I receive a lot of questions via email, messages, snail mail, and smoke signals. I do not always have the time to respond to these messages. But sometimes, I do.

Q: SEAN! Why do you criticize religion? It really shows where your heart is. Where do YOU stand with God, Sean? I worry about your soul, Sean, and I pray for you. We are all sinners… THIS MEANS YOU! YOU ARE A SINNER! Please get right with God! I REALLY don’t want to spend eternity without you!

A: It won’t be so bad. You’ll get used to it.

Q: Do you know the Lord? I don’t think you do. If you did, you would be using your platform to spread the gospel. Your thinly veiled messages of hope are sweet, but sweet people still go to hell. You must speak the Name. If you don’t you are a coward and a liar and the Holy Spirit is not in you.

A: You seem like someone I could be really friends with.

Q: Dear Sean,

I just wanted you to know that I have unsubscribed to your column because I was put off by how you described American tourists during your recent trip to Italy. I am American. I travel to Europe extensively. You pissed me off when you described Americans as rude, outspoken, and opinionated.

A: Thank God you’re not one of them.

Q: I am a pastor of a large church, and you recently made a joke in our newspaper, calling megachurches “Six Flags Over Jesus,” just because we have a T-Shirt shop and Starbucks in our lobby. I would like a retraction of this statement. Otherwise, I’ll be discouraging church members from reading more of your work. I don’t think it suits you to compare our church to a theme park.

A: How about a Carnival Cruise ship?

Q: My wife is the sweetest woman on the planet,…

I bought a jigsaw puzzle at the grocery store today. The box features an ornate cathedral with red roses and blossoming foliage. The cathedral is in Germany. The puzzle cost two bucks.

My mother and I used to do jigsaw puzzles. Big puzzles. We did them together. I was no good at jigsaws, but she was an expert.

Long ago, puzzles cost seventy-five cents, and provided hours of distraction. We needed distractions back then. We welcomed anything that took our minds off my father’s untimely death, and the gloom that came thereafter.

My mother looked for distractions that made us laugh, things that made us smile, games, puzzles, crafts, or road trips.

Once, she took us to Branson. She took me to see a Dolly Parton impersonator. The show was spectacular. After the performance, the woman in the blonde wig hugged me so tight she nearly suffocated me with her enormous attributes.

When my mother saw me locked with the buxom woman, she shrieked and started praying in tongues. She yanked me by my

earlobe and drug me away. And I have been a lifelong Dolly Parton fan ever since.

Anyway, my mother loved doing things with her hands. She made large quilts from old T-shirts, she gardened, she did puzzle books, anagrams, crosswords, cryptograms, she knitted, crocheted, and painted.

She played cards with me, sometimes checkers, and she was a Scrabble fanatic. But jigsaw puzzles. Those were our thing.

My mother started each puzzle by saying the same thing:

“We gotta find the corners first, that’s how you do it.”

The idea was that once you found the corners, the rest of the puzzle would come together. Thus, we would sift through twenty-five hundred pieces, looking for four corners. Once we found them, we’d dig for the edges.

We’d place pieces into piles, then link them together. Piece by piece. Section by section. Mama and I could spend a…

Nov. 26, 1863, (FREDERICKSBURG)—Dearest Brother, I suppose you are having a good time this Thanksgiving, eating plum pudding and chicken pie and cider. I hope you are, at any rate, for I want you to enjoy yourself.

I should like to be with you, and I know you would like to have me, but alas this war never seems to end.

Still, although I cannot be with you to enjoy your luxuries, and your company, I have many things to be thankful for.

I am thankful that my life has been spared to me, as many of my friends are dead. I am thankful that I still enjoy good health.

I am thus hopeful that the Union will be successful. I can hear the cannons now, down by the Rapidan River, sounding their reports. I fear we have a bloody day ahead of us. I am afraid.

I should like a few gallons of that cider you told me about in your last letter. I would like some of those pickled pig’s

feet, too, if you have time to send them.

