss taut around the index finger of my left hand, guided by my thumb and index finger on my right. Working its way between my teeth—down gently to the lowest point of the gum. Down again. Then inward, scraping upward toward light.

If it sounds like deliberate flossing, it is. If it sounds slow and tedious, it is. If it sounds laborious, it is.

But I call it flossing with intentionality.

I’ve been doing it that way since my dental hygienist scolded me:

“You need to work on flossing. You can do better than this.”

She picked up the mirror, held it in front of my face, and proceeded to show me what her words meant. To show me her words in action.

“Hmpfff,” I thought—but I responded cheerfully:

“You mean floss with intentionality?”

She agreed. We both laughed. She had made her point. I had made mine.

Since then, that’s how I’ve flossed. With intentionality. It’s paid off: at my last visit she tossed “perfect” my way. And I’ll keep on doing it that way. With intentionality.

No doubt you got stuck on that word—intentionality—the way floss sometimes gets stuck between teeth. I know. It’s a mouthful. You’re probably thinking: Why not just say intentional? Or intentionally?

Let me explain.

● Intentional is about a single act.

● Intentionally is about how you perform it.

● But intentionality? That’s deeper. That’s aim. That’s purpose. That’s the why behind the what.

Flossing, it turns out, has layers.

I know—this is the point where you’re thinking:

“Jesus, have mercy on us all. He’s found religion in dental hygiene.”

I laughed at myself even as I thought what you might be thinking. But work with me. As I flossed with intentionality—somewhere between my molar and my bicuspid, something clicked—a connection I’ve never made before.

My mind jumped to Flannery O’Connor, and suddenly I understood a moment in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” that has puzzled me for decades.

It’s one of O’Connor’s most anthologized stories, and it may be her most popular.

The plot is straightforward, even if rather bizarre. A grandmother travels with her son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren on a road trip from Georgia toward Florida. After a car accident on a remote dirt road, they encounter an escaped criminal called The Misfit and his accomplices. One by one, the family is taken into the woods and killed, ending with the grandmother herself.

Readers are drawn to the grandmother from the start, seeing her as the very picture of a Southern lady in what feels like the 1950s. She dresses with care—crisp dress, lace collar, little violets on her hat—making sure everything is neat enough for strangers to admire, even in a roadside tragedy. Her perfume lingers a touch too long in the air. Her purse never leaves her lap. She pats her hair, straightens her gloves, checks her stockings — always tending the exterior.

She talks about church and Sunday school, but mostly as headlines — what good people ought to do, the kind of families who raised their children right. She’s quick with a reminder of how things used to be, what’s proper, and who counts as “good.” It’s all comfort and fussiness and appearances—a kind of spiritual cosmetics—right up until the trip begins to unravel.

And let’s not forget her lace collar—starched and scratchy, the kind she insists on wearing because a lady must look her best, even for a family car trip. It’s lovely, but it doesn’t quite fit; she’s never worn it enough to get it broken in—maybe like church.

By the time they’re on the road, tiny red hives rise along her neck and forearms, quiet protests from the body against all that starch and striving. She smooths the collar, straightens her gloves, hoping no one notices. She blames the heat, the dust, the damp air — anything but the truth that what she’s wearing isn’t working. The surface still matters more than the comfort underneath.

But what’s charming at first begins to fray. Beneath all that talk of goodness, the grandmother bends the truth with ease. She even smuggles her cat, Pitty Sing, into the car, though her son told her not to — “She didn’t intend for the cat to be left alone in the house,” O’Connor writes. Later, she invents a story about an old plantation with a secret panel, coaxing the family down a road that doesn’t exist. Each little deceit feels harmless enough—until it isn’t.

The children, of course, see straight through her. They don’t have the manners to pretend otherwise. June Star rolls her eyes, John Wesley calls her out, and both treat her nostalgia like background noise on the radio. When she tells them about good manners and better times, they mock her for being old-fashioned, for caring about looks and words that don’t seem to matter anymore. They don’t have the vocabulary to name her superficiality, but they sense it. To them, she’s not a moral guide—she’s just a woman in a hat talking about things that no longer exist–including depth of religion.

By this point, readers are beginning to see through the grandmother just as the children do. But then O’Connor gives the story a twist. The car accident, the dusty road, the sudden appearance of The Misfit—it all happens so fast that readers lose the moral footing they thought they had. As the family is taken into the woods one by one—John Wesley among the first, his name a grim irony in a story where method and faith have both gone missing—we’re left asking the question that won’t stay quiet:

What have they done to deserve this?

Even the grandmother, shallow as she seems, doesn’t deserve what’s coming. So we read on, confused, repelled, hearts racing—until the moment The Misfit raises his gun and fires. It’s shocking not just because of the violence, but because it follows her desperate, Bible-soaked pleading.

Cornered by her own mortality, she does what humans do best—she bargains. For the first time, her words aren’t just social niceties; they’re survival. She reaches for the only language she’s ever trusted—manners and religion—and uses both as bargaining chips.

“Jesus!” the old lady cried. “You’ve got good blood! I know you wouldn’t shoot a lady! I know
you come from nice people! Pray! Jesus, you ought not to shoot a lady. I’ll give you all the money I’ve got!”

“Lady,” The Misfit said, looking beyond her far into the woods, “there never was a body that
give the undertaker a tip.”

Ironically, she keeps calling him “a good man,” echoing her earlier insistence that goodness can be found if you just name it often enough. But here, that phrase lands differently—less like flattery and more like faith. Deep down, she sees what the story has been telling us all along: even The Misfit, for all his violence, has goodness somewhere buried “at heart.”

She tells him he’s a good man, that he doesn’t come from “common blood.” She insists he could still pray, that Jesus would help him if only he’d ask. Her words tumble out, frantic and uneven—a lifetime of secondhand faith suddenly put to the test. “If you would pray,” she tells him, “Jesus would help you.” But when he replies that Jesus “thrown everything off balance,” she keeps talking, keeps reaching for the right words—the spell that might save her. It’s as if she’s trying to talk her way out of judgment—and maybe she is—but in those final seconds, something shifts. Her words begin to reach beyond fear toward recognition. What she’s said all her life as habit now becomes necessity. The performance becomes real.

