Author: krinvan

Krin Van Tatenhove is a writer, visual artist, and spiritual adventurer. His 40 years of professional writing experience have led to countless articles and 17 books. You can freely download most of his work—including art collaborations—by visiting krinvan.com. Currently, he is the fiction editor at Story Sanctum publishing. He is married, has four children, and lives with his wife and disabled adult son in San Antonio, Texas.

Lucid Reunion

Dreams are the touchstones of our character.  – Stephen LaBerge

The sign on my office door says John Longfellow, PsyD – Individual and Family Counseling. I’ve been a psychologist for 20 years, helping people unravel their burdens and find resolution.

About three years ago, my enthusiasm flagged. Call it a midlife crisis, but listening to others grew tedious, especially with clients who took little responsibility for their healing. I nodded my head and kept appropriate eye contact, but I felt like a bobble-head toy. My wife noticed that I’d lost my lost my passion.

“You’re just not yourself,” she said, kindly but with an edge of exasperation. “I don’t have a prescription, but you need to find a way to connect with your old zest. You still have a lot of years ahead of you. We still have a lot of years ahead of us.”

She was right. I needed a new spark, a fresh avenue of exploration.

That direction came unexpectedly. I was listening to a podcast on my way to work called Wake Up Inside Your Dreams, a fascinating overview of lucid dreaming. The podcaster said, “It’s possible to step into our minds with our eyes open. We begin to see the architecture of our fears and our longings. We realize that we’ve built every wall and horizon ourselves.”

I’ve always had vivid dreams, but their meanings evaporate as I awaken. I knew a little about lucid dream theory, but the podcast spurred me to sharpen my research. I devoured everything I could find, from Jung’s Red Book to LaBerge, Bogzaran, Holziner, Aspy, and every article archived by The Lucidity Institute.

I began to experiment in my own life, keeping detailed dream journals and using practices like reality testing and mnemonic induction. It paid off. I could stay longer in my visions, understand more symbols, and even translate a few simple lessons into my waking world.

But still, something eluded me, something deeply connected to that sense of joy I’d been lacking for so long.

Gradually, I integrated this new focus into my practice, becoming a guide for others in their nightly walkabouts. Word got out through the therapeutic community. New referrals sought me out for release from night terrors, recurring guilt dreams, or lost loves who visited frequently like ghosts. I taught them to stay calm, to recognize the subtle distortions of the dream world: a light switch that doesn’t work, a clock whose hands refuse to move, words that rearrange themselves when you blink. These are the cues, I told them. The seams of the dream world. Pull at them, and you can wake up inside your own story.

I never imagined the fullness of what my own subconscious was preparing for me.

It began one winter night after an exhausting day of sessions. I’d just finished with Claire, a woman haunted by a recurring nightmare of drowning in a river that looked suspiciously like the one outside her childhood home. That night, perhaps still affected by her angst, I dreamed of a place I’d never been, an old train platform under a sky the color of brass.

It was still at first. No wind, no movement, just a suspended hush. The platform stretched endlessly in both directions, lined with benches and antique lamps that cast faint halos of light. A few people milled about, blurred, like they were painted in watercolor.

And then I saw him in sharp focus.

Across the tracks, on a bench opposite mine, sat a boy. He was swinging his legs and rolling a toy car from the palm of one hand to the other. I didn’t need to guess who he was. I knew instantly that I was looking at myself at eight years old.

The shock of recognition was almost physical. Inside the dream, I felt my chest tighten and my breath quicken. He looked exactly as I remembered myself. Thin, serious, with that same stubborn cowlick that refused to lie flat no matter how much my mother spat on her palm. He was wearing a red windbreaker I hadn’t thought about in decades.

I called out his name—my name—but even as the sound left my mouth, a train thundered between us, all smoke and screeching metal. When it passed, the bench was empty.

I woke up with my heart hammering. The clock read 3:14 a.m. My sheets were twisted around me, damp with sweat. I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and tried to tell myself what I’d tell a patient: it’s just an image, a projection of memory, nothing more. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something in me had been waiting for this encounter.

The dream came again the next night.

This time the station looked older, like a faded photograph. The air shimmered with sunset light. The boy was there again, farther away, walking along the opposite platform. I shouted, but my voice came out thick, like a sound underwater. He turned his head slightly, enough for me to see his eyes. There was no surprise in them, only recognition and something else I couldn’t name.

Then the scene shifted, as dreams often do. The tracks vanished. I was standing in a field outside my grandparents’ farm, the one I hadn’t visited since childhood. The boy was near the tree line, still holding that toy car. I started toward him, but the ground turned to mud. I slogged forward, desperate to reach him, until the earth pulled at my ankles like quicksand. Just before I sank, I woke up gasping.

By the end of that week, the dreams were nightly appointments. Sometimes I’d find the boy in places I hadn’t thought about in years. The hallway of my elementary school, the corner of our old backyard where I set up battlefields for my toy soldiers, my childhood bedroom as sunlight streamed through the window. Each time, I was a step closer to him, but each time, something intervened.

The researcher in me cataloged every detail in a notebook: dates, colors, emotional tones. The therapist in me found it thrilling to be recording pure, personal data. But the man in me felt a form of grief. There was something I’d lost in the past, and it was still slipping through my fingers.

I began to see small echoes of those dreams in my waking life. A boy on the bus holding a toy car. A poster in a coffee shop showing a train steaming into the horizon. It was eerie enough that I called a colleague I trusted and explained what was happening.

“I hear you, John,” he said. “Do you know Jung’s theory of synchronicity?”

“A bit. Describe it to me.”

“He said that sometimes events coincide in time and appear meaningfully related, but they lack any real causal connection. That sounds like what’s happening to you.”

I muttered an agreement as we hung up, but I knew better. I knew that my subconscious was breaching the border between worlds. And I began to understand the exasperation of my patients. As one of them had said about his recurring nightmares, “If there’s a lesson here, just fucking teach it to me and get out of my mind! You’re driving me crazy!”

I tried all the techniques I taught others, but none of them stopped the dreams. If anything, the lucidity deepened. I could feel the texture of the air. I could smell dust and rain. I could hear my own heartbeat, quick and young, as if borrowed from the boy I pursued.

Three weeks in, the dream took a new turn.

I found myself in a park I knew intimately. It was where my father taught me to ride a bike. The grass was impossibly green, the air full of the smell of lilacs. My father wasn’t there, but the boy was sitting beneath a tree, his knees drawn up, that toy car in his hands.

For a moment I couldn’t move. After all my pursuing, it now felt wrong to approach him, like I was intruding on sacred ground. But the boy looked up, and I saw no confusion or fear in his face, just patience.

“You took long enough,” he said. His voice was clear and even, nothing ghostly about it.

“I’ve been trying to reach you,” I said.

He smiled, my own smile softened by time. “No. You’ve been trying not to.”

Those words cut through me. I wanted to ask what he meant, but he stood and started walking toward the swings, motioning for me to follow. The scene wavered, colors bleeding at the edges. I fought to stay asleep, to hold the moment.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

He stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “Because you finally are.” And then he walked right up to me and handed me the toy car. I looked down and recognized it instantly, a Matchbox green Camaro that had been one of my favorites. Our eyes locked and he smiled in a way that filled my body with light and warmth.

“I lost this years ago,” I said.

He shrugged and sighed. “You stopped looking.”

When I woke, my hand was open, my palm warm, as if I’d been holding something small and solid. There were tears on my cheeks. For the first time in years, I didn’t feel tired. I felt lighter, as though some long-frozen part of me had started to thaw.

Still, I’m a scientist at heart. I spent the morning journaling and cross-referencing symbols. The park. The train. The toy car. All anchors of memory, all pointing toward one obvious conclusion: the boy represented my unintegrated childhood self, the part I’d buried under professionalism and adult control. I regained my usual clinical detachment.

That afternoon, during a session, one of my patients—a middle-aged woman suffering grief after the loss of her mother—told me she’d dreamed of chasing her mom through endless corridors, never quite reaching her. Normally, I would have guided her toward strategies for confronting the dream figure. Instead, I said, “Maybe she’s not running from you. Maybe she’s leading you somewhere.”

She stared at me, wide-eyed, and nodded slowly, as if I’d just offered her a map.

In truth, I was offering one to myself.

The dreams didn’t stop after that, but they softened. The boy would appear beside me now instead of across some impassable barrier. Sometimes we’d sit quietly together on a curb, a hill, or the roof of a house. He never said much. It was like communion, and it lasted longer than any other dream experience I’d had, time rolling out ahead of us.      

Changes seeped into my waking life. I started taking walks with my wife after dinner instead of falling asleep at my desk. One night she held my hand and said, “I like this new spring in your step.” I called my sister, whom I hadn’t spoken to in months. I even dug through an old storage box in the attic and found a Polaroid of myself at eight, sitting under that same tree in the park. My father had written on the back: To my brave boy. Keep going.

That night, the dream came again, but this time there was no boy. I was standing alone in the park, dusk settling around me, the air thick with that lilac scent. The toy car lay in the grass at my feet. I picked it up, turned it over, felt its weight. From somewhere distant, I heard laughter—mine, but younger. Then everything faded into light.

I woke before dawn, not startled this time, just awake. Truly awake.

Since then, my dreams have changed in tone. Sometimes the boy appears, older now, walking beside me through unfamiliar cities. On other nights, he’s absent entirely, but I feel his presence like a hand at my back. I no longer chase him. We’re walking in the same direction, a deep, lucid reunion between who I was and who I’ve become.

A few weeks ago, a patient asked me, “Dr. Longfellow, what happens when we master lucid dreaming and can control everything?”

I smiled. “I’ve learned in my own dreams that control isn’t the point. It’s more important to listen and let the dream speak its own strange language.”

She nodded and looked down with tears on her cheeks.

These nights, when I drift toward sleep, I feel an exciting flicker of anticipation. I know that somewhere in that vast theater of my mind, a child version of me might still be sitting beneath a tree, turning a toy car in his hands.

And he’s not waiting anymore.

by Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

The Necessity of Wildness

(Click here to download my expanded compilation of text and photos called The Necessity of Wildness. Best viewed as a two-page spread in Adobe Acrobat)

John Muir once said that “wildness is a necessity.” I agree, and it’s a truth that stands as an indictment of our current society. We live in a culture that multiplies distractions. We confuse convenience with meaning. We mistake consumer goods for necessities. Against the backdrop of this noise, wild places call to us—not as optional luxuries, but as lifelines to our truest selves. This call has echoed through my life since childhood, sometimes quietly, sometimes like an alarm.

I grew up in the Los Angeles Basin, a hazy expanse of freeways, stucco homes, and constant motion. In those early years, before the Clean Air Act of 1970 curbed the worst pollution, Smog Alerts were frequent. Our teachers sometimes kept us indoors for recess, because the outside air literally burned our lungs.