Happy Thanksgiving. Love, your brother.

Nov. 28, 1918, (PARIS)—Dearest Wife, I miss you more than you will know on this Thanksgiving Day. But I have good news. Our corps commander received a telegram today. He told us we are coming home.

The war is over, I am scared to believe it. Our commander read that our division would proceed to the embarkation point and begin sail for America soon. I’m coming home, darling. I’m coming to see you and our little one and I shall never let you go.

Thank God for his mercy unto us. This is a happy Thanksgiving indeed.

Nov 23, 1944 (HOLLAND)—Dearest Darling, here it is Thanksgiving and we are not together. These damned holidays are the painfullest part of our separation. I am sad. But I hope we’ll be together next Thanksgiving.

Our men…

You can imagine my reaction when yesterday I discovered that Pamela Anderson had made me a pecan pie. Someone hand-delivered the pie and there was a sticky note attached. It read: “Love, Pamela Anderson.”

I started to get light headed.

Granted, it might not be the famous Pamela Anderson, since the pie came from Thomas County, Georgia. But—and follow me closely here—the famous Pamela Anderson has not publicly denied knowledge of this pie.

I cut a slice and buried it with enough Reddi-Wip to cover Mount Rushmore. It was so sugary it gave me heart palpitations.

“What’re you eating?” my wife asked.

“Oh nothing,” I said. “Just a gift from Pamela Anderson.”

“Who?”

“Don’t make me say it again, honey. Celebrities are very funny about their privacy.”

My wife inspected the note and laughed at me. “What are you, fourteen years old? It’s not the celebrity, it’s just some woman named Pamela Anderson.”

But she is just jealous. Wives get that way when former television stars bake things for you.

If Pam happens to be reading this, she

should know that pecan pie is my all-time favorite. That is, unless Anne Margaret bakes me a blueberry pie. Then my all-time favorite pie is blueberry.

Barbara Eden could make me liverwurst on a cracker.

Once, I had a job at an ice cream shop. I was recently married, taking a second job to pay the mortgage. The job paid minimum wage and it wasn’t a great gig. I was a glorified soda jerk, complete with a dorky uniform.

On my first day, the owner trained me to scoop ice cream, make malts, and say things like “Gee whiz, Beave’.” He was a grumpy man, elderly, and always in a funk.

The first order of business was to introduce me to the pie coolers. There were two. Each cooler was filled exclusively with cakes and pies. There were apple pies, strawberry, coconut…

DEAR SEAN:

I’m not sure what to do. My teenage son died in an accident three years ago… A few months ago one of his good friends started hanging out at our house...

We’ve become really close. He doesn’t have a very present mother. And I find myself wanting to love this boy in pretty much the same way we loved our son.

But every time I let myself feel love for this boy, I feel so guilty and stupid for feeling like that. He’s got a mother and family already. And he is not MY son, and he will never be MY son. I guess I just needed to vent. I don’t know.

My question to you is this: Should I invite him over for Thanksgiving this year? Or is that too much?

Thanks,
HOPELESS-IN-SAN-ANTONIO

DEAR SAN-ANTONIO:

I was five years old. Standing in my aunt’s bathroom. My aunt had one of those toilet-seat covers made of carpet. I wonder who decided those were a good invention.

My aunt’s bathroom was a nondescript, old-lady bathroom that smelled like bath powder. And

on the wall was a framed, embroidered piece of artwork that stands out in my memory.

My aunt had a lot of embroidery in the house.

Most of this embroidery was framed, featuring religious phrases such as, “The wages of sin is death.” And, “All liars shall have their part in the Lake of Fire.”

And the one in my uncle's room: “If you don’t love Jesus, and you don’t root for ‘Bama, you’ll Au-Burn.”

But the particular piece of embroidery I’m talking about said: “The meaning of life is found in friendship.”

And I’ve always loved this phrase.

I don’t know what it’s like to lose a child. But I know that after you lose someone, something inside your brain shifts. You’re not even remotely the person you were before the trauma.