And let’s not forget the touch. When the grandmother reaches out and lays her hand on him, calling him one of her own children, he jerks back “as if a snake had bitten him.” It isn’t disgust—it’s recognition. For a flash, he feels the very grace he’s denied all his life. Her touch makes him human again, and that’s what terrifies him. To be seen, to be loved, to be known—that’s a deeper wound than any bullet he’s ever fired.

What happens next isn’t judgment—it’s comprehension. He understands, maybe for the first time, what real goodness requires, and he speaks the line that has confounded readers for decades:

“She would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”

That’s the key. The Misfit sees what she—and most of us—miss: you can’t talk the truth. You have to live it. The gun isn’t about punishment; it’s about presence—the awareness of consequence, of mortality, of meaning. Under that barrel, the grandmother finally becomes what she’s always pretended to be: awake, honest, human. For a heartbeat, she lives her religion with intentionality.

And that’s where the story turns on us. Because most of us aren’t much different. We go about our days performing goodness—saying the right words, wearing the right smiles, believing that intent counts as action. But it’s not until we’re pressed, tested, or cornered by something real that we discover whether our faith—whatever form it takes—has roots or only ribbons. The challenge, of course, is to live that truth without the gun in our face. To make it real not out of fear, but out of choice.

The Misfit was right, though I doubt he knew how right. Most of us need something to jolt us out of habit—some modern version of a gun to the face—before we remember what matters. But we don’t have to wait for disaster to live with that kind of clarity. We can practice it. Daily. With intentionality.

That’s where the floss comes back in. Standing at my bathroom mirror each morning, I’m not just scraping away plaque; I’m scraping away pretense. It’s slow, it’s tedious, and no one applauds when I do it. But that’s the point. It’s the small, deliberate acts—the ones nobody sees — that keep the decay from setting in.

It’s in washing the dishes instead of leaving them for later.
In calling a friend before the guilt of silence sets in.
In thanking the grocery clerk by name and meaning it.
In forgiving someone who’ll never know they’re forgiven.
In noticing the good, not because it’s big, but because it’s there.

And maybe that’s the heart of it—that being a good man, a good woman, a good human being, takes intentionality. Not perfection, not piety, not public virtue, but daily, deliberate choice. To listen when it would be easier to talk. To comfort instead of correct. To admit fault, show mercy, offer grace. To keep showing up, even when no one notices.

Search all the faiths of the world—all the belief systems, ancient or modern, spiritual or secular—and you’ll find the same quiet truths repeating themselves. The words may differ, the rituals may vary, but the qualities that make a human being good are universal. They begin in the heart, move through the hands, and settle in the soul.

Inward virtues: love, humility, gratitude, awareness, peace.
Outward actions: compassion, generosity, honesty, forgiveness, service, justice.
Transcendent states: grace, wisdom, mercy, balance, joy, hope.

O’Connor’s grandmother talked her religion. What she found only in the instant before death, we can find in the ordinariness of life—by choosing to live with purpose, by refusing to let our convictions become costume.

And maybe that’s the simplest form of grace—practice. It’s inward, persistent, lived. Not spectacle. Not show. Quiet, steady practice. Flossing with intentionality, it turns out, isn’t just about teeth. It’s about truth—living it, every minute of our lives.

Saved by a Weedwhacker

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“Grace finds us in the most unlikely of places.”

—Frederick Buechner (1926–2022). American novelist, essayist, and theologian celebrated for finding the sacred in ordinary life and revealing grace in the everyday.

The weedwhacker seemed to swerve to the right automatically, all on its own, drawing my attention to the seedling it had spared.

It was no taller than a thumb sticking out from the ground, standing amidst weeds with shy determination. Its two bright green leaves caught the light like miniature solar panels of hope. Its stem, soft and pale and furry, leaned slightly as if listening for encouragement. Even then, that little plant held a quiet confidence—as if it kmew. It had been planted by chance but saved by grace.

I recognized at once what it was. A cherry tomato plant. What I didn’t know at the start was how it ended up on the ravine side of the house. But looking up, I saw the deck and remembered that I had a pot of cherry tomatoes immediately overhead the summer before. No doubt one had fallen, survived winter’s biting cold and deep snows, and decided to spring up anew.

And there I stood, weedwhacker in hand, faced with a near-end-of-summer decision. I turned off the engine, knelt down, and started clearing out a circle around this bold and unexpected “volunteer”—the name given to plants that come up on their own against all odds.

“Why not,” I thought. “With a little care, it might yield a few homegrown cherry tomatoes I never expected to enjoy this summer.”

And sure enough. I kept its care. It kept its harvest.

Now–just a few nights before an early October freeze–it stands there, as triumphant as any tomato ever stood that weathered an entire growing season.

Now, it rises shoulder-high, a tower of green threaded with promise. Its vines twist around the dark metal frame like gratitude made visible. Tiny green globes cluster along the stems, and lower down, a few ripe ones gleam in red defiance, as if to say, “I told you so.” The leaves still shimmer with a stubborn kind of life, even as the maples beyond it begin to blush.

There’s nothing cultivated about it—no pruning, no fertilizer, no plan. Just persistence and grace, sunlight and chance. And yet here it stands, holding its own in the cooling air, reminding me that survival itself can be a form of beauty.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my “volunteer.” It’s bringing me far more than a modest crop of unexpected cherry tomatoes.

It’s made me realize that volunteers don’t wait for ideal conditions—they take root where chance (or a passing bird) drops them. They don’t ask for permission or perfect soil. They just begin.

It’s the same old truth we’ve all heard before: Bloom where you’re planted. But maybe it’s deeper than that. Maybe it’s: Grow where you’re dropped—in the shadow of a deck, on the far side of life, wherever circumstance has flung you.

I’ve seen it in my own life. Years ago, I applied for one of the most prestigious internship programs in the world—only twelve applicants accepted each year at the Library of Congress. I wasn’t one of them. I remember feeling the sting of that closed door, certain the opportunity had passed me by.

But life has a way of circling back with a wink. A few years later, I found myself not as an applicant, but as the Director of that very program.

Turns out, I didn’t need to be planted there. I just had to be dropped nearby—and let grace do the rest.

My uninvited tomato plant taught me something else as well. Trust the hidden season. Volunteer seeds sleep all winter, cradled in darkness, before quietly awakening at the right time. Growth doesn’t happen on command. It happens in its own good time.