My childhood could easily have been devoid of natural beauty. But my father, at the considerable sacrifice of commuting long hours, insisted on something different. He moved us to an area of the Los Angeles Basin that still held remnants of old Southern California: chapparal covered hills, orange and avocado orchards, creeks running through ravines.

My brothers and I roamed those hills as if they were our personal kingdom. We named special places, caught lizards and toads, and wandered stream beds that smelled deeply of loam. I can close my eyes even now and see the silhouette of a great horned owl gliding over our house at twilight, taking its place in the eucalyptus trees that bordered our property. I remember falling over backwards, not to make a snow angel, but to carve an outline of my body in a field of tall wild mustard, gazing at the blue sky above, listening to the buzz of pollinating bees.

As I grew older, Boy Scouting deepened my relationship with wildness. Our troop hiked the John Muir Trail, rafted the Colorado River, and camped in the Mojave Desert surrounded by Joshua trees. I began to understand Muir’s belief that these places were “fountains of life.” I felt that fountain rising in me. Still, as adulthood encroached with work, ambition, and responsibilities, I sometimes forgot to return to the source.

Years later, emerging from one of the most difficult periods of my life, a spiritual guide got my attention. “As you piece together this new beginning,” he told me, “reserve time alone in nature. This isn’t just nostalgia about your childhood. It’s a portal to the serenity your soul is seeking.” That simple truth rang like a bell. I listened. Since then, immersing myself in nature is no longer a casual hobby; it is woven into my schedule as an essential practice. If I neglect it, I feel the restlessness immediately, a tug from the wild reminding me of what I’ve forgotten.

Once I’m there, these three necessities impress themselves on my soul.

The Necessity of Stillness

Stillness in nature is not the absence of sound. Anyone who has walked in a forest knows its constant music. Stillness is the presence of something deeper, a rootedness. Nature invites us into this realm, and if we let it work its magic, it loosens the grip that multitasking and digital overload exert on our spirits.

I once took a group of inner-city boys from Los Angeles on a backpacking trip into the San Gorgonio Wilderness. It required days of preparation just to get them ready. We had to borrow gear, teach some basic skills, and coax parental signatures from families who had rarely ventured beyond their barrios.

On the trail, the boys kept up a steady stream of macho joking until I stopped them with a challenge. “For the next half hour,” I said, “let’s walk like the Serrano People, the earliest inhabitants of this area. No talking. Just listen.”

They were skeptical, but they fell silent to indulge me. Almost immediately, the forest honored our reverence. Soft wind whispered through the Ponderosa pines. Scrub jays chattered nearby. We saw a family of mule deer browsing in the undergrowth.

Then, a rabbit emerged on the trail ahead. I held up my hand and we paused. Suddenly—almost mythic in its timing—a huge red-tailed hawk swooped down, seized the hare, and lifted it into the sky. We could hear the flapping of its strong wings.

The boys gasped. These hardened kids who had seen too much violence and too little beauty now stood in awe of something vast, powerful, and humbling. In their eyes I saw something I will never forget. Wonder. Pure, undiluted wonder.

The Necessity of Wonder

Wonder expands us. It loosens the grip of our egos, reminding us that we are a small but precious part of a vast, intricate universe. Though I’ve often shown the Hubble Telescope’s eXtreme Deep Field photo to illustrate this point, it’s far better to experience it firsthand. Find a dark sky preserve and lie on your back beneath the Milky Way. Let your eyes drift across the heavens, realizing that some of the “stars” above you are entire galaxies, each holding billions of suns.

So often, when our minds stretch, our spirits follow.

And wonder isn’t reserved for the cosmic. It pulses through ordinary experiences when we pay attention: the scent of creosote after desert rain, the echo of thunder over a plateau, the iridescent shimmer of a dragonfly’s wings. I once awoke in a bamboo hut on Maui to a series of booming sounds. Only later did I learn that it was humpback whales, joyfully slapping their tails in the dark waters of the bay. Wonder like that stays with you, a quiet ember you can relight repeatedly.

The Necessity of Gratitude

If we stay with it, wonder evolves naturally into gratitude, one of the most stabilizing forces in human life. Meister Eckhart once said, “If the only prayer you ever said was ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”

Gratitude opens our eyes not only to the gifts we receive but to the responsibility these gifts confer upon us. When we understand that wildness is a necessity, we feel compelled to protect it, to become stewards of the land and advocates for species that cannot speak for themselves.

This can begin simply with recycling, conserving energy, or planting a pollinator garden. And for some of us, it goes much further. As a Texas Master Naturalist, I have seen ordinary people become extraordinary guardians of the earth. They clean the rivers, remove invasive plant species, and help restore native trees and prairies. They remind me of my own responsibility to help protect the fragile web of life.

Returning to the Wild

A few years ago, on the Pinnacles Trail in Big Bend National Park, I sat beside some ancient rock spires. The noise of modern life, engrained in my chattering thoughts, faded away. Technology, politics, identity, worry, all of it dissolved in the beauty of that place. What remained was a profound stillness. It was an epiphany, both humbling and energizing, connecting me not only with the earth, but with all human beings who have transcended their conditioning and embraced the natural world.

And so, I will always return to the trail, because Muir was right: wildness is not optional. It is a necessity for stillness, for wonder, for gratitude, and ultimately, for becoming whole.

Happy trails to all of you!

by Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

The Duel at St. Anthony’s Garden

New Orleans, April 2, 1848

Tendrils of morning fog drifted through the live oaks of St. Anthony’s Garden. Nestled behind St. Louis Cathedral’s towering spires, the garden was an Old-World masterpiece transplanted to the New World. Brick pathways formed a cross that met at a gurgling fountain filled with water lilies. Manicured hedges of boxwood created intimate alcoves. Magnolia trees joined the oaks overhead, their white blossoms hanging like faint ornaments in the pre-dawn light. The air carried a perfume of jasmine mingled with damp soil and the muddy overlay of the nearby Mississippi River.

The aristocracy of New Orleans often gathered here, not for solitude or prayer, but for that peculiar form of justice settled with powder and lead. Duels were good theater, and this morning’s contest pitted two successful cotton merchants against each other—Joseph Armand and Nicholas LeDoux. Their story had spilled into the gossip pages of The Times-Picayune, alleging that LeDoux made an unwanted advance towards Armand’s wife, Camille.

Fueled by gossip and bloodlust, the morning’s crowd was unusually large. Somewhere in the foliage, a mockingbird began its repertoire, oblivious to the human drama about to unfold.

“Here he comes!” a woman’s voice sounded from the spectators.

Jospeh Armand’s carriage rattled to a stop on Royal Street just as the cathedral bells tolled six a.m. He emerged wearing a rich burgundy coat cut in French fashion. Strikingly handsome, he was tall and broad-chested, his curly black hair professionally coiffed. A vain man, he arrogantly displayed his wealth and social standing, but he also had the reputation of being fair in his business practice. That is, if you had the guts to stand up to him.

As he walked past the spectators lining the pathways, he tried to hide the trembling of his hand that held the .50 caliber flintlock dueling pistol, its walnut stock gleaming with brass fittings.          

Nicholas LeDoux appeared from the opposite direction, announced by murmurs in the crowd. He was leaner, his features sharper, his dark hair streaked with gray. He carried himself with easy grace, his deep blue coat longer than Joseph’s, suggesting his merchant dealings in British territories. A devout Catholic, he worshipped every Sunday with his family in the cathedral. and unlike Armand, he used his wealth to support local charities. He had recently donated large sums to Sisters of the Holy Family, the first Catholic order for women of African descent. That association was slowly eroding his views on slavery. The fact that his whole enterprise was built on the backs of enslaved people had begun to weigh on his conscience.

As he strode towards Armand, LeDoux’s face was pale but steady, his jaw set in with a determination that masked his own fear.

The rivals halted and locked eyes beneath two trees nicknamed “the dueling oaks.”

“Joseph,” said LeDoux with a nod of his head.

Armand answered only with a sneer.

Another man stepped up behind them—Monsieur Beauregard, chosen as the sole referee in lieu of traditional seconds. He was a portly merchant in his sixties dressed in black, his white hair tied back with a ribbon. The Bishop himself had asked him to assume a larger role in these conflicts. “Dueling,” said the cleric, “has gotten woefully out of hand. I trust you can be a modifying influence to avert some of this bloodshed.” Beauregard had reluctantly agreed, but he took no pleasure in the task. He had presided over eleven duels, and three men had died under his supervision. But he had also deescalated a half dozen others, so he persisted.

He knew Armand and LeDoux, having shared drinks and merriment with them at high society parties. He also knew the backstory of this moment, and he found it dubious that LeDoux would have done such a thing. Nonetheless, it was not his place to second guess.

“Gentlemen,” Beauregard’s baritone voice silenced both the crowd and the mockingbird. “Before we proceed, is there no possibility of reconciliation? Is there no way we can avoid the untimely fate that might await one of you this morning?”

Joseph’s response was sharp and immediate. “The insult to my wife’s virtue cannot be reconciled with words. Only blood will answer.”

Nicholas’s jaw tightened. “I maintain my innocence, but if Monsieur Armand demands satisfaction, I will give it. My honor is as dear to me as his.”

The crowd shifted, drawing their collective breath. There would be no turning back.

Beauregard sighed heavily. “Then let me examine your weapons.”

They presented their pistols, and after inspecting them thoroughly, Beauregard handed them back.

“Here are the terms. Stand back-to-back. At my count, take fifteen paces. Then, at my command, turn and fire at will. No second shots. May God have mercy on both of you.”

The men pressed their backs together. Joseph felt Nicholas’s warmth through their coats, and sensed a rapid breathing that matched his own. The pistol felt like ice in his hand.

“One!” Beauregard’s voice rang out.

Joseph stepped forward, crushing a small flower.

“Two!”

The crowd fell utterly silent.

“Three!”

Somewhere in the crowd, a woman sobbed softly. Joseph thought of Camille, of her tears three nights ago as she had described Nicholas’s hand upon her arm and his suggestion that they meet privately. His rage rekindled with each step.

“Ten!”

Nicholas’s heart hammered against his ribs. He had shot targets and had once killed a cottonmouth that threatened his daughter, but he had never aimed at a man. He thought of his wife, Jeanette, pleading with him that very morning to reject this rash and foolish challenge.

“Fifteen! Turn and fire!”

Joseph spun, raising his pistol. Across wet grass and mist, Nicholas did the same. For one seemingly eternal instant, they stood frozen.

Then they fired their pistols fired as one. Thunderous cracks echoed off the cathedral’s stones and sent birds exploding from the trees. White smoke bloomed, obscuring everything.

When it cleared, both men lay on the ground.

___

The room in Charity Hospital smelled of carbolic acid and blood. It was just after sunset, the glow of a kerosene lantern casting a dim yellow light. Joseph Armand had been conscious for about an hour. His chest was wrapped in bandages that made each breath painful. The ball had entered just below his right collarbone, missing his lung by an inch. Dr. Mercier called it miraculous.

