Where the grass turns that specific spring green after the first cut and the silence between things holds more than the things themselves. He carried that silence into the Army, into the pulpit, into sixteen years of pastoral ministry that ended not with a scandal but with something quieter —the body saying no more.
He used to run long distances. Miles as liturgy. Miles as the only confession that didn't require an audience. He's learning, now, to stay in one place. To let the ground hold him instead of the other way around.
He has buried his grandfather and his father. He has stood at edges that meant different things at different ages. He is still here. He writes because the alternative —silence as surrender — costs more than the exposure. Not a diary. A reckoning.