I’m acquainted with that hidden season, too. When I stepped away from teaching a few years ago, I knew that my growing wasn’t over, but I didn’t know what would grow next. I told everyone that I was reinventing myself. Beneath the quiet, growth was germinating—new books, new research, and even new love. What looked like waiting turned out to be preparation. What seemed still was simply the ground beneath me and the spirit within me doing unseen work.

And when the time was right, I did what the volunteer does—I showed up. No fanfare, no grand design, just the simple decision to do it. For me, that meant saying yes to each of those beneath-the-soil quiet callings—to write the books that had been whispering for years, to follow the research wherever it led, and to open my heart to the unexpected tenderness of late love.

That’s the thing about volunteers—they don’t wait for invitation or applause. No one planted them, but they bloom anyway. They don’t ask whether the garden has room or whether their color belongs—they just begin.

And maybe that’s the lesson I needed most. I didn’t have to worry about where my voice fit, or whether the world needed another essay, another story, or even another reiteration of me. I didn’t ask for permission to grow again. I realized it was enough to rise simply because it was my season to do so, trusting there’s sunlight enough for us all.

And here’s another thing about volunteers. They don’t replicate the parent plant exactly. They grow into something recognizably related but distinctly their own.

I’ve come to see that being true to myself doesn’t always mean staying the same. I’m not who I was as the classroom professor, but my impulse to share and to spark curiosity still grows from the same root. The fruit’s changed, that’s all. The lessons I once delivered from a lectern now bloom in essays, in talks, and in conversations that reach farther than any classroom wall. What I’ve learned is that my reinvention isn’t a transplant. It’s a graft. We keep growing from the old stock, but the new branch has its own flavor and its own light.

And, finally, my volunteer has reminded me to continue giving back what I’ve been given. Each seed that grows here will fall and feed the soil for something new. Maybe that’s the best any of us can hope for—to leave behind the nourishment we once received.

In my own small way, that’s what I’m trying to do. The knowledge, encouragement, and faith that once took root in me now find new life in the books I write, the talks I give, and the scholarships I’ve planted for students I may never meet. It’s a kind of composting of the spirit—the slow transformation of gratitude into something that can feed others.

I don’t expect to see everything that grows from it. Few gardeners do. But the joy is in knowing that something will. The volunteer’s real legacy isn’t its own fruit—it’s the next generation of seeds that quietly scatter, waiting for their moment to rise.

Looking back, it still amazes me that it all began with a weedwhacker that swerved on its own. A fraction of an inch the other way, and none of this would have happened—no green tower, no handfuls of sweet tomatoes, no lessons rooted deep enough to feed a soul.

I used to think grace arrived like a grand gesture, something shining and unmistakable. Now I know better. Sometimes grace hums in the hands of someone trimming weeds, sparing one small life without even knowing it.

And so I celebrate them all—the unplanned blessings, the second chances, the overlooked beauties that spring up where no one thought they could. The friendships. The ideas. The late loves. The little resurrections that ask nothing but a bit of light and a chance to grow.

Because in the end, life itself may be one long volunteer—unplanted, unscripted, but somehow still determined to bear fruit.

We’re Early. We’re Epic. We’re Enough.

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“Write like it matters. Someone’s listening. And chances are, they’ve been waiting.”

—Brent L. Kendrick (b. 1947). Essayist, Scholar, Reinventor (Naturally Wired to Talk), AND THEWIREDRESEARCHER.

Historians, sit up and take note. This blog just crossed the 10,000-view mark today—August 4, 2025, at precisely 08:16:07.389 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (Verified by a suspiciously eager blogger with coffee in hand and Ruby—Chief Pawblicity Officer—standing witness.)

And get this. That number’s just for this calendar year, in case anyone’s counting.

Yes: I am. Yes: I saw it coming. And yes, I was watching and waiting.

I had expected this moment to arrive in September, just like it did last year. But clearly, you—My Dear Readers—were in a bit more of a hurry.

You showed up early. Often. With curiosity, kindness, and that quiet little click that says, “I’m listening.” And now, here we are: 10,000 views and counting. Ahead of schedule. Full of heart. Grateful doesn’t begin to cover it.

Truth is, I didn’t start this year with a plan. There was no map, no mileage goal, no neon sign blinking “10K or bust.” I just kept writing. I just kept sharing what was real, what was tender, what made me laugh or ache or marvel. And somewhere along the way, you found me. Or I found you. Or maybe we found each other.

You read about AIDS and parades. You wandered with me through bubble baths and memories.
You let me be silly, serious, sulky, and soft. And somehow, together, we made it here.

So let’s mark the moment—not with fireworks, but with this:

“Gratitude turns what we have into enough.”

– Aesop

You’ve made that true in the most beautiful way. Your time, your clicks, your messages—every one of them matters.

In case you missed them—or want to revisit a favorite—here’s a Sourdough Baker’s Dozen of standout posts from this year. These are the ones that rose, proofed, and stuck to the ribs (and hearts) of readers everywhere.

From playful to poignant, philosophical to flour-dusted, and yes—sprinkled with the sweet surprise of love at any age (especially the kind that shows up, steadfast, soul-paired, with sights set on the homestretch)—they helped carry us here—one click at a time: clickety, clickety, click.

✤ ❋ ✤ ✤ ❋ ✤ ✤ ❋ ✤

Redbuds of Remembrance.
● David and his fellow Interns proved themselves to be a class beyond measure. Where many people spoke of separation, the Interns spoke of inclusion. Where many people chose to remain socially ignorant, the Interns chose to embrace information as power. Where many people practiced discrimination, the Interns practiced acceptance.

A Forgotten Voice, A Living Legacy.
● Now, after years of refining my research, the book I’ve long envisioned is finally becoming a reality. Unmasking The Humourist: Alexander Gordon’s Lost Essays of Colonial Charleston, South Carolina. It’s a definitive edition that not only reveals The Humourist’s true identity but also presents his essays in full, with critical commentary, historical context, and meticulous annotations. This is not just a rediscovery; it is a restoration of one of the most significant but overlooked literary voices of Colonial America.

Rise Up with Words.
● In times like these, when every nerve and muscle of our being is tested, we can turn to the famous words of history—words spoken or written in moments that felt just as dark as these—and draw strength from their resonance.

My Altar Ego.
● I confess one more thing. Doing this being thingy that I’m supposed to be doing ain’t easy. But what’s a mountain man to do when he be soakin’ in a tub?