A heavy canvas curtain divided the room into two parts, each holding a bed. Beyond it, Joseph heard another man’s raspy breathing and occasional moans. A nurse moved between the patients, pausing on the other side of the curtain.

“Monsieur LeDoux, you must drink this broth.”

Joseph’s eyes flew open. LeDoux? Nicholas LeDoux?

The irony struck like a blow. They had tried to murder each other at dawn, but now shared the same room, too weak to stand.

“Nicholas?” Armand called in a weak voice. “Is that you?”

The response from beyond the curtain was also weak but unmistakable. “Joseph?”

“Yes, it’s me, Nicholas.” He paused, trying to collect his thoughts and feelings. “It seems we are both poor shots.”

Long silence followed. Then, from LeDoux: “I thought I killed you. When I saw you fall…”

“I thought the same. I suppose we’re both fortunate, or unfortunate, depending on your perspective.”

Another silence. “I never touched your wife, Joseph. Not in the way she suggested.”

Joseph closed his eyes, weary to his bones. “Then why accept the challenge?”

“What choice did I have? To refuse would admit guilt and brand me a coward. My business, my reputation, and my children’s futures—all of it would be ruined. So I came prepared to die for honor, even though I was falsely impugned.”

Joseph felt something shift in his chest. “Tell me exactly what happened at the Deveraux ball.”

“I was near the terrace. Camille approached me. She approached me, Joseph. She laid her hand upon my arm and said you’d been neglecting her, caring more for your cotton than your wife. She asked if I might call upon her to discuss how to invest her household allowance. Frankly, I thought it was odd, and I quickly told her that such a conversation should rightfully include you. That was all. The next day, you sent your second to my house with the challenge.”

Joseph lay in the dim light. Perhaps his injury had weakened his defenses, but he suddenly felt the full weight of truth. He knew his wife–her moods, her need for attention, her talent for dramatic embellishment. He had leapt to defend her honor without questioning her account. He could blame her, but he knew it was his own damned pride that had almost cost a human life. And she was certainly right about his work draining attention from her.

“I nearly killed you,” Joseph whispered.

“We nearly killed each other. I aimed for your heart. I meant to leave your wife a widow. For what? Vanity and an antiquated notion of honor?”

Absurdity overwhelmed Joseph. A laugh escaped his lips, painful but genuine. “I am an idiot, Nicholas. And you, too, for accepting my challenge. Absolute idiots.”

Nicholas laughed too, dissolving into painful coughs. “Complete fools. They should write an opera about our epic stupidity.”

When their chuckling subsided, a new silence fell.

“Your cotton exports,” Nicholas said eventually. “You ship primarily to Manchester?”

“Liverpool. Though I’m making some headway in establishing Manchester contacts. And you?”

“Manchester and Leeds. But Liverpool has eluded me. The established houses refuse newcomers.”

Joseph’s mind began working. “I have three ships in rotation. But British tariffs cut margins. I’ve been seeking ways to increase the volume on each passage.”

“I have prime warehousing on Tchoupitoulas Street,” said LeDoux, “holding three times what I can adequately ship. Last season I left two hundred bales waiting, and the prices dropped.”

“If you had guaranteed shipping…”

“And if you had better storage facilities and wider British contacts…”

Possibilities bloomed between them like the magnolias in St. Anthony’s Garden. Combined resources, shared costs, expanded markets. They both knew that their competition had cost them both.

“We could,” Joseph said slowly, “in theory, form a partnership.”

“Armand and LeDoux. Or LeDoux and Armand?”

“Does it matter?”

“Not in the slightest.”

Over the following hour, two wounded men discussed tonnage and tariffs, credit and contracts. They spoke of the growing British demand and how a unified operation could be formidable.

Dr. Mercier arrived, making his last rounds of the day. He pulled back the curtain briefly—the first time they saw each other, pale and bandaged.

“Look upon your handiwork, gentleman. You’ll both live, though you’ll carry scars. You were fortunate.”

“Perhaps more than we had imagined,” said Nicholas.

The doctor looked at both of them again, then shook his head with a sigh. “I don’t understand this world,” he said, then turned and left.

After he’d gone, Joseph spoke softly. “Nicholas, when we recover, we should draw up partnership papers.”

“Equal shares in everything?”

“Equal shares, equal voice, equal responsibility.”

“Just one more thing,” said LeDoux. “I would insist that we give a percentage of our profit to those who are less fortunate. After all, Joseph, we have been blessed with so much.”

“I will accommodate your charitable nature,” said Armand. “I’m sure your God, if he even exists, knows that I need more tolerance.” He paused. “And Nicholas? I am truly sorry. For doubting you, for the challenge, for all of it.”

“And I apologize as well for accepting rather than insisting on truth. Perhaps we both needed to learn about pride and trust.”

As evening fell over Charity Hospital and the city of New Orleans, two former enemies planned their future as partners. Armand and LeDoux would become one of the South’s most successful cotton operations, weathering the Civil War, passing through generations, a legacy of prosperity born from near-tragedy.

But none of that was visible yet. For now, they were simply two foolish men who had learned that honor without wisdom is foolhardy, and that the greatest victories sometimes come from the duels we survive rather than win.

Outside, the city prepared for another sultry night. In St. Anthony’s Garden, the magnolias continued their eternal blooming, indifferent to both human folly and human grace.

by Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

At the Corner of Oglethorpe and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Last week, on a trip to Savannah, Georgia, I found myself standing at the corner of Oglethorpe Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the intersection, and I felt the weight of history pressing down on that spot. The street names are a metaphor in one of America’s oldest cities, where the past is never far from view. In Savannah’s history, beauty and brutality entwine like the Spanish moss that drapes its live oaks.

Oglethorpe founded Georgia in 1733. He was initially complicit in systems of oppression, including the Atlantic slave trade. Savannah was one of the most active ports receiving prisoners at the end of their “middle passage.” But later, after witnessing the moral rot that slavery inflicted, Oglethorpe became one of the earliest advocates for abolition. King, born two centuries later, dedicated his life to dismantling the structures of oppression that had calcified into American bedrock.

Standing there, I couldn’t help but see this street corner as a physical manifestation of our national paradox, the constant tension between our worst impulses and our highest ideals.

We all know how this contradiction runs through every chapter of our story. Thomas Jefferson penned words about equality and inalienable rights while enslaving over 600 human beings throughout his lifetime. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, yet within a decade, Black Codes and convict leasing created new systems of forced labor. We fought a world war against fascism with a segregated military, then returned home to a nation where those same soldiers couldn’t sit at lunch counters beside the people they’d fought to protect.

The GI Bill opened pathways to college and homeownership for millions, but discriminatory implementation meant Black veterans were systematically excluded from these opportunities, creating a wealth gap that reverberates today. We built the Interstate Highway System to connect our nation while bulldozing thriving Black neighborhoods to do it.

Our contradictions are brutally visible in our treatment of Native peoples. The ideals of liberty coexisted with policies of forced removal, such as the Trail of Tears that passed through the state of Georgia. Under the banner of divine providence, we displaced entire nations, stripping them of their lands and cultures. Later, federal programs sought to “assimilate” Native children by removing them from their families and erasing their languages in boarding schools.

Many immigrant stories reveal similar paradoxes. The Statue of Liberty promised refuge — “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” — yet waves of newcomers faced hostility and exclusion. We celebrated Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty while turning away ships of Jewish refugees. Chinese laborers who helped build the transcontinental railroad were later targeted by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Irish and Italian immigrants were met with suspicion and violence. During World War II, Japanese Americans were interned behind barbed wire, not for crimes but for ancestry. Each generation of immigrants, it seems, has had to fight to prove its belonging in a nation supposedly founded on welcome.

Even our progress reveals the pattern. Brown v. Board of Education declared school segregation unconstitutional in 1954, yet decades later, our schools remain deeply divided by race and opportunity. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 protected ballot access, yet we’re still fighting over voter ID laws, polling place closures, and redistricting schemes designed to dilute minority votes. We elected our first Black president, then watched as hate crimes and white nationalist organizing surged in response.

And the gap between the haves and have-nots continues to widen. Federal Reserve data shows that the richest 10 percent of American households now own over two-thirds of the nation’s total wealth. Even more telling, the top 1 percent holds 31% percent of our total wealth, just slightly less than the entire bottom 90 percent of U.S. households.1

And yet, I remain hopeful, because America has always been a story of striving. The arc of our history may be jagged, but it bends toward justice when enough of us pull together. From abolitionists and suffragists to civil rights marchers, from modern activists for climate justice to the organizers for LGBTQ+ rights, we continue to strive.

I felt this strongly in my recent participation at a No Kings protest. Progress has never been a gift from the powerful and wealthy. We who believe in a more perfect union must demand it! This is vital to remember at our current juncture in American history, when oligarchs are more brazenly exerting their influence over every aspect of our culture.

As I stood at that intersection in Savannah, the hum of traffic surrounding me, I imagined Oglethorpe and King in conversation, two men separated by centuries yet ultimately united by conscience. Perhaps they would agree that the true test of a nation is not whether it avoids hypocrisy, but whether it keeps pushing toward redemption.

We are still standing at that intersection between what America has been and what it can yet become. And if we listen closely, we will hear Dr. King’s voice reminding us that the dream is not dead.  

It is waiting for us to live it out.

1 – Wealth Inequality – Inequality.org

by Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Confirmed, Not Conformed

Jason Merriweather stood near the communion table of St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church. A shaft of late-afternoon light cut through the stained glass, pouring a river of color across the marble floor. He’d always loved this hour when the sanctuary glowed with something close to holiness. Lately, however, its beauty only reminded him that he would soon be leaving.

At age 45, Jason was a tall, slim man with brown eyes and dark hair streaked with grey. He’d been rector for ten years in this grand old church tucked between the glass towers of downtown Boston. He’d buried saints and scoundrels, married lovers of every kind, baptized babies who now filled the Sunday school classrooms. He’d done it all with conviction that the Church, at its best, could somehow hold all the contradictions of life—justice and mercy, faith and doubt, God and silence. But that conviction had dissolved.

His loss of faith wasn’t dramatic. There was no dark night of the soul, just a slow leaching away. The more he studied theology, the more he counseled parishioners through their grief and joy, the more he performed the same rituals week after week, the hollower it all felt. He had become an actor playing a role, and he’d always promised himself that if his calling seemed inauthentic, it was over.

That time had come, and he hadn’t told anyone except his husband, Steve.

__

The first time he said it aloud, they were sitting on their back porch. It was a rare warm evening in early March. The city hummed below them, the lights of Beacon Hill scattered like spilled coins. Steve—five years younger than Jason, with brown hair and blue eyes—was stirring a gin and tonic, the ice clinking softly. They’d been together for twelve years, married for six. One of the reasons Jason had chosen the Episcopal Church was its progressive stance that allowed him to serve openly. Steve worked in a lucrative tech job, approaching problems with the kind of logical clarity that Jason envied.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Jason said with a sigh.

