As a writer, I’ve often marveled at how characters take shape. At first, they are little more than names on a page. Yet as the story unfolds, they grow into beings with distinct personalities, quirks, and destinies. By the time the final chapter is written, they have become inseparable from the work itself. In creating…

In the year 2000, I was working with an HIV and AIDS prevention organization in Cambodia. The epidemic was accelerating, and the solution seemed straightforward: distribute condoms and teach people how to use them. Teams fanned across the countryside with boxes of condoms, demonstrating their use on bananas. We returned home satisfied with our work.…

“There is a Wine that flows from the vineyards of the Lord,  Its sweetness aged in jars of clay, its price none can afford. And wise men say that he who tastes its sweetness on his tongue Will understand the Mind of God and evil overcome.” With tear-filled eyes, a dying father passed these words…

I haven’t thought about self-fulfilling prophecies for some time now, even though I have had my suspicions that many of the major experiences in my life could have come about because I thought about them beforehand. A good example of this would be my Vietnam experience. Before I enlisted in the Navy back in 1966,…

From childhood magic to religious belief and finally to lived compassion, this reflection asks a simple question: what remains when illusion falls away—and love stays? When I was a child, I loved watching magic shows on television. The idea that someone possessed powers I did not, fascinated me. I was especially taken by the magician…

While sorting through old boxes of memorabilia, I was struck by how easily forgotten moments can still shape who we become. Reading old letters and names from my childhood reopened memories that helped explain some of my long-held attitudes. One of those memories involves Eddie, a neighborhood boy I once played with on Bluebird Street.…

We were spending the weekend in Philadelphia at an apartment we rented with profits from drug sales. We had become the main suppliers for the Bethesda Naval Hospital and earned a good reputation because we never sold a bad product. Every batch of acid we sold was tested personally before it ever reached anyone else.…

I would not classify myself as a coward. At times in my life, I have acted bravely in the face of danger. Most men—and increasingly more women—wonder, as I did in my youth, how they would respond under the fire of enemy guns. It is an age-old question that cannot be answered until you are…

Many years ago, I worked as a counselor at a youth center in the southwestern part of the United States. Most of my clients were of Native American or Hispanic ethnicity and were referred to me by the police. Occasionally, however, I would be asked by the local schools to see students from other ethnic…

What if the most dangerous belief we hold… is that we still have time? I don’t think many haven’t already reached the same conclusion, even if we try to deny it—that as a species, through our actions and our silence, we have crossed a line from which there may be no return, and that a…