What childhood taught the body
Before there was a theology of suffering, there was a schoolyard, a walk to school, and facts a child’s body could not argue with. These essays return to that formation — not as resolved stories, but as the raw material of a faith still being shaped by what happened before it could be chosen. The fuller series is gathered as Formation.
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The Playground
I writhed face down in the muddy school yard, unable to get up, alone, ignored by my first-grade companions. Some time later, the bell rang to end recess, and good boy that I was, I got up, staggered bent over and collapsed on the bench outside our classroom.
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The Dog in the Lake
I wanted to run, but it was too late. They spied our skin shining in the early morning light. "Wemistikoshe!" they taunted, "You're next!" There it was, the familiar taunt, somehow "white man" was a curse word. "Never come this way again!"
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The Brute Fact
I could make no meaning of what had been done to me. It was a brute fact, and it colored everything else.
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God in Dangerous Places
God met me in the dangerous place. I stood up and left that place knowing God loved me.
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When Beauty Breaks In
Every strum of the guitar gave voice to the pain I'd felt as a child, to the nothingness I felt now. Sitting alone in my room, my heart was cracking open to the presence of someone I'd known since I was four.