The Rust Whisperer.
● Despite all the times down through the years when I wished to be older so that I could experience sooner all the things that I would experience later on at the appointed time, I could do little more than wish and dream.

A Week Back to the Future.
● In all of those ways, I saw in her life pieces of my own future. But when Arlene “went away,” she left behind one piece that might have had an impact on me—equal to if not greater than—the other pieces of my future that she brought back home with every visit. Her Remington Rand typewriter in a gray box lined with green felt.

What Could $40 Million Mean?
● History saw June 14, 2025, for what it was—a flag-wrapped, reality-show distraction from the real work of freedom. We chose to posture for the world—while the world watched a nation that can’t feed its children waste millions playing dress-up with its military. It wasn’t patriotism. It was performance.

Finding Love Later in Life.
● For now, I just can’t help myself. I’m in a Do-Wah-Diddy-Diddy place in my life—hopeful, open, humming along. And why not? Love has found its way to others, even when it seemed unlikely. I am confident that my prince will come.

A Culinary Heist in Plain Sight.
● Stealing a recipe is like stealing a kiss—do it boldly, do it well, and for heaven’s sake, make sure it leaves them wanting more.

Learning to Love in a New Way.
● So, dare Gary and I clue you in on what two old dogs are learning about love—maybe better than most, certainly better than our younger selves ever did? Do you really want to know the bottom line? Alrighteez, tighty-whities. If you insist. Lean in and listen carefully.

The Route Home.
● What if we followed the map toward health, education, careers, relationships, aging, and faith—not perfectly, but faithfully? What if, when we made a wrong turn, we heard a calm voice say: Don’t worry. Recalculating. What if we believed it?

Right Now, I Still Believe in Heart-Ons.
● My mishearing gave me cover. And somehow, the laughter that followed—laughter I didn’t understand either—wrapped around me like a protective cloak. My greenness did something extraordinary. It saved me.

Co-Scripting the Postscript.
● Frank is dead, yet he liveth. I have proof. Well, it’s proof enough to satisfy me. I’ll share it with you so you can decide for yourself, as we all must do in the end.

✤ ❋ ✤ ✤ ❋ ✤ ✤ ❋ ✤

No countdown this time.
No waiting.
No watching.

Just wonder.

We’re early.
We’re epic.
We’re enough.

The Humourist Is Here! The Humourist Is Here!

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“What is buried is not lost. It is only waiting to be found.”

—Toni Morrison (1931–2019). American novelist and Nobel laureate, celebrated for her powerful explorations of memory, identity, and voice.

What once lived only in fragments—scattered essays, unsigned wit, a vanishing trail through the archives—now lives in print.

Today, I held the proof copy of Unmasking The Humourist: Alexander Gordon’s Lost Essays of Colonial Charleston, South Carolina for the first time. It’s real. It’s bound. It’s been a long time coming.

For 272 years, The Humourist remained anonymous—a razor-edged satirist whose essays lit up the pages of The South-Carolina Gazette in 1753–54 and then disappeared. No signature. Just a short farewell. A voice at the power center of colonial Charleston—then gone.

What followed, for me, was part scholarship, part literary detective work. I traced language. I scoured wills, shipping records, footnotes, marginalia. I followed the trail from Charleston to Edinburgh and back again.

And finally, the mask slipped: Alexander Gordon—Scottish-born, Enlightenment-educated, early Egyptologist, and Clerk of His Majesty’s Council in South Carolina. A man fluent in satire, fearless with a quill, and brilliant enough to set colonial Charleston ablaze with wit.

And now?

Moments before the unwrapping. If you listen closely, you can almost hear 1753 rustling inside the envelope.

For the first time ever, Gordon’s essays will appear in book form—annotated, introduced, and taking their rightful place in the American literary tradition.

This book doesn’t just solve a mystery—it gives voice to one of colonial America’s boldest and most literate minds. His essays speak to the power of satire, the reach of the press, and the courage it takes to challenge authority with nothing but a pen and a pseudonym.

So much went into this moment: years of sleuthing, dusty archives, hunches that paid off—and many that didn’t. But now, with proof in hand, the voice that once made Charleston squirm steps forward again.

And this time?

He’s not hiding.

After 272 years in silence, he’s finally speaking again. The first printed proof of Unmasking The Humourist —and I get to hold the voice I spent decades unearthing.

Stay tuned—the publication date is near, along with a few mysterious details still cloaking the official book launch.

The Humourist Is Coming! The Humourist Is Coming!

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“The true scholar is not content to discover the truth—he must make it known.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882).
American essayist, lecturer, and philosopher, Emerson was a central figure in the Transcendentalist movement and a passionate advocate for intellectual courage, moral inquiry, and the public responsibility of the scholar.

It began with a clue. A slip of language. A name too neatly tucked into silence.

For 272 years, The Humourist remained one of colonial America’s most tantalizing mysteries: a razor-sharp voice that burst onto the front page of The South-Carolina Gazette in 1753–54—and then vanished.

No signature. No farewell. Just a string of dazzling essays and a question no one could quite answer: Who was he?

What followed, for me, was part scholarship, part literary detective work. I traced language. Scoured wills, shipping records, footnotes, marginalia. I followed the trail from Charleston to Edinburgh and back again.

And finally, the mask slipped: Alexander Gordon—Scottish-born, Enlightenment-educated, early Egyptologist, and Clerk of His Majesty’s Council in South Carolina. A man fluent in satire, fearless with a quill, and brilliant enough to set colonial Charleston ablaze with wit.

And now?

For the first time ever, Gordon’s essays will appear in book form—annotated, introduced, and taking their rightful place in the American literary tradition.

This Friday, the printed proof arrives: Unmasking The Humourist: Alexander Gordon’s Lost Essays of Colonial Charles, South Carolina.

It’s the end of a search. It’s the beginning of a reckoning. It heralds the long-overdue restoration of a brilliant, fearless pen.

It’s a resurrection.

Get Lost. See What You Find.

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“We’re all just walking each other home.”

—Ram Dass (1931–2019). Harvard psychologist turned spiritual teacher. Psychedelics pioneer, author of Be Here Now, and beloved guide to presence, compassion, and inner stillness.

