What if our souls were like butterflies? Yours and mine. Two butterflies. You and me. Soul mates.

And just like butterflies, we were a little bit different from each other? Each with different colors. Different symmetrically patterned wings. Uniquely shaped and sized.

What if our two individual spirits were no longer bound in caterpillar form? No more pain of metamorphosis. No more fighting impossible survival odds. No more struggling to transform from mere larvae into winged creatures.

No more crawling on our bellies, chewing tough, ridiculously high-fiber leaves, only to excrete frass from our backends.

No more hiding on the undersides of plants, helpless as slugs, which is a pretty crappy defense against predators.

No longer living incarcerated within this chrysalis we call “being human.”

What if our souls were up there? Flying. Way up in the sky. Soaring. Our wings, catching the first flickers of sunlight at daybreak. Effortlessly fluttering.

Two butterflies. Sailing high over the Great Wall of China. Winging through the rainforests of northwestern Brazil and Colombia. Whizzing along the Grand Canyon.

Together. You and me.

What if, as butterflies, the limits of physics no longer applied to us?

For one thing, gravity isn’t an issue anymore for butterflies. We leap off buildings and we’re fine. Even if we choose not to flap our wings, we still survive the fall. Because we can’t “fall” anymore. We’re not heavy enough.

Likewise, as butterflies we no longer have to search for food and water, eking out an existence. The world is now our buffet.

No more coarse green leaves for supper. No more muddy drinking water. We flit through the air, landing on beautiful flowers, sipping nectar as easily as wine comes in at the mouth, and love comes in at the eye.

Oh, it’s great being a butterfly. Indescribably great. In fact, there is no way to even communicate HOW GREAT all this butterflying is to our caterpillar…

Q: Why has your writing changed so much since you got back from walking the Camino? I miss the old Sean. You’ve become too deep for me.

A: I am not deep. But my wife says I am getting wide.

Q: I was disappointed to hear you criticize our nation’s youth as largely inactive. Not all teens are addicted to phones. My 16- and 17-year-old grandkids promised to power off their phones for two hours, and we spent the time mowing my lawn before they picked up their phones again. Their mom has never let them mow a lawn before, we had a lot of fun!

A: Two full hours. That’s quite an accomplishment.

Q: Our local newspaper said in a caption that your mother had passed away. What!? Is that true? I saw her babysitting your nieces yesterday!

A: This is why you never volunteer to babysit.

Q: The newspaper printed that your mother had passed away in one of your columns. But I think they made a mistake, they were talking about your late “mother-in-law,” right?

A:

My mother lives. Although after the newspaper’s misstatement, I’m the one you should be worried about.

Q: I read recently a post where you claimed the oldest known instrument was a flute discovered by archaeology was 40,000 years old. But you are wrong, sir. Biblically, the earth is only 6,000 years old. I didn’t come from a monkey.

A: My mistake.

Q: Your fascination with bodily functions is disgusting. Leave the little adolescent boy behind in your writings, please.

A: I know you are, but what am I?

Q: You stated once that we are all God’s children. That’s false. We are all God’s CREATION, but only those