Steve looked up, calm as ever. “The parish?”

“No. The collar.”

Steve didn’t flinch. He’d been watching Jason unravel for months: his insomnia, his short temper, his quietness at dinner.

“You mean you’re leaving the priesthood?”

Jason nodded. “I don’t believe it anymore. It’s not just a theology based on such a narrow bandwidth of history and experience. It’s the whole structure of the institution. We talk about giving ourselves away to the world, but we squabble over budgets and buildings. We preach inclusion, but if you dig to the core, we’re still hoping to conform people to our creeds. I try to offer alternatives in my teaching, but I feel trapped. I’m done dialoging solely with Judeo-Christian scriptures. It’s too exhausting. I need to break free.”

Steve smiled gently. He was accustomed to his husband’s sermonettes. It was one of things he loved about him. He reached over and took Jason’s hand. “So what do you want to do?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve been looking at graduate programs to help make the shift. Some form of teaching maybe, or counseling, or perhaps work with a nonprofit.”

Steve nodded slowly. “Okay. We’ll figure it out. Whatever you need.”

Jason gave a broken laugh. “It’s not that simple, is it? There’s still a mortgage. A pension. Health insurance. And there are good people I love here.” He paused and hung his head. “But I just can’t stay and pretend.”

“Then don’t,” Steve said. “But go out doing something honest. Something that still matters to you.”

Jason didn’t know what that meant at the time. He thought maybe he’d quietly resign, send a letter to the bishop, vanish into a new phase of his life.

Then, a week later, the vestry chair called him.

__

“Jason, we’d like you to teach the confirmation class this year,” she said. “The parents requested it. They think you’ll make it especially meaningful for the kids.”

He almost said no. His associate rector, Marla, had always been the one to take this task. But something inside him—some mischievous part—said yes. Maybe this would be that “going out with a flair” that Steve had suggested.

__

The first class met in a small room off the parish hall. Nineteen kids, ages twelve to fourteen, sat in a circle of mismatched chairs. They looked up at him with a blend of boredom and anxiety. He recognized most of them. He’d watched them grow up, seen them squirming in pews during Christmas Eve services, or making their way up the aisle for the weekly children’s message during worship.

They waited for him to distribute the workbooks used by previous classes entitled Your Episcopal Faith, but Jason had left those in his office.

“Here’s how this is going to work,” he said. “I’m not going to teach you what I think you should believe. I’m not going to tell you what the church says you need to accept to be confirmed. Instead, I want to know what questions you have about life, about faith, about God if you even believe in God. Anything that puzzles you or pisses you off.”

A girl named Maya raised her eyebrows. Several kids exchanged glances.

“You’re serious?” asked Connor, a lanky boy with a mop of dark hair.

“Completely. You’re in charge here. What do you really want to know?”

The silence stretched out. Jason waited, comfortable with the discomfort. Finally, a girl named Zara spoke up.

“Is this a trick?”

“No trick. I promise.”

“Because my parents signed me up for this,” she continued. “I didn’t exactly volunteer.”

“Fair enough,” Jason said. “Anyone else here under parental pressure?”

More than half the hands went up, along with scattered, nervous laughter.

“Okay, that’s honest. What would make this not a waste of your time?”

Another pause. Then Connor spoke. “I don’t know if I believe in God. Like, at all. Are we allowed to say that?”

Jason stood and went to the dry erase board. He wrote in large letters: Do I believe in God?

“Absolutely allowed,” he said. “What else?”

The floodgates opened.

“Why do such bad things happen to good people, like my friend Sarah who lost her mother?”
“How do we know the Bible is true? Aren’t there other holy books?”
“Is there really life after death?”
“Why are there so many religions if one is supposed to be right?”
“Can you be a good person without being religious?”
“Why does the church care so much about sex?”
“If God is love, why does hell exist?”

Jason wrote furiously, filling the board with their questions. When he had finished, he turned back to them.

“These are better than any curriculum I could give you. Each week, we’ll take one question and explore it together. Not me lecturing you, but all of us thinking out loud. I want you to question everything, probe every possibility, follow your reasoning wherever it leads. At the end, if you choose to be confirmed, I want you to write down what you believe at this moment in your lives, knowing that those beliefs will probably change, and that’s not only okay, it’s necessary.”

Maya spoke up, her voice cautious. “OK. But I’ve always been taught that confirmation is like agreeing to believe certain things?”

“Traditionally, yes,” Jason said. “But I think that’s backwards. I think real faith starts with honesty. It’s hard to be honest if someone else is telling you what you’re supposed to think.”

A boy named Elijah who’d been quiet until then leaned forward. “Are you going to get in trouble for this?”

Jason smiled. “Probably. But that’s my problem, not yours.”

__

The weeks passed.

Instead of rote lessons, they had conversations. Messy, wandering, luminous conversations. Jason br0ught in poems, songs, and movie clips that riffed on the themes of their questions, and he encouraged them to do the same. They sat on the floor sometimes, surrounded by pizza boxes and laughter.

They debated whether the Bible was literal or metaphorical. They talked about evolution, injustice, death, love, and sexuality. One week, Jason displayed a photo from the Hubble telescope on the wall, an image that showed galaxies spinning like fireworks.

“What kind of God would make this and call it good?” he asked.

They didn’t always find answers, but the questions were alive and compelling.

One day, Lila stayed after class. “My mom says we shouldn’t question too much,” she whispered. “She says that’s how people lose their faith.”

Jason looked at her gently. “Or maybe that’s how people find it.”

__

It wasn’t long before parents compared notes about what their children were discussing. Even though the congregation was mostly liberal, it had its limits. More conservative families raised alarms that the class wasn’t using traditional materials. Father Jason was letting the kids question even the most basic doctrines. He’d told them it was okay not to believe in miracles, including the resurrection or that Jesus was the son of god.

“That’s not exactly what I said,” Jason explained to one concerned mother. “I said different Christians interpret the resurrection and Jesus’s character in different ways. Some literally, some metaphorically, and they need to figure out what makes sense to them.”

“But that’s relativism,” the mother protested. “There has to be some cornerstone of truth.”

“Does there?” Jason asked, then immediately regretted his honesty when he saw her face pale.

The senior warden called him in for a conversation. Harold was a kind man in his seventies, a retired attorney who’d been at St. Augustine’s for forty years.

“Jason, I’ve gotten some calls,” Harold said carefully. “People are worried about the confirmation class.”

“I know.”

“They trust you. You’ve been a good rector. A great rector, really. But they’re confused about what you’re doing with these kids.”

Jason chose his words carefully. “Harold, they’re at the age when they are just beginning to think critically on their own. Rather than shut that down, I’m helping them think for themselves. Ultimately, isn’t that what we want?”

“Within reason,” Harold said. “But confirmation is also about bringing young people into the full life of the church. It’s about commitment.”

“It’s about honesty,” Jason countered. “If we force them to affirm things they don’t genuinely believe, we’re just creating better liars.”

Harold sighed. “I’m going to ask you to trust that these parents have trusted you. See it through. But Jason…” he paused, studying the rector’s face. “…are you okay?”

The question landed with unexpected weight. Jason felt the careful walls he’d constructed begin to crack.

“I’m figuring some things out,” he said finally.

Harold nodded slowly, and Jason wondered how much the older man understood.

__

The class continued to transform. They tackled questions of suffering with rawness that broke every platitude. When discussing the Bible’s authority, a girl named Priya talked about how stories could be true without being factual, and the whole class leaned in, building on her idea. They debated morality without God, afterlife beliefs across cultures, and the problem of religious violence.

Jason facilitated rather than dictated. When students turned to him for answers, he turned the questions back to the group. What do you think? Why? What are the implications of that belief? How would you defend it to someone who disagreed?

At home, Steve noticed the change in him. “You seem lighter,” he observed one evening.

“I do?”

“Yes. Even though you’re planning to leave, you seem more like yourself than you have in years.”

Jason considered this. “I think it’s because I’m finally being honest. With them, at least. Maybe that’s all I needed, a space where I could stop pretending.”

“You’re giving them something important,” Steve said.

“Or taking something away. Depends how you look at it.”

“No,” Steve insisted. “You’re giving them permission to be real. You and I both now how rare and vital that can be.”

__

By early summer, the kids had written their personal confirmation statements. They shared them with each other, giving feedback and enjoying each other’s candor. He gave them the option to share their words on confirmation Sunday if they felt up to it.

 And now, that day had come.

It was a clear day in June. Sunlight spilled through the tall windows of the sanctuary. All the pews were packed, partly due to the expectation that this wouldn’t be a standard celebration. Steve was in the second row of pews, smiling with encouragement. The bishop in her crimson garb sat next to Jason in the Presider’s Chairs. Jason wore his usual white Alb and green stole. He had thought he might feel nervous, but he was calm and confident as the service began.

After the usual liturgy of hymns, prayers, and readings had unfolded, he stepped to the pulpit.

“Before we move to the rite of confirmation,” he said, “the students have some thoughts to share.”

The congregation shifted, surprised.

“I asked these young people to write their own statements of belief. Not memorized doctrines, but what their hearts and minds tell them today. Some of them are willing to read excerpts to you.

Maya started things off. She stood at the lectern, her voice shaking slightly at first, then growing stronger.

“I believe in questions more than answers,” she read. “I believe that doubt is not the opposite of faith but maybe a deeper kind of faith. I believe in being kind, especially when it’s hard. I don’t know if there’s a God, but I believe in love, and sometimes I think maybe those are the same thing. I believe that I’m going to keep changing my mind about all of this, and that’s okay.”

The sanctuary was stone quiet.

Connor followed. “I believe the universe is bigger and stranger than anything we can imagine. I believe in science and also in mystery. I believe that every person has worth, and that judging people based on who they love, or what they look like, or what they believe is wrong. I’m not sure about heaven, but I believe we can make heaven or hell right here by how we treat each other.”

One by one, they came forward. Zara spoke about finding meaning in art and music. Elijah talked about his struggle with anxiety and how he’d found comfort not in prayer but in meditation and friendship. Priya discussed her Hindu mother and Christian father and how she wanted to honor both traditions without being bound by either. Joshua talked about how much the parables of Jesus made sense to him.

The statements were honest, searching, humble, and deeply thoughtful. They didn’t parrot anyone else’s doctrine. They didn’t claim certainty they didn’t possess. Instead, they revealed young people wrestling with profound questions and coming to their own tentative and beautiful conclusions.

As Jason listened, he felt something shift in the congregation. The initial tension began to soften, moved by the sincerity of these young people’s voices.

When the last student finished, the church was still silent. Then, slowly, applause began. It started with one person, then spread like ripples across water until the entire congregation was clapping, some people standing, others wiping tears from their eyes.

The bishop leaned over to Jason. “That was quite unorthodox.”

“I know,” Jason said. “I’m sorry if…”

“Don’t apologize,” the bishop interrupted. “I think we just witnessed something sacred.”