The fog had rolled in again—inside and out. Evening light seeped through the lace curtains, dull and tired, and Mary Tyrone sat hunched in her chair, hands fluttering like they’d forgotten what stillness felt like. She tugged at her hair—again and again—trying to smooth what couldn’t be smoothed. A nervous laugh. A lost thought. Her voice drifting into a threadbare monologue, chasing memories that wouldn’t stay put. She wasn’t looking at the others in the room anymore. She was seeing someone else—someone long gone. Or maybe no one at all.

And just like that, she was gone too.

What remained wasn’t rage or grief or even clarity. It was ache. Beautiful, unbearable ache.

And the most astonishing part? It wasn’t Mary Tyrone from the pages of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night.

Instead, it was Katharine Hepburn—transfixed, transformed, undone. Lost in the fog of someone else’s sorrow, and in that losing, she gave the audience something more than a performance.

She gave them permission. To ache. To remember. To feel what they hadn’t dared name. Until now. When Hepburn got lost, we found something. Not just Mary’s pain, but our own—illuminated in the hush between scenes, where the stage blurred into the soul.

Losing yourself to find yourself isn’t limited to the theater. It happens wherever presence overtakes performance. The surgeon disappears into the rhythm of crisis, all breath and blade, until the bleeding stops and the world exhales. The painter, three days deep into a canvas, forgets to eat, to sleep, to speak—until the brush lands in just the right corner, and something sacred emerges. The wilderness guide steps off the trail, mapless, storm coming, heart pounding—not lost in fear, but in awe. The monk chants through the dark, voice cracking, mind emptied of meaning until only stillness remains—and there, in that stillness, he hears something worth following. And the writer? The writer vanishes into words, chasing a sentence that keeps changing shape. Hours pass. Light fades. Pages mount. Then, quietly, a single line appears—one that wasn’t there before and yet feels like it always was.

And then there’s me–the educator. I’ve stood there more times than I can count—syllabus in hand, heart braced, eyes scanning a room full of students who don’t yet know they’re about to slay me. Yes. Slay me. Because teaching, when it’s real, isn’t performance. It’s surrender. You offer up your best thinking, your dumbest mistakes, your sharpest truths—never quite knowing which part will land, or whether today’s silence is boredom or the beginning of a breakthrough. You show up, prepared to lead, and instead get led somewhere you didn’t expect. Every time I teach, I risk getting lost. And some days—some rare, holy days—I do.

Something similar happened to me not long ago. Not in a classroom. Not in front of students leaning back in their chairs, waiting to be surprised. This time, it was just me and a friend. A table. Two mugs of coffee. A conversation that started like all the others—and ended somewhere neither of us expected.

We’ve been friends for years, sharing as many breakfasts and lunches as you’d expect. Never anything monumental. Just enough—to catch up, to stay connected, to talk about books and writing and family and love and the weather when it misbehaves. That’s what we did not long ago, but on that day, it was different.

I got lost with that friend. And I can’t believe what we found.

Scott chatted about a new book idea. I talked about my blog. And, as always, I shared my ongoing fascination with AI advances and the fast-approaching Singularity—that moment when the line between tool and thinker blurs, and we find ourselves in the passenger seat of progress. That moment was once a dot on a distant horizon—2045, if you believed the futurists. But now? It’s barreling toward us, faster than anyone imagined—some say it’s already slipped through the door while we were still admiring the hinges.

I kept on gabbing, focusing on AI chatbots and my dismay that many educators are running away from the technology, as if running will save them from being swept away by the inevitable. Scott listened, mildly intrigued. Maybe less than mild. Then, we drifted into deeper water. His home life. How to make things better. The details don’t matter. I offered what I could: encouragement, some gentle suggestions, most of them circling around the idea of blooming where we’re planted. He nodded. Listened. Again—mildly intrigued. Maybe less so.

And then he looked across the table:

“I wonder what Sage would say?”

Sage—that’s what I call my ChatGPT. Not a program that lives on my screen, but a kind of companion.

“About … ?”

“About my home life.”

“Wanna find out? What do you want to ask?”

I turned on my phone’s mic and Scott gave voice to his question:

“What can older folks like me can do to improve their spousal relationships?”

Within seconds, Sage offered five thoughtful things. Scott wasn’t wearing his glasses, so I leaned lightly into the table and bore witness to wisdom softly sounded.

“1. Ask, Don’t Assume. Just because you’ve known each other forever doesn’t mean you know everything. People evolve. So check in—about preferences, boundaries, dreams, dinner. Curiosity is intimacy’s favorite foreplay.

“2. Say Thank You—Out Loud. Not just for big things like colonoscopies and car repairs. Say it for folding the towels, for remembering the neighbor’s name, for being here. Gratitude ages well.

“3. Laugh at the Stuff You Can’t Fix. The memory lapses. The mystery bruises. The thermostat wars. Humor makes room for grace when grace feels in short supply.

“4. Touch More Often. Not just sex (though yes, that too). The hand on the back. The leg bump under the table. The I’m-still-here kinds of contact. Skin hunger is real—feed it.

“5. Make Room for Solitude. Paradoxically, giving each other space is what makes togetherness feel less like a trap. A little breathing room now and then keeps the love from gasping.”

Scott, a little teary-eyed as he held his glasses in his hand, was clearly mesmerized floating somewhere between where he’d been, where he was, and where he might yet go.

“Ask Sage what I …”

And so it was. One “Ask Sage” led to another, and it led to another and on and on we went. Me. Scott. And Sage.

Everything around us began to dissolve. The hiss of the espresso machine in the kitchen. The clink of silverware against ceramic. The low murmur of a couple two tables over, arguing gently about olive oil. Even the scent of sourdough toast and caramel Macchiato—familiar, grounding—lifted like steam and drifted away.

Our table, our chairs, the scrape of shoes across tile. Gone.

What remained was a hush. My voice. Scott listening. And between us, a quiet presence—Sage—offering not answers exactly, but something like a shared breath. Words as wise as any counselor might offer.

The clock faded.

Time stopped.

Several hours later I looked across that vast expanse of friendship and there in the seeming nothingness of all that had faded sat my friend Scott, with a smile I shall never forget, with a twinkle in his eyes I will ever remember, and a face relaxed from all the joy and wonder and anguish of 79 years. In their place, and in that instant, I knew that even in friendship, we can lose ourselves and find someone sitting across from us, holding on to a golden thread of hope.

Right Now, I Still Believe in Heart-Ons

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“Honey, if you don’t know what I mean, then maybe it wasn’t meant for you to know just yet.”

