Sometimes I thought it was because I was adopted, and I’d heard my parents had waited nine long years to get a baby of their own. Other times I thought it was because my mom came from a long line of packrats. Whatever the reason, I am the proud owner of a baby book that chronicles my every move from ten days to two-and-a-half years of age. It holds creepy cellophane-encased locks of hair samples, a flat old rose that was on the altar at Sun Valley United Methodist Church in H

Every time I hear “Sweet Caroline,” I think about my dad’s dogged, fan-boy assertion that Neil Diamond is hands-down the most under-appreciated artist of our time. Possibly since the dawn of time. I kind of secretly agree a little bit, although I’d never say so out loud in a zillion-and-a-half years. Growing up, I didn’t always concur with my dad’s opinions. Like his stand on women pastors, which was, “Are you kidding? Who would cook for their families and take care of their

“Sin, he reflected, is not what it is usually thought to be; it is not to steal and tell lies. Sin is for one man to walk brutally over the life of another and to be quite oblivious of the wounds it has left behind. And then for the first time, a real prayer rose up in his heart.” — The Silence, Shusaku Endo I spent the whole of this morning immersed in a story of unimaginable physical suffering, mental anguish and spiritual wrestling of the deepest measure. Not that I needed

I love the scene in O Brother, Where Art Thou? when George Clooney’s character Everett is trying to talk his kids into accepting him back as their father, as the “paterfamila,” in spite of the fact that his wife has told them he was hit by a train and killed. Their main argument is they are getting a new dad, Vernon T. Waldrip, one who is “bona fide” and therefore they don’t need Everett to be alive. His wife Penny chimes in, “Vernon, he’s got a job. Vernon’s got prospects, h