Everything is different. Tastes…

JACKSONVILLE—A car accident. A crushed car, sideways in the median. Years ago. She saw the car and pulled over

She jogged toward it. It was instinct. She opened the door. The man wasn’t breathing.

She had been working part-time at a pre-school. Pre-schools have mandatory CPR certification classes. Only a few days earlier, she had practiced resuscitating dummies in a church fellowship hall.

She pulled the man out of the battered vehicle. She found his breastbone. Thirty compressions. Two rescue breaths. “YOU’RE GONNA MAKE IT!” she shouted.

“YOU’RE GONNA MAKE IT!”

He’s alive today. A father of four. He keeps in touch.

ATHENS, Ga.—Nineteen-year-old Billy didn’t want to get into a fistfight. He’d never been in a fight before. He saw a younger kid being beaten by two large boys. He couldn’t stay out of it.

Billy, who’d never thrown a punch in his life, pushed himself into the conflict. He fended off the two attackers, but not without being beaten-up.

Billy took the kid to the emergency room. They became fast friends. He brought the kid home to meet his parents.

The boy told them he’d been living with his uncle—who neglected him.

Billy’s parents invited the kid to live with them. They fixed the guest bedroom. They bought him a Playstation. They fed him. They made him one of their own.

When Billy got married, the kid was his best man. When Billy had his first son, the kid became a godfather.

When the kid wore a cap and gown to receive a diploma, seven people stood and clapped for him.

HOOVER, Ala.—Leigh Ann was your classic shut-in. She was too old and feeble to go anywhere.

Most days, she sat in a recliner watching her stories on TV. Sometimes she forgot to feed herself. She had nobody. She’d been lonely ever since her husband passed. Leigh Ann had no children.

One day, a young man who lived…

Pub Day, it’s called. That’s what the publishers call it when your book gets published. They call it Pub Day.

This is the day when the book you’ve been working on for the past year finally hits shelves. The day when your words go out into the world. The day when it all becomes real.

This is the day when you cannot resist, no matter how cool you pretend to be, walking into a random Barnes and Noble just to see your book on a shelf.

Your book. With your name on the jacket.

And when you see it, sitting there among the others, you feel something. Something huge. You dust off the jacket and make sure your book looks nice and crisp. You flip through the pages just to make sure everything is in working order.

When the employee finds you and asks if you need help, you touch your own book and say, “No, I’m just browsing.”

And the employee who—according to book-store dress code—has multiple piercings, pink mohawk, and many tattoos, stares at you. “Why are you

touching that book?”

“Because I know the author,” you say.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Really.”

Pub Day is a big deal. Not to anyone else but you. Hardly anyone in the great wide world actually cares whether your novel is published.

Fewer care that you’ve spent the greater part of a year working with fictional people, in a fictional setting, who do fictional things.

But you care.

Because you still remember what brought you here. You remember your father’s untimely end. And how he made the front page of the newspaper the day before his fate, because he lost his mind and tried to kill his own family.

And you remember how you felt when the sheriff deputies told you that he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. And how they had to use his dental records to identify him.

You remember…

The Gulf of Mexico is green. The sky is a pink sunset. I’m walking the shore. I have been stuck at a beach resort for two days, held against my will.

Today is the first day I’ve left my room in 48 hours because I’ve had a nice little cold. And a man can only drink so much NyQuil before he needs fresh air.

There are about 40 people on the beach. All dressed up. The attire is what I’d call TJMaxx formal. No shoes. Untucked shirts. Sundresses for the gals.

They all sit in folding chairs erected on the sand. Sixty chairs to be exact. One aisle. Five rows of six on each side.

The altar is driftwood, and looks like a lawsuit waiting to happen. The altar is adorned with high quality Kmart flowers. Positioned beside the altar is a neon traffic cone which reads—seriously—“WEDDING IN PROGRESS.” As though this ceremony might be mistaken for, say, a real estate closing.