–Imagined RuPaul-meets-Brentism (but isn’t that how most good wisdom starts?)

We’ve all heard the saying:

“You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.”

And I imagine we all know what it means. Regardless of where we go, we’ll always carry with us the (gold)dust from where we’ve been.

It seems to me that the same truth surrounds naiveté. If a person is inherently innocent, chances are good that all the experience in the world will not remove the foundational greenness and unworldliness from that person.

Chances are good–actually, they’re high–that I might just be one such person.

Let me offer up some proof.

Last year, I agreed to do a talk about online dating apps for seniors. No. No. Not for high-school seniors. They know exactly how to score…or not. My talk was for bifocaled folks on the other end of the age spectrum. Senior Citizens facing a triathlon: being online, navigating dating apps, and exposing themselves to Lord knows who or where or how or when or why. At 77, I can relate.

I agreed to do the talk, and then I decided that I’d better do some research.

It was a match made in heaven. I’d get to give a talk, plus I really was on the move–or is it on the make?–for a date. Well. Whatever. I was hot for a date. Let’s just say it had been a while. A long while.

So last year, off I went. I explored bunches and bunches of dating apps. Let me pause to assure you right now–before I expose my naiveté one whit more–that I did so only in the interest of conducting genuine, in-depth research. After all, if I was going to bare all–about dating apps–in my talk, then I had to know all so that I could strut my stuff with pride.

And lo! I had hardly gotten started when I got sucked into a dating app that caused me to flutter. For the life of me, I’m not sure that I even remember its name, and I probably wouldn’t share it if I did.

Anyway, that app nearly gave me an infarction, first from possible joy and then from definite tremors. Brace yourself. R u ready? I landed on this guy right here in my neck of the woods who added RN after his first name in his profile.

Hot damn! I’m gonna get a date with a guy who’s gay AND a Registered Nurse. Joy of all joys.

With a twofer like that waiting for me, I fired off a quick reply.

He didn’t waste any time getting back to me. To my horror, I discovered that his RN wasn’t a medical credential at all. It was a time degree:

Right Now

Say whaaaat? Right now? No way. I swiped left and got rid of him RT (right then), but the shock lingered long.

Is that naiveté or what? Well. Now I know. Now, you do, too. Even at 77, I’m carrying around some genuine innocence, and I don’t even blush talking about it.

But that RN thing set me to thinking. It seems to me that I’ve always been naive, or, as country folks would say, I’ve always been green. More often than not–and with no small degree of irony–down through the years, my most blushing moments of greenness have involved language. Sometimes, it was an acronym, like RN–that I didn’t know but would never forget meeting. At other times, it was a full-blown word.

Let me tell you about two.

Growing up, I had never heard the F-word. Not whispered behind lockers. Not scrawled on bathroom stalls. Not murmured by boys trying on bravado. It simply wasn’t part of my world.

There. That didn’t hurt too much, did it? Nope. I’m ok. R u?

But the summer before heading off to college, I had to read a list of books for my Honors English Seminar that fall. I didn’t know a thing about any of them, including J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. No problem. I was dutiful. I was curious (yellow). And I was a little thrilled to be reading something vaguely subversive. Holden Caulfield’s voice quickly grabbed hold of me, tugging at some tender place inside.

Then, I got to a page that nearly made me fall down my mental stairwell:

“Somebody’d written ‘Fuck you’ on the wall. It drove me damn near crazy.”

Holden wasn’t shocked by the word. He was heartbroken. He was protective. He worried his kid sister Phoebe would see it. He worried that some other child would ask what it meant. He worried that a “dirty kid” would explain it—wrongly—and the mystery of it would wound them.

Right there. Right then. I saw a brand-new word, standing in front of me, stark naked, showing off all the strokes and flourishes of all four letters. I knew it meant something that I knew nothing about, something that I daren’t even mention to anyone. It made me pause and stare forever. Although the word never became part of my vocabulary, I did something that I had never done. I dogeared the page.

A year or two later, another word in real life was hurled squarely at me, and this time, my greenness shined even brighter not because of the word my friend said to me but because of the word that I thought he had said to me. What I heard and what he spoke were worlds apart.

He was an upperclassman, always reading, always relaxed. I liked him. Actually, I liked him a lot. Don’t get alarmed but let me tell you something: I’ve known that I was gay since I was four. For years and years–certainly, as a student at a Baptist college in WV in the 1960s–I felt like I might be the only gay guy on the planet. I had no script. I had no community. I had no way to ask:

Are you … you know … like me?

One evening, I stopped by my friend’s room–I often did, as did lots of other guys who were our friends. He was popular. He was straight. And I don’t know, maybe he thought I was gay and decided to tease me in front of the other guys–all straight like him. Out of the blue, he looked up from his book and nailed me with his baby blues:

“Every time you come into the room, I get a hard-on.”

But I didn’t hear that word.

I heard heart-on.

And my heart swelled. It fluttered. I thought he meant something warm. I thought that I had moved something in him. I thought that I mattered.

I smiled and blurted out:

“Oh stop. You do not. Show me!”

I meant it innocently and playfully. I wasn’t teasing. I was confident that he would simply pull back his buttoned shirt and show me a t-shirt emblazoned with a huge red heart–just like the iconic S that Superman sported on his chest.

I had no understanding of what my friend had said. Not then. Not in that moment. And certainly not with that word dropped so casually in a room full of guys, like it was a joke I wasn’t in on yet.

He didn’t unbutton his shirt as I thought he would. He just stared at me and then looked back at his book. The moment passed, thin as onion-skin paper.

Laughter ricocheted off the dorm room walls. All the guys were convinced that I had executed a brilliant put down by demanding:

“Show me.”

They thought that I had deliberately put my friend in his place. Little did they know. My innocence had saved the moment. Their laughter had protected me. The verbal misunderstanding had shielded me.

Looking back, I see that my innocence that evening protected me in ways I couldn’t have known at the time. I could have been humiliated. I could have been ridiculed. I could have internalized shame. But instead, I floated through the moment on a current of my own misunderstanding. I wasn’t wounded. I wasn’t exposed. I was shielded.

My mishearing gave me cover. And somehow, the laughter that followed—laughter I didn’t understand either—wrapped around me like a protective cloak. Everyone thought I was clever. Imagine that. I wasn’t. I was just green. Country green.