The service continued. The bishop laid hands on each confirmand, then they all share communion. The final hymn was sung and Jason gave the benediction.

Afterward, in the parish hall during the reception, Jason watched the confirmed students surrounded by their families. The kids were animated and proud. Parents who’d been critical approached him with surprised gratitude.

“I don’t know what you did,” one father said, “but my daughter actually talks to me about meaningful things now. I didn’t think that was possible with a teenager.”

Conner’s mother hugged him, tears in her eyes. “He told me he wanted to be confirmed even though he has doubts, because you taught him that faith without doubt is just pretending. I never thought about it that way.”

Jason accepted their thanks with grace, feeling the weight of his deception. They were praising him for authenticity while not knowing that he’d stopped believing in the very institution he’d encouraged their children to question.

After most people had left, Zara approached him. She’d changed out of her confirmation dress into jeans and a hoodie.

“Father Jason?” she said. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Do you believe in God?”

The question landed like a stone in still water. Jason looked at this her, knowing he owed her honesty.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I used to think I did. Now I’m not sure. I believe in love, in kindness, in the search for meaning. Whether there’s a divine being at the center of it all, I’m genuinely uncertain.”

Zara nodded, unsurprised. “I kind of thought so. The way you let us question everything, it seemed like you were questioning too.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Not at all,” she said. “It makes me trust you more, actually. Because you didn’t lie to us.”

After she left, Jason stood alone in the empty parish hall. Through the windows, he could see the city skyline, the river beyond it, the ordinary Sunday evening traffic. Somewhere in that landscape was his future, a life outside the church. He sighed with quiet anticipation.

__

That night, he and Steve sat on their porch, the city lights below them.

“So,” Steve said, pouring wine. “I don’t see how that could have gone any better. What do you think?”

Jason smiled, tired but peaceful. “They were brilliant. Honest. Braver than most adults I know.”

“And you? How are you?”

Jason looked out over the skyline, the wind cool on his face. “I’m feeling peaceful. I think I did exactly what you suggested. I was honest and true to myself. I love you so much.”

Steve raised his glass. “And if love you. Here’s to what comes next.”

Jason clinked it softly. “To what comes next.”

They sat in silence for a while, the hum of traffic rising like distant waves. For the first time in years, Jason didn’t feel like he was losing something. He felt like he was becoming something new, unafraid to live without a script.

Tomorrow he would send his letter to the bishop. He didn’t know what the future held, but tonight, under the quiet city sky, he felt free.

He thought of those kids, their voices clear and unguarded, and he smiled.

Confirmed, not conformed.

Amen.

by 2 Comments

The Sacred Journey Beyond Religion

In 2024, the Pew Research Center found that 28% of Americans check “none” as their choice of religion.

So many of us have stepped away from organized faith, not out of rebellion, but from a courageous honesty with ourselves that we could no longer ignore. For some of us, the rituals had grown hollow, the dogmas too small for the vastness of our questions. Others of us saw how our institutions had become rigid or exclusionary.

Here’s a hard-won truth that many of us share. When we trade wonder for certainty, our souls begin to suffocate. As Jesus said in one of his most enduring metaphors, you can’t place new wine into old wineskins. It will only cause further rupture.

Have you ever walked out of a sanctuary you once felt was sacred, wondering if you were leaving behind not just your faith, but the language of your soul? If so, take heart. We are not losing our spirituality. We are rediscovering it in a deeper and freer form.

The Quiet Hunger Within

All of us carry a hunger for meaning that no amount of success, pleasure, or distraction can fill. We want to know that our lives matter, that we belong to something greater than ourselves. This longing stirs in the silence before dawn, in the tears we can’t explain, in the beauty that takes our breath away. It is not a problem to be solved. It is an invitation.

So where do we turn when we yearn for the sacred, but no longer fit inside the old containers?

The Open Path

First, we realize that spirituality was never confined to human temples, effigies, or sacred texts. It is written into the fabric of existence itself. The same Presence that inspired prophets and poets is alive in each of us, waiting for us to notice.

You might glimpse it in a forest trail glowing with morning light.
You might sense it in the deep stillness of meditation, or in the laughter of a friend who sees you fully.
You might feel it in moments of awe, when the boundaries between “you” and “everything else” dissolve.
You might see it looking back at you through the eyes of your child or grandchild.

Each of these is a doorway into the same mystery.

Spiritual satisfaction doesn’t come from subscribing to the right belief, but from cultivating awareness. And as our consciousness grows, so does our compassion, our sense of unity, and our capacity for joy. We begin to live not from fear, but from connection.

Companions on the Road

Our quest for meaning is not a solo expedition. We belong to a vast community of people asking similar questions, struggling with uncertainties, and finding revelations they never imagined. Each of our companions along the way carries a spark of the mystery we seek. When we share our stories, we participate in a sacred exchange. We remind each other that the search itself is holy.

Some of us find this connection through contemplative circles, mindfulness groups, or creative communities. Others of us find it through feeding the hungry, tending the earth, or comforting the lonely.

Wherever we practice love, spirit is present. As the timeless Persian poet, Rumi, once said, “In every religion there is love, yet love has no religion.”

Evolving Notions of the Divine

Words are simply pointers. This is a crucial realization. God, Tao, Source, Beloved, Mystery, Great Spirit are all terms intimating something we can never fully capture in language. The immensity of the cosmos and its origin are better experienced through awe. Over time, we find that the divine becomes less a being “out there” and more a living presence within and around everything. We come to see that spirituality is not about believing, but about being fully awake to the sacred dimension of everyday existence.

As our understanding expands, so does our compassion. We stop worrying about who’s right and who’s wrong in matters of faith. We start asking: What helps me love more deeply? What helps me live with gratitude? What helps me serve the wholeness of life?

The Great Thrills of the Journey

The spiritual journey beyond religion may begin with a sense of loss, but discoveries soon fill that void in myriad ways. Imagine:

  • The thrill of realizing that every sunrise, every act of kindness, every moment of awareness is a form of prayer.
  • The freedom of knowing that you no longer need to pretend certainty; that questions themselves are sacred.
  • The joy of feeling at home in the universe, even without a map.

Looking back, we see that we are not exiles. Instead, we have found a calling, an invitation to grow beyond the boundaries of old beliefs and into the spaciousness of wonder.

The Infinite Yes

If you find yourself wandering beyond the walls of religion, trust the journey. Follow the tug of your own curiosity. Keep your heart open to beauty, mystery, and love. The sacred has not abandoned you. It has simply changed its address, moving from the altar to the open sky, from the sermon to the beating of your own heart.

You are still on holy ground.

by Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

An Unforgettable Night at the Lighthouse

(According to the U.S. Coast Guard Historian’s Office, 122 women
were appointed as official lighthouse keepers from 1845 to 1912)

Port Isabel, Texas — November 15, 1860

The night air tasted like salt and iron. It pressed in through the cracks of the lighthouse keeper’s cottage, carrying the murmur of the Gulf of Mexico, a sound Hannah Harn had come to know as well as her own breathing. Outside, the beacon atop the Port Isabel Lighthouse shone steady, its beam sweeping toward the Brazos Santiago Pass. Hannah had lit it promptly at 5:00 p.m., ensuring its operation through another night.

Feeling restless, she left the cottage, walked the stone pathway to the lighthouse, and climbed its spiral staircase. The sleeves of her dark wool dress were rolled neatly to her elbows, revealing forearms strong from years of polishing brass and trimming wicks. When she got to the lantern room, she checked her pocket watch. 12:13 a.m.

She gazed out at the sea, its surface ink-black under the stars. As the beam from the great Fresnel lens swept back and forth, she allowed herself a satisfied smile. It felt good to be responsible for such a marvel of engineering, its concentric rings of glass magnifying the flame until its light could be seen for twenty miles. Her late husband, John, had been so proud when the lens arrived from France and they installed it, replacing the old whale oil lamps they’d tended since the lighthouse opened in 1852.

“It’s like holding a star in your hands,” he said, his weathered face illuminated by wonder as he lit the new apparatus. “Just think, Hannah, our light reaching out so far. All those sailors find their way home because of what we do here.”

Hannah’s throat tightened. For almost a year now, she’d kept the light alone, ever since John died of a sudden heart attack. They had just finished breakfast and he’d been laughing at something she’d said about gulls defecating on the observation deck. Suddenly, he slumped to the floor and went silent. She tried to revive him to no avail. She ran out of their cottage and into town, knocking frantically on the local doctor’s door, but by the time they got back, it was no use. The doctor told her it was the Lord’s will, a phrase she has always despised.

The very next day, despite her grief, she told the Harbormaster that she would take over John’s duties. He stared at her, first in disbelief, then in mild amusement.

“It’s highly irregular,” he said, avoiding her eyes and shuffling papers on his desk. “A woman keeper…”

But Hannah persisted. John had taught her everything, she explained. How to trim the wick, how to calculate the right amount of whale oil, how to read the weather in the colors of the sunset and direction of the wind. Then she told the Harbormaster of another Hannah—Hannah Thomas—the first woman lighthouse keeper in America, a story she had learned in Massachusetts before moving to Texas. After her husband died in the Revolutionary War, Thomas tended the strategic Gurnet Light on Plymouth Bay for ten years, an inspiration to other women in a patriarchal era.

“I’m perfectly qualified,” Hannah concluded. “And who better? I learned from the man himself. Is it more irregular to appoint me, or let the lighthouse go dark while you search for someone to learn what I already know?”

He’d given her the appointment. Conditional, temporary, subject to review. That had been nearly a year ago, and the light had burned every night without fail. Ships laden with Texas cotton—bales upon bales of white gold bound for New Orleans and beyond—passed safely through the channel under her watch. She’d earned her place as the only female lighthouse keeper on the Texas coast.

__

Tonight, the air seemed preternaturally still, the sea smooth as glass. Stars shone clear and bright in a crystalline sky, undimmed by the occasional fog of the Gulf. On the horizon, a faint flicker marked the last departing ship of the day. The town of Port Isabel glimmered with a few lights, and beyond it to the southwest, mainland Mexico stretched into the distance.

She checked her pocket watch again, 1:15 AM, then sat at a small table she and John had always used. On top of it was a folded copy of the Galveston Daily News, delivered yesterday. She had read it that afternoon. It spoke of Abraham Lincoln’s election just two weeks earlier, as well as the growing talk of secession rippling through the South, including Texas. If conflict broke out between the states, she wondered what would happen to Port Isabel and the status of the lighthouse. It concerned her, but on this night – with the Gulf so peaceful beneath the stars – rumors of war seemed far away.

She pulled out her knitting from a drawer, clicking the needles in a rhythm that matched the lens’s rotation. This had been her evening routine, a meditative cycle of work and watch. During the day, she could walk to town and speak with merchants or sailors’ wives, feeling part of the bustling port community. But at night, she was encased in solitude, alone with the light and her memories.