I am crashing the wedding with a few other onlookers from the resort, standing

behind the back rows.

My fellow crashers come from all over. Stillwater, Minnesota; Middletown, Delaware; Tulsa; Fayetteville. We’re all watching things go down.

Randy and Karen, the giant chalkboard says. That’s the bride’s and groom's names. And I like them already. I grew up with Karens and Randys. Nobody names their kid Karen anymore.

Karen is a great name, viciously abused by the Internet people. Randy is a sturdy name—you’d buy a car from a guy named Randy.

Randy and Karen are not kids. Randy’s hair is salt-and-pepper. His chin patch is white. He is not small, but he’s not tall either. He looks like he could be a construction guy, or nightclub security. There is a tattoo of a skull on his neck.

Karen is mid-fifties. Her hair is more purple than red. Her dress is sleeveless. She wears a flower in her…

It’s early evening. We are waiting for a table. My wife and I are standing in a long line of people who all had the same brilliant idea—to take the interstate exit and visit Cracker Barrel.

Behind me is a Baptist youth group. Mostly boys. I saw their vans in the parking lot. There must be 50 of them, and they all smell like hormones.

Ahead of me: an elderly couple. She’s pretty, wearing a floral shirt. He is two feet higher than she is, with wide bony shoulders. He is wearing a ball cap and holding her arm.

His hands are trembling. His head bobs back and forth. He doesn’t seem to have any control over his movements.

The hostess calls them.

The woman says into the man’s hearing aid, “Table’s ready.”

He smiles. It’s a nice smile. I wish my smile was half as inviting as Old Blue Eyes.

I see them in the dining room. The man keeps his shaky hands in his lap, but it doesn’t stop him from moving. He looks uncomfortable in his own

body.

She is playing the wood triangle game. I’ve never been very good at this novelty test. And apparently, neither has she.

No sooner has the waitress delivered their plates of food than the old woman takes a seat beside Old Blue Eyes. She tucks a napkin into his collar. She spoon-feeds him. His shoulders start to toss violently. His head jerks to the side. He’s making a mess. I’m thinking M.S. Or perhaps Parkinson’s.

She stops feeding and waits.

The shaking gets so bad that he starts rocking in different directions. It’s not hard for her to watch. She talks to him like nothing is wrong. And even though he flails, even though the eyes of the restaurant are watching, she’s unaffected.

Finally, he calms down. She feeds him again. She dabs his chin with a napkin. She touches…

He was loading my grocery bags. I’ll call him Michael. He was early twenties, wearing an apron. He has Down syndrome.

“How are you today?” he said.

“Pretty good,” said I.

“So am I!” he said. “I’m doing pretty good, too!”

I smiled. “How about that.”

The cashier was dutifully scanning my groceries, sliding them into the bagging area. Michael was loading my plastic bag slowly. And I mean extremely slowly.

One. Item. At. A. Time.

He was an artist. He packed my first bag like it was going into the Smithsonian.

“I’m trying to load it just right,” Michael said. “I’m supposed to take my time bagging. My manager said not to hurry. I used to rush it. But now I don’t rush it anymore. I go slow. Really slow. Like this.”

He placed a box of Cheez-Its into a bag so gently he might as well have been handling a live grenade.

Eventually, we were standing around waiting on him to finish bagging. I had already paid, but Michael was still packing my first bag, moving at about the same

pace as law school.

The bagging area was still brimming with groceries and there was a long line of customers accumulating in the checkout lane behind us, wearing aggravated looks on their pinched and sour faces.

There are two kinds of people in this world, those who slow down when they see a yellow light, and those who speed up. These customers were the latter.

The cashier asked Michael if he wanted help bagging to speed things up.

“No, thank you,” he said, placing toothpaste into the bag carefully. “I’m good.”

“But people are waiting,” the cashier said.

So Michael took a moment to smile and wave at everyone.

After what seemed like a long time he finished loading my first bag. He placed the bag into my cart. “There!” he announced, dusting his hands.

One bag down.…