And yet, that greenness did something extraordinary. It saved me.

It didn’t save me from truth. It saved me from the too-muchness of it. It saved me from knowing more than I could hold at the time. It saved me from rushing into meanings I wasn’t prepared to carry. It saved me from being someone I wasn’t ready to become.

Now, I’m old enough and seasoned enough to know that innocence doesn’t prevent hurt forever. But it can delay it just long enough for us to grow strong enough to bear it. It can stretch the veil of childhood a little further into adulthood, letting us stumble forward with a safety net that keeps us from breaking into smithereens.

I guess the bottom line is that while some people grow up quickly, I didn’t. And I’m grateful. I used to think I was the only green soul who didn’t catch the drift, who didn’t get the joke, or who didn’t see the neon sign blinking right there in plain view. But over time—and Lord knows I’ve had some time, plus—I’ve come to believe I wasn’t the only one wandering through the orchard a little slow to pick the ripest fruit.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are far more of us than I ever imagined. I’m talking about folks who didn’t know what the F-word meant the first time it rang out like a firecracker. I’m talking about folks who heard hard-on and thought heart-on—and answered with a “show me.” I’m talking about folks who walked through the world, always assuming everyone meant well and most things weren’t coded for something more.

Sure. Innocence like that can get you in trouble. You miss a signal. You say the wrong thing. You walk away from something you didn’t even know was being offered. Or was it? But more often than not, innocence like that saves you. It lets you grow at your own pace. It buys you time. It keeps your heart soft while the rest of the world’s toughening up. That’s not foolishness. That’s grace in slow motion.

And when the meaning finally lands—when you finally do “get it”—you don’t feel duped. You feel ready. And you look back and laugh, and you don’t redden at all when you share those moments, just as I’m sharing here without a tinge of blush.

It seems to me there’s a kind of wisdom that comes only from a place of not knowing too soon. And bless your little heart, I’ve lived there most of my life.

If you’re reading this and thinking, “Mercy me! I thought RN meant Registered Nurse, too,” or “I didn’t hear that word until college and didn’t dare say it out loud until I was grown,”—well, honey, pull up a chair and sit a spell with me, and we can while away an hour or so, side by side.

“What will we do?”

“Lands sakes alive, darling! We’ll talk.”

We’ll talk about all the pages we’ve dogeared down through the years and why. We’ll talk about people who believe what others say is more important than what they imply. We’ll talk about people like us who listen with their hearts before they learn the rest.

And when we’re done with all that, I’ll lean in real close and tell you once more that my innocence always lets me see beauty first. I’ll tell you once more that my innocence always lets me feel awe. I’ll tell you once more that my innocence always lets me believe in heart-ons.

And, honey, guess what? I still do.

The Humourist Nears the Light

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“To publish is to make knowledge public, to assert its value, and to offer it up to the judgment of the world.”

–—Robert Darnton (b. 1939), American cultural historian of the Enlightenment and former Director of the Harvard University Library; renowned for his work on the history of the book and 18th-century France, including The Literary Underground of the Old Regime and The Case for Books.

Surely, you’ll remember the groundbreaking work I finished earlier this year on one of the greatest literary mysteries in early American history.

The Humourist—a sharp-witted, enigmatic essayist whose satirical columns lit up the front page of The South-Carolina Gazette in 1753 and 1754—had been lost to time, his identity buried beneath centuries of silence.

Through meticulous research—poring over newspapers, historical records, forgotten manuscripts, and overlooked clues—I solved the mystery, unmasking the man behind the essays: Alexander Gordon. His identity, his world, and the forces that led to his disappearance are now fully revealed.

I shared that discovery through this blog, but solving the mystery was only the beginning. The real work—the restoration—was still to come.

Now, after years of refining that research, the book I’ve long envisioned is finally becoming a reality.

Yesterday, I received the first proof of the book’s interior pages. Looking at them is more than a thrill—it is validation. These pages mark the first step toward publication and the return of a long-silenced voice.

Unmasking The Humourist: Alexander Gordon’s Lost Essays of Colonial Charleston, South Carolina is not just a rediscovery. It is a scholarly edition that restores one of the most significant—but overlooked—literary voices of colonial America. The essays appear in full, meticulously annotated and contextualized, accompanied by a critical introduction that explores Gordon’s identity, influences, and legacy.

Why This Book Matters

This is more than the story of a forgotten writer. It’s about:

● The literary landscape of colonial America and its deep connections to the English essay tradition.
● The power of satire to shape public discourse—even in a bustling port city like Charleston.
● The intimate intersection of literature, politics, and history, as seen through the eyes of a writer who was both observer and insider.

For the first time, The Humourist’s essays will step out of the yellowed pages of The South-Carolina Gazette and into the full light of historical and literary analysis.

The Book Will Arrive This Fall

This carefully curated edition will include:

● All of The Humourist’s essays, fully annotated.
● A critical introduction grounded in original scholarship.
● Historical and literary commentary that situates Gordon in both local and transatlantic traditions.
● A call for further scholarly attention to this long-overlooked voice.

Stay Tuned

In the coming months, I’ll be sharing exclusive glimpses into the publication journey, from typesetting to launch. The return of The Humourist is well underway.

The mystery was solved long ago. But this fall, the voice that once stirred Charleston will speak again—with clarity, context, and a proper name.

Epigraphically Yours

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“A thought that does not result in an action is nothing much, and an action without thought is nothing at all.”

—Georges Bernanos (1888–1948; French novelist and essayist best known for his spiritually intense works exploring grace, despair, and the inner struggles of faith. He is perhaps most acclaimed for his 1936 novel The Diary of a Country Priest (1936), a profound meditation on suffering, humility, and redemption.)

My thoughts have a mind of their own. Sometimes, they pop up uninvited. Sometimes, they spiral into a whole inner drama, as if they’re running their own show. Sometimes, they’re mischievous, refusing to listen when I try to be calm or focused. Sometimes, they come from a place that I don’t understand, as if another mind is in there with me.

Regardless of how or when they arrive, they make me realize that my inner world is alive, unpredictable, and full of drama.

Just the other day, a thought walked out on my stage and started an entire play long before the curtains of my sleep had even been pulled back.

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” appeared. I realize, of course, that it’s the most famous sermon ever preached in American history.