Her thoughts turned to John. His voice, his laugh, and the rough warmth of his hands. He used to call her “my treasure.” He’d said it the very first day he brought her to Port Isabel as his new bride in the summer of ’52, when the lighthouse was barely finished.

“This is my post,” he’d said, gazing up at the white tower. “And you’re my treasure at the top of it.” After that, he often used that affectionate name for her, saying “Good morning, my treasure” or “What did you read in the paper, my treasure?”

Their marriage wasn’t perfect. They argued like other couples. But Hannah knew that in his heart, John adored her. And unlike most of the other men she observed in South Texas, her treated her as a true equal. It was still so strange to think that she had outlived him and assumed his post.

__

Another hour passed and Hannah stayed in the lantern room, not tired enough to retreat to the cottage. The constellations of the Northwestern Hemisphere wheeled overhead, including her favorite, Pegasus. She and John often pored over a lithograph star chart, a prized possession, testing each other’s knowledge of the heavens.

She sighed, lifted her gaze beyond the windows, and that’s when she saw it, a brightness on the horizon.

At first she thought it was a ship, its running lights unusually brilliant. But the light grew too bright, too fast, dazzling against the calm darkness of the sea. It shimmered, swelled, and seemed to move not along the water but above it.

She blinked and rubbed her eyes. As it got closer, she realized it wasn’t a ship. It had no mast, no hull, no motion on the waves. It seemed to be a self-contained ball of molten silver gliding over the water. It pulsed faintly as it drew nearer, casting an eerie radiance.

A shiver ran down her spine. “What on earth…” she murmured.

She opened the door that led to the observation deck and walked out to the railing, the night air heavy with the smell of ocean brine. The light was still coming, faster and brighter, until it hurt to look at.

It reached the shallows, then lifted up from the sea, tall enough that the beam from the Fresnel lens shone straight through it, breaking into a thousand shimmering fragments like sunlight through mist.

It wasn’t lightning. It wasn’t fire. It wasn’t anything she had ever seen. Then, as she stared, it began to move toward the lighthouse and her heart started pounding.

She turned and rushed down the spiral stairs, skirts clutched in one hand, the heavy ring of keys in the other. Every instinct told her to make sure the tower was locked up tightly. When she reached the thick oaken door, the seams around it glowed faintly as the light approached. She bolted it, her fingers trembling, then pressed her ear to the wood.

At first, only silence. Then footsteps, faint at first, approaching along the stone pathway, growing more distinct. Filled with fear, she quickly retreated up the spiral stairs, making sure the door to the lantern room was equally secure. But now, somehow, the footsteps were inside the tower. How could that be? She gripped the brass handle of the lantern room door, making sure it was locked tight.

Still, the footsteps drew closer, echoing on the iron stairs, until they stopped on the other side of the door. She could feel a presence there, could sense it waiting. The silence was broken only by her ragged breathing and the steady tick of the clockwork that turned the lens.

“Who goes there?” she finally called in a sharp voice.

 No answer.

 “Who’s there?” she demanded again, mustering more courage than she felt.

 A pause.

 Then, softly—heartbreakingly familiar—came a voice.

 “It’s alright, my treasure,” it said. “I will always be near.”

 Hannah froze. Her throat closed, and she pressed her hand to her chest.

 “John?” she whispered.

 But the voice said nothing more.

For long seconds, the world held still. Then the air seemed to exhale. Through the crack beneath the door, she saw the light dimming, softening from white to gold, then to nothing. When she finally dared to open it, the stairwell was empty. But something had changed. The brass railings gleamed brighter than before, as though freshly polished. Behind her, the great Fresnel lens turned in its slow, majestic rhythm, clearer than she had ever seen it.

She stood there for a long time at the top of stairs, one hand resting on the railing as tears blurred her vision.

“My treasure,” he had said. The exact words, his voice as unique as his fingerprints.

__

In the morning, the sky dawned cloudless. The wind had picked up from the east, rattling the shutters and carrying the cry of gulls. Hannah went about her duties as usual, though she moved through the day in a quiet daze.

She had convinced herself that, given the late hour, she had fallen asleep at the table and dreamed the whole incident. But outside the cottage, she saw footprints in the sand that led to the stone walkway. They were clearly a man’s. She followed them to the shoreline where they vanished into the surf.

She knelt and touched one, feeling the damp impression under her fingers, and for the first time since John’s death, she wept openly.

__

Days passed. Then weeks. A story spread through the small settlement of Port Isabel about a ghostly light seen offshore. Sailors drinking in the local pub said they’d observed a second beacon burning above the lighthouse, even brighter than the Fresnel lens.

Many townsfolk asked Hannah what she thought of the phenomenon. She didn’t deny it had happened but merely agreed with them that it was strange and unprecedented. She never revealed what had happened in those moments. She just kept her routines of tending the lamp and filling the logbook in her neat script. But occasionally, late at night when the wind was low and the sea calm, she swore she could hear footsteps again on the stairs. Never threatening. Never materializing into something she could see. And instead of fear, she felt only comfort and peace.

Sometimes she would speak softly into the silence: “John, if that’s you…” And though she never heard his voice again, the flame of the lens would seem to brighten for a moment, as if in answer.

by Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The River Between: Recollections of Samuel Cranston, Recorded in 1907

(Editor’s note: The most heavily traveled route from slavery to freedom involved crossing the Ohio River from Northern Kentucky into Cincinnati. Enslaved people called it “The River Jordan,” symbolizing a perilous but hopeful journey. Cincinnati was a critical hub for the Underground Railroad, with numerous supporters, safe houses, and abolitionist organizations operating there.) 

Well, sir, I can tell you about the Ohio River. It was the line between a man’s bondage and his freedom. I reckon I know it better than most. I crossed it more times than I could count, though I didn’t do it for myself till much later.

You ever stand by the water on a moonless night? You can’t see but ten feet ahead. That’s what it was like most nights I went down there. The cold air bit through my shirt, and sometimes the fog was thicker than smoke. You could hear the current whisperin’, as if it was sayin’ Come on, come on—if you dare.

I was still a young man then and belonged to the Clapp family in Boone County, Kentucky. Their property bordered the river. My mistress, Miss Ellie, she was a strange one. She was kind-hearted, I’ll give her that, but troubled in her soul. She read her Bible every night and said she believed God made all men equal, but her husband surely didn’t share that view. He was a harsh man who doled out his punishments without mercy. I recall seeing him tie one of our workers, Jake, to a tree and whip him without battin’ an eye. I did my chores quietly around him, never lookin’ him straight in the face, lest he see what I really thought of him,

One evening, Miss Ellie knocked on the door of my room in the slave quarters, unusual for her to be out after dark. Standing in the doorway, she looked over her shoulder then back at me. “Samuel,” she said, “The Lord’s put something on my heart. There are folks who need help crossing that river into freedom, and you could be the one to do it. I can help make it possible and no one will suspect you.”

I knew the risk she took in sayin’ that to me. And I knew the far greater risk of what she was askin’ me to do. But her words were a challenge that went straight to my heart. And she was right about no one suspectin’ me. Like most slaves, I was invisible to white folks. I could be standing right in front of them and they would look through me like I was part of the scenery, like the fence posts or the smokehouse.

So I decided to accept Miss Ellie’s challenge, though I was half-sure it would cost me my life.

__

First time I went, Mister Clapp was away on business and Miss Ellie made the arrangements. I used an old wooden rowboat stored in the barn, patched so many times it looked like a quilt. I took a young woman that night, and I thought my knees would give out from fear. Her name was Sarah, and she was holdin’ on to a little sack like it contained her whole world.

“Are you sure you wanna go?” I whispered to her.

“Yessir. More sure than I ever been.”

“Well, OK then.”

I got her on board and pushed us off. There was no moon, the river runnin’ its southwesterly course, the current softly ripplin’. I knew I had to row strong to the north to keep the right direction, then look for a signal on the far shore. It wasn’t easy, my back strainin’ with every pull of the oars.

I could hear Sarah mutterin’ quietly. I strained my ears and could finally make out those familiar words from Psalm 23, “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” She just kept sayin’ it over and over. I’ll be honest. I’m a believer, but that scripture didn’t make my fear go away.

Finally, I saw the lantern light Miss Ellie had promised. Three short swings. That was the sign. When we reached the bank, two men jumped from the dark and my heart leapt in my chest cuz I thought we’d been caught. Instead, they helped us out of the boat.

One of ‘em, an older man with a gray beard, caught my arm and said, “You did good, son. You want something to eat?”

He handed me a piece of bread. It was the first meal I ever ate on free soil, and I swear it was the best thing I ever tasted, even if I wasn’t free myself.

As they turned to lead Sarah away, she glanced back at me in the lantern light and said, “God bless you, sir.”

Those words brought tears to my eyes, and after that, I kept goin’. Miss Ellie would let me know when someone would be waitin’ by the river. Each time she and I conspired together, I grew in my courage and she seemed less troubled.

—

There was one crossing I remember more than most. Another moonless night, same as always, the river runnin’ high with spring rains. I was standin’ by the shore when I saw three figures comin’ through the trees. A man, a woman, and a little boy wrapped in a shawl too big for him.

The man said, “You Samuel?”

“That’s me,” I told him. “We best move quick.”

We climbed into the old rowboat, the little boy clingin’ to his mama’s dress, eyes big as moons. When he whimpered at the cold, I told him, “Hush now, son. We gotta be very quiet.”

Then I pushed off. The current grabbed us right away, strong and mean. I pulled at those oars till my arms burned. The only sound was water hittin’ wood and the boy’s small breaths.

Halfway across, I saw the lantern signal on the far side. But just then, I saw another light behind us movin’ closer. And then came a loud voice.

“Who’s out there? Show yourself or suffer the consequences!”

That’s a sound that’ll freeze the blood in your veins faster than a winter wind. I hissed at my passengers to get down. The woman dropped flat, coverin’ the boy. The man hunkered low. I bent to those oars like a madman.

Then came the gunshots. The first one seemed to crack the dark clean in half. The second one hit the water right behind us. I heard the boy cry out, and I prayed under my breath, “Lord, give me the strength to get us there!”

The signal lanterns were now hidden, so I had to go by memory, hopin’ I could keep us all safe. And then came the sweetest sound of the boat scraping against the shore.

“Out,” I said. “Go quick!”

Two men appeared from the dark, one tall, one short. I could barely make them out in the starlight. The shorter one said, “You Samuel Cranston?”

“Yessir. Miss Ellie sends her regards.”

“Name’s John Parker. You did good. Quickly now, follow me. There’s a safe place nearby.”

We worked together to drag the small boat behind some bushes, and God was with us. The boat that had pursued us veered into the darkness, swept away by the current.

The family and I followed John through some willows, every step a miracle. Then we came to a small cabin with dim yellow light showing through its windows. A white lady opened the door. She didn’t ask no questions, just gave the woman a blanket, the man some bread, and the boy a cup of milk.

I stood by the door drippin’ sweat despite the cool night air, feelin’ like I didn’t belong anywhere. Parker looked over and said, “You’ve got great courage, Samuel. You crossed for more than one soul tonight.”

I told him, “They’re the brave ones. I just row the boat.”

He shook his head. “Every freedom journey starts with someone pulling an oar.”

__

I stayed with the Parkers till dawn, knowin’ Mister Clapp was still away on business and Miss Ellie would cover for me. When the sky started to pale, John walked me back to the river.

“Do you ever think about staying?” he asked me. “We could find you some work and help keep you safe.”

“I think about it every day,” I told him. “But I can’t just yet. There’s still folks on the other side dependin’ on me.”

He nodded. “Then God go with you, Samuel. And when you’re ready, this side’ll still be here.”

We stood a long while, watchin’ the sun change colors on the water. Then I asked him, “You think we’ll see it, John? The day when nobody’s gotta sneak across this river?”

He said, “Maybe not us. But somebody will. Every crossing you make brings that day closer.”

__

I reckon he was right. I kept rowin’ that river till the war came and set us all free, at least on paper. I never did count how many I helped, but it was surely in the hundreds.

I outlived my wife, and my children scattered to other places further north. Now I sit by the river sometimes, my old bones achin’, my hands twisted from years of layin’ concrete for the growing city of Cincy. I listen to the Ohio whisper the same song it always has. A song of possibility and hope. Some nights I swear I can still hear the splash of oars, the soft cries, and the prayers whispered into the fog.

And I never forget that first passage. Sarah mutterin’ that Psalm, and her face as she turned to me and said, “God bless you, sir.” I often wonder what happened to her. Did she really find freedom, I mean real freedom for her soul, or just learn to survive in a country full of hatred and racism? I pray for her and all the others I helped.

A little boy came by once while I was sittin’ there on the riverbank. He was fishin’ with a crooked stick. He asked me, “Mister, is this where the slaves used to run across?”

I told him, “That’s right. This here’s the place.”

He looked puzzled. “Mama says people can’t fly.”

I laughed at that. “Sometimes they can. You just got to have faith, and a strong enough river.”

He didn’t understand, but that’s all right. Someday maybe he will.

by Tags: , , , , , , 1 Comment

The Hidden Note

The sun slid behind the palm trees of Beverly Hills, painting the sky with a lavender glow. Sam Leeds sat alone in his late father’s office, its tall windows letting in the final light. The room smelled of leather and cigar smoke, and it was eerily quiet.

John Leeds had been a towering figure in Hollywood, an old-school film producer who still used handshakes to build his empire. Now he was gone, dead at eighty-nine, leaving behind a legacy of memories. His mansion, surrounded by manicured lawns and marble terraces, felt deserted without his booming presence.

Sam rubbed his forehead. He was there to sort through his father’s effects, and as he sat at the massive mahogany desk, his eyes scanned the walls. They were covered with photographs, some black-and-white, others in color. John laughing beside Bogart, leaning close to Elizabeth Taylor, and raising a glass with Jack Nicholson. More recently, John sharing a joke with Tom Cruise, standing at the Oscars with Scarlett Johansson, and shaking hands with Liam Neeson.

The old man had churned through three marriages with younger women. The second one—Sam’s mother—wouldn’t return for the funeral. She’d negotiated a hefty divorce settlement, then emigrated to France. Sam rarely saw her. His only sibling had died years earlier of a drug overdose, so he was the sole heir at age forty-eight, a middle-aged man with graying hair and a slim physique, quiet and reserved with those who knew him.

When a friend asked, “What are you going to do with all that money?” Sam barely flinched. The real question that gnawed at him was, “What will you do now that your father’s voice is no longer in the room?” For decades, John Leeds’s disappointment had been like gravity pulling Sam down. His father never softened his disdain for Sam’s role as a Human Resources Director at a nonprofit. “Why don’t you just take the opportunities I’m offering?” he said with bafflement. “Step into the film business and claim a piece of Leeds success!”

Sam knew one thing for sure. Enduring his dad’s expectations was hard enough. Working with the old man would have been deadly. Over the years, Sam told himself he was immune to all the judgment, but the truth lingered in the wreckage of his own marriage and the erosion of his self-worth. His father’s shadow was stitched into the fabric of his life, a constant reminder that he had failed to measure up. Now, with John gone, he felt unmoored, like an orphan in middle age. He wondered if this freedom from criticism would mean new possibilities or just remind him of how broken he had let himself become.

He turned on the office lights and resumed his task, which felt like rifling through the nation’s cultural history. File cabinets stretched wall to wall, neatly labeled in his father’s blocky handwriting. The folders inside held contracts, letters, and correspondence from other titans of cinema. His father had been a hoarder of paper, distrustful of the digital world. “Computers crash,” John had once said. “Paper endures.”

Sam had been at it for hours, sifting the trivial from the historic, setting aside documents the Academy Museum might want. The work was tedious, but he knew it was important. He was about to shut one drawer when his fingers brushed a plain manila envelope wedged in the back. The only word on it was “PERSONAL.”

Even with his father gone, it felt like an invasion of privacy as he pulled it out and spread its contents on the desk. There were notes and letters, some yellowed with age, others crisp. Many were from celebrities expressing gratitude for their roles. One was written on a cocktail napkin, sealed with a kiss in red lipstick.

But then Sam found a single slip of paper addressed not to John, but to him.

Sam, if you ever find this, call this number.

Beneath the line was a phone number.

Sam’s brow furrowed. The handwriting was unmistakably his father’s. The number had an unfamiliar prefix, so he googled it on his phone. New Orleans.

He shook his head. What had his father been hiding in Louisiana?

He stared at the note, the air in the office heavy and still, until curiosity overcame his hesitation. He dialed. The phone rang once, twice, then clicked. A recorded voice said: “Leave your message at the tone.”

Sam froze. After a short silence, he hung up and resumed his work, wondering what to do about this strange twist of events. The faces on the wall seemed to watch him, asking the same question.

Hours later, as he stacked folders into boxes, his phone buzzed with a text from the New Orleans’ number.

Meet me here on the night of Mardi Gras.

Below was an address, which Google showed him was in the famous French Quarter.

What the hell?” he thought. Mardi Gras was only a few weeks away. His mistrust of his father’s motives made him want to destroy the note and block the number. Why leave this cryptic message in such a secret place? Why not share it sooner?

Sam’s curiosity was certainly piqued. Should he risk keeping the appointment? Would it reveal something he needed to know? He sat in the hush of his father’s shrine and whispered aloud, “What the did you leave me, Dad?”

__

Mardi Gras was chaos incarnate. Brass bands blared from balconies, floats crawled down Canal Street, and crowds surged shoulder to shoulder in beads and sequins. Masks grinned at Sam from every corner, and feathers brushed his arms as revelers shoved past. The humid air was thick with the smells of sweat, alcohol, and fried food.

Parking had been sold out, so Sam used an overpriced Uber to get close to the scene, walking the remaining distance. The streets narrowed as he entered the French Quarter, the music a dizzying roar. He felt absurdly out of place—sober, wearing khakis and a conservative blazer while people of all ages danced around him in neon wigs and painted faces.

He used his phone to navigate until he found the address. It was a two-story Creole townhouse freshly painted in pastel green and lavender. Its wrought-iron balconies were strung with Mardi Gras lights and silk streamers.

Above the front door hung a painted wooden sign:

MADAME LEEDS — Psychic Readings by Appointment.

Sam’s chest tightened. His last name in bold letters in a city where he’d never lived. He climbed the steps and knocked. Once. Twice. Three times.

At last, the door opened.

A woman stood before him. She looked to be in her mid-fifties, tall and striking, her long black hair threaded with silver. She wore a fitted gown of emerald and gold, the kind you might see on a Mardi Gras queen. Her face was handsome, almost regal, her eyes piercing and familiar in a way that Sam couldn’t place.

“You must be Sam,” she said with the trace of a Creole accent. “Come in. I’ve been expecting you.”

Sam hesitated, then stepped inside. The door closed behind him with a decisive click. The hallway smelled of incense and old wood. Candles flickered on small tables, casting warm shadows on the walls.

“Follow me,” said the woman, parting a beaded curtain that led to a back room. Its walls were like a gallery. Paintings of saints hung beside voodoo masks, crucifixes, and heavy tapestries of red and purple. At the center stood a round table draped in velvet, with two chairs opposite each other.

The woman gestured. “Please sit.”

Nervously Sam lowered himself, his heart beating fast. “Who are you?”

She took the opposite chair, her dark eyes never leaving his. “My name is Samantha. And I know why you’re here. Because of our father.”

Sam blinked. “Our… father?”

She smiled and nodded. “John Leeds. He was my father also. Which makes me your sister.”

The words hit like a fist.

Sam shook his head. “That’s impossible. My father—he never—”

“Never told you? No surprise. That wasn’t his style.” She leaned forward, her voice calm and deliberate. “My mother was Flora Toussaint. She was a working girl here in the Quarter, back in the early fifties. John met her while producing a film in New Orleans. One night turned into many during the production. When she became pregnant, she wrote to him—not for money, but simply to tell him that she would be keeping the baby. That baby was me.”

 Sam swallowed hard. “You expect me to believe—”

Her eyes narrowed. “Look at me. Really look.”

He did. And there it was: his father’s jawline, the same sharp cheekbones, even the shape of her nose. It was unsettling but unmistakable.

“My mother was proud. She asked for nothing,” Samantha continued. “But John sent money anyway. Every month. The sums grew larger as he rose in Hollywood. He quietly visited us when he could. He made sure we were comfortable, but always in secret. He gave me the Leeds name, but it’s common enough that he knew people wouldn’t connect the dots.”

Sam’s mind was racing. His father, who had guarded the Leeds reputation so fiercely, had kept a daughter hidden for decades. It seemed preposterous. Then his eyes fixed on a photo on a shelf behind Samantha. There was his father standing beside a woman and her child. Documentary proof.

“What happened to your mother?” Sam asked.

“She died ten years ago. Your father came to the memorial service since it was small enough to avoid publicity.”

Sam shook his head. “Why now?”

“Obviously, he wanted you to know. He asked me to speak to you only if you made contact. And don’t worry. Long ago, my mother signed a legal document saying that neither she nor I would make any claims on the estate. I will honor that agreement.”

Sam rubbed his temples, trying to take it all in. The noise of Mardi Gras thudded faintly outside, a reminder of the world still spinning while his own tilted on its axis.

Samantha studied him. “You look pale. Would you like a glass of water?”

“No,” Sam muttered. “I just… I don’t understand any of this.”

“You don’t have to. Yet.” She reached across the table, palm open. “There’s more you need to hear. Our father came to believe in my abilities, and he asked me to give you a reading if we ever met. I can already sense things about your future.”

Sam scoffed. “A psychic reading? You claim you can pick up vibes from me already?”

“You can believe it or not, but it’s what I do. It’s a gift. And being near you, I can sense that you have held yourself back from the real adventure life holds for you.”