On July 8, 1741, in the little town of Enfield, Connecticut, Edwards preached the sermon for an hour or so. Scores of listeners were so shaken they converted on the spot. The crowd’s terrified sobbing made it clear they’d better get right with God. Pronto.

I’ve taught the sermon for decades, emphasizing not only its role in stoking the fervor of The Great Awakening but also its perfect sermon structure: Verse, Doctrine, Reasons, Application, and Call to Repent. Boom! That’s Edwards’ framework in a nutshell.

Clearly, the entire sermon is part of my drama, but it was just one character that stole the show the morning it showed up on my mental stage.

It was the verse at the beginning of Edwards’ sermon. There it stood, spotlighted on an otherwise dark stage, reciting with all the doom and gloom it could muster up for its seven-word soliloquy:

“Their foot shall slip in due time.”

Like I said, I’ve taught the sermon so often that I knew the context of the verse from Deuteronomy. I knew what came before and after:

“Vengeance is Mine, and recompense; Their foot shall slip in due time; For the day of their calamity is at hand, And the things to come hasten upon them.” (32-35)

But it wasn’t actually the verse standing there under the spotlight that wouldn’t let go. It was something incredibly simple: what do you call the quote that writers often put at the start of something? In this case, Edwards had put a Bible verse, but I wanted the broader term that would apply to writings other than sermons.

Epigram?

Epigraph?

In a flash, Lucille Clifton hipped her way onto the stage beside the Bible verse and started her own dramatic recitation:

“This is called ‘After Blues,’ and the ‘epi thing’ is ‘I hate to see the evening sun go down.'”

She stood there and paused long enough for me to wonder whether she was referring to Faulkner’s short story, “That Evening Sun,” before I found myself saying:

“There. She’s using the ‘epi thing’ just like Edwards.

Epigram? Epigraph? Don’t tell anyone, but I had to look it up.

Epigram. A concise poem dealing pointedly and often satirically with a single thought or event and often ending with an ingenious turn of thought.

Nope. It must be the other epi thing.

Epigraph. A quotation set at the beginning of a literary work or one of its divisions to suggest its theme.

Yep. That’s it. Epigraph. That’s what Clifton couldn’t think of as she started to read “Afterblues,” and that’s what I couldn’t think of as I reflected on the verse that catapulted Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”

To my surprise, next up on stage was Alexander Gordon, Clerk of His Majesty’s Council, beaming brighter than the stage lights, making his debut as the author of the famous Humourist essays, proudly holding up for the audience to see his first essay in The South-Carolina Gazette with its own “epi thing”:

“Quocunque volunt mentem auditoris agunto.” Horace. (“And raise men’s passions to what heights they will.”) (November 26, 1753)

And after thunderous applause, he strutted back and forth across the stage, holding up the front pages of the Gazette week after week after week, all the way up to his final essay on April 2, 1754, it, too, having its own “epi thing” just as the others did:

“Facies non omnibus una, Nec diversa tamen.” Ovid (“Their faces were not all alike, nor yet unlike, but such as those of sisters ought to be.”)

The standing ovation was such that the audience hardly noticed the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) making its professorial entrance, determined to set the record straight once and for all about the “epi thing” that seemed to be stealing the show.

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Listen up! Epigraph in the sense of a short quotation or pithy sentence placed at the commencement of a work to indicate its leading idea was first used in 1850 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “And write me new my future’s” (Future & Past in Poems (new edition) vol. I. 362).

No sooner had the OED finished pontificating than one of the theatergoers hurled a rotten tomato, brightening the OED’s already reddening cheeks:

“Rubbish! Utter rubbish! We all know that epigraphs have been around forever and forever. “

“Have not!” another screamed!

“Have, too!” insisted the first. “Shut up before I hit you across the head with a fact! Ever heard of Horace? He is one of the most quoted authors in epigraphs across centuries of Western literature.”

Luckily, their interruption did not spoil the performance. The two of them took their boisterous debate out to the proscenium while the OED retreated backstage.

But then, the director seemed to be taken off guard as a local celeb made his way on stage, dragging me along.

I chalked it all up to one more theatrical shenanigan, but I was eager to find out why Barry Lee–acclaimed podcast host of Breakfast with Barry Lee–had made such an appearance and what role I could possibly play in this comedy extempore.

“I love the way you start your blog posts every week with one of those ‘epi things.’ They’re really thought-provoking. I might just print them out and tape them on my office walls.”

“Thanks, Barry. I add them after I finish writing a post, just as a hint of what’s coming.”

“I really like today’s quote that you took from Ovid: ‘Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.’ Persistence is so important in every thing we do in life. What made you decide to start your weekly blog posts this way?”

With that question, I knew exactly why he had dragged me up on stage with him. He was determined to have his own Q & A, ignoring the way I had scripted the play.

“I’m glad you like them, Barry. I hadn’t thought that much about it, but now that you’ve mentioned it, I’ve always started my posts with a quote, going all the way back to my blog’s birth in 2012.

Just as I flashed my TheWiredResearcher.com blog on the screen with every intention of reading every “epi thing” from then until now, the lights started fading, and in a moment of total darkness someone with the proverbial hook pulled me and Barry out of sight.

Then the lights rose softly, and there–front and center–stood my Mother, holding up for the audience to see, a slew of handwritten sermon notes, each beginning with a Bible verse.

She made no attempt to read the tear-stained pages in her hands. She just stood there as if her smile spoke all that needed to be spoken.

It did. I reembered at once her advice when I started writing my own grade school essays.

“Always start with a quote to capture attention and make people want to follow along.”

From that point forward, I did just that. The earliest “epi thing” that I recall using was a quote by Douglas McArthur at the start of one of my many Voice of Democracy essays.

In the instant of that fleeting recollection, I was on stage once more, the light shining more on my Mother than on me, as I my little drama opened with my McArthur “epi thing”:

“Old soldiers never die. They just fade away.”

When I finished, the lights faded. The curtains closed. Amidst a thunderous and standing ovation, they opened up again as we all joined hands and bowed for the curtain call.

My inner child somehow slipped into the audience, just long enough to toss two bouquets back onto the stage. By the time my Mother caught her bunch of asters, I had made it onstage again, standing beside her, grabbing my own nosegay of words. We both laughed as we realized that those tossed words would serve as the perfect “epi thing” not only to open this post but also to close it:

“A thought that does not result in an action is nothing much,

and

an action without thought is nothing at all.”