Sam shook his head and chuckled. “Me? An adventurer? You’d have to know me to see how odd that sounds.”

She smiled. “You came here because of a dead man’s note. You walked through this city on faith. You already have more courage than you admit.”

He stared at her hand, hesitating. Something about the room—the charged air, the flicker of candles—made his skin prickle. Perhaps this was the final act of John Leeds, the master producer, drawing his son into a story larger than himself.

Slowly, he reached across the table and placed his hand in Samantha’s. Her grip was firm and warm. She closed her eyes as incense curled around her like smoke from an unseen fire. Outside, the revelry of Mardi Gras roared, but in the back room of Madame Leeds studio, there was only the sound of two siblings breathing.

Samantha spoke again, her voice a whisper.

“I can see it now. Your father’s revelation to you is only the first secret. Your future will seem even stranger.”

Sam swallowed. If his future held something stranger than this—sitting in the dim backroom of a New Orleans psychic shop, holding the hand of a sister he’d just discovered—then maybe strange would mean liberating, even wondrous. He began to lean toward a belief that his life could truly change.           

“Go ahead,” he said. “Tell me everything you see.”

by Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Lalla the Chick Magnet

Megan Green was content with her looks. She left the mirror every morning with her hair pulled back, wearing jeans and a soft flannel shirt that smelled of her favorite detergent. People sometimes told her she was attractive in a way that snuck up on you: the quiet steadiness of her hazel eyes, the curve of her smile. But at thirty-five, she had no need to turn heads when she entered a room.

She had animals, and that was enough.

The Humane Society shelter where she worked felt more like home than her apartment. Cages lined the walls, filled with eager whines and hopeful eyes. The air smelled of disinfectant and the musky undertone of fur, but Megan breathed it like perfume. Every dog, every cat, every rabbit or ferret that came through the doors received her loving attention. She knew them all by name, as well as the quirks of their personalities. The way Frankie, the one-eyed tabby, insisted on pawing his water bowl before drinking. Or how Milo, a shepherd mix, tried to herd the volunteers when they walked down the hall.

Her heart was once wed to a dog of her own: Brie, a Jack Russell terrier with more personality than weight. For thirteen years, Brie was Megan’s second shadow, demanding fetch games in the hallway of her apartment, curling against her ribs at night. When Brie had been too sick from cancer to even raise her head, Megan held her paw as the shelter’s vet mercifully euthanized her. Megan had cried almost as much as when she lost her mother, and the grief over Brie’s absence still felt raw.

She hadn’t considered getting another dog yet. Instead, she poured herself into her work, her social life slowly shrinking until some well-meaning coworkers finally convinced her to try dating again. Get out of your shell, they insisted. Reluctantly, Megan filled out a profile for an online app that promised compatible matches. She went on a couple dates with women, but each meeting was so awkward that she resigned herself to the thought that she might always be single.

Then, one morning at the shelter, she looked up from her computer and saw a woman walk through the front door. The stranger carried herself in a way that Megan associated with privilege: tailored linen pants, silk blouse, a scarf knotted loosely around her neck, a diamond pendant flashing over her breasts. On a leash beside her walked a dog unlike any Megan had ever seen. Tall and elegant, the animal moved as if carved from sunlight, its tan fur shimmering against taut muscles. Megan prided herself on her encyclopedic knowledge of breeds, but this time she faltered. Greyhound, she thought at first, but taller, leaner.

The woman approached the counter. “This is Lalla,” she explained in a smooth voice. “We’re moving abroad and we can’t bring her. But I must warn you. She’s pretty picky when it comes to people, so we hope you can find her a home.”

Megan crouched, extending her hand. Lalla was aloof and regal, sweeping her gaze over the room with indifferent eyes until they found Megan. Without hesitation, Lalla stepped forward, pressing her long muzzle against Megan’s palm. Then she went even further and nuzzled Megan’s shoulder.

“Now that doesn’t happen very often,” said the woman. “Lalla has discriminating taste in character.”

As Lalla continued to nuzzle Megan, something opened inside her, like a door pushed ajar by a warm wind.

“What breed is she?”

“Sloughi,” the woman replied. “Arabian greyhound. Not to be confused with a Saluki.”

Sloughi. The word felt strange but beautiful on Megan’s tongue. She couldn’t look away from the dog now leaning into her, as if they’d always belonged to each other.

Megan stood decisively. “I’ll take her,” she said, before her director even appeared from the office. “I want to adopt her.”

__

Lalla filled the space that Brie had left, not by replacing her, but by initiating something new. She was no lapdog. She wanted the outdoors where she could speed, and because Megan didn’t want her to get lost, that meant the large, fenced dog park near her apartment. Megan found herself lacing up sneakers every morning, then walking to the park where Lalla could sprint like a ribbon unspooling across the grass.

At home, Lalla draped herself across the couch with regal elegance, but her eyes followed Megan everywhere. For all of her aloofness with others, she was tender with Megan, pressing her narrow head into Megan’s chest during late-night reading, curling up on the floor like a sentinel beside Megan’s bed.

Megan had done research on Sloughis. They were an ancient North African breed, prized by Amazigh ethnic groups for hunting gazelle. She even found images of cave drawings that depicted dogs uncannily like Lalla, their lithe figures running beside men with spears. Megan traced those lines with her finger on the computer screen, astonished that her companion carried such history in her bones.

The park became their ritual. Lalla rarely played with other dogs, content to race around the perimeter. When strangers approached, she usually ignored them, except on a couple occasions. Once with a young woman tossing a Frisbee, and once with an older man reading on a bench. Lalla went to each of them, tail flicking, and nuzzled their hands. Both times, Megan had talked with those people, and she found herself charmed by them as well.

Megan knew the popular notion that dogs could help you attract the opposite sex. One of her coworkers even bragged that his golden retriever was a chick magnet. She began to joke in her head: maybe Lalla would be her own personal chick magnet, a four-legged matchmaker that could find someone for her.

She laughed at herself, but part of her was cautiously optimistic.

__

The afternoon that changed everything was bright. Late September sunlight illuminated the edges of tree leaves that were just beginning to turn autumn gold. Lalla loped around the dog park in her usual solitary arcs. Megan leaned against the fence, sipping from a water bottle, when another woman approached, pulled by a stocky mutt with mismatched ears.

 “Mind if we join you?” the stranger asked, her voice low and friendly.

Megan opened her mouth to reply, but Lalla answered first. She stopped running and trotted straight to the woman, nudging her hand. Even more astonishing, she bent down to sniff the other dog with a wag of her tail.

Megan blinked.

“Well,” the stranger said with a laugh, “I think we’ve been approved.”

Her name was Dana. She was a slender brunette with delicate features, sporting a tattoo of a flower on one of her forearms. She worked as a graphic designer and lived only a few blocks away. Her dog, Moose, was a rescue mutt with soulful eyes and the energy of a toddler. Conversation with Dana was easy in a way Megan hadn’t felt in years, like slipping into water at the perfect temperature. They compared notes on their dog adoptions, swapped stories about their work, and compared their tastes in music and local coffee shops.

When Dana laughed, her whole body seemed to join in, and Megan felt herself leaning closer, caught in her orbit.

Lalla stayed near, content, as if to confirm Megan’s growing suspicion: this was someone worth knowing.

__

They began to meet at the park once, twice, then three times a week. Their dogs chased each other along the fence line—Lalla swift and elegant, Moose clumsy but determined. Dana always brought a thermos of coffee to share.

Megan looked forward to those hours with a longing she had long suppressed. Dana’s stories brightened her days: a client who wanted a logo shaped like a mango, and the time Moose escaped into a laundromat. Megan responded with tales from the shelter, where puppies chewed through leashes and volunteers fell hopelessly in love with more animals than they could ever adopt.

Gradually, their conversations grew more intimate and vulnerable. Megan shared about her life growing up with a single mom who died too young of breast cancer, the story bringing tears to her eyes. Dana listened attentively and shared her own background. She’d been raised in a military family stationed in so many different places that she never felt like she had roots. Her parents were loving, but their political and religious conservatism was tested when Dana came out as gay. They tried, but there was always a slight distance. Dana was at peace with it; she expected nothing more from them.

Sometimes, while they shared, Dana studied Megan with eyes that had a quiet and inquisitive warmth. Each time, Megan was the first to look away, afraid to trust what was happening.

One evening, as the sun dipped and shadows stretched long across the dog park grass, Dana reached over and brushed a strand of hair from Megan’s face, her fingers lingering on Megan’s cheek. The touch was fleeting, but it lit Megan like fire.

“Sorry,” Dana whispered.

 “No,” Megan said. “Don’t be.”

__

Their first real date wasn’t called a date. Dana invited Megan for dinner. “Nothing fancy, just pasta,” she had said.  Megan arrived with a bottle of wine she’d agonized over choosing, feeling a bit nervous. Moose bounded at the door, and Lalla—usually wary in strange houses—walked in as if she’d always belonged.

The evening passed with laughter and a wonderful ease. By dessert, Megan realized she hadn’t thought of Brie’s absence once. For the first time in a long while, she felt unburdened and full of possibility.

Later, as she stood in the doorway ready to leave, Dana leaned close. Their kiss was gentle and exploratory. Lalla pressed against Megan’s leg, Moose barked, and both women broke into laughter.

__

Weeks blurred into months. Megan still poured herself into her work at the shelter. She still memorized the names of every new arrival. But now her life was fuller and brighter. She looked forward to walks with Dana and the dogs, movies sprawled on the couch, nights full of tender lovemaking, quiet mornings drinking coffee side by side. They hadn’t moved in with each other yet, alternating between apartments, but their relationship grew stronger by the day.

There were moments of hesitation. Megan sometimes pulled back, fear whispering that somehow her happiness could vanish. But Dana was steady and patient. And Lalla, her unlikely matchmaker, always seemed to approve, nudging Megan toward a newfound trust.

Sometimes, late at night with Dana asleep by her side, Megan would reach to the floor and rest her hand on Lalla’s sleek fur. “Thank you,” she would whisper. “Not just for your companionship, but for opening a door that I was afraid would always be locked.”

Lalla’s tail would thump gently against the floor.

__

Spring arrived with green bursting from the trees. Megan and Dana sat on a park bench one afternoon, the dogs tangled in joyful play nearby. The air smelled of damp earth and possibility.

“You know,” Dana said, breaking a comfortable silence, “I think Lalla deserves partial credit for this.”

At the sound of her name, Lalla trotted over to be near them. Megan laughed, sliding one hand into Dana’s and resting the other on Lalla’s head. “More than partial. Without her approval, none of this would have happened.”

“I’m so glad I passed the test,” Dana said with a chuckle.

The two of them looked at each other, and Megan felt the final ache of her loneliness slip away. Love hadn’t arrived with fireworks, but in a quiet and steady way, ushered in by a dog who seemed to know the future before either of them.

Megan leaned over and kissed Dana softly while Lalla’s head pressed warmly against her knee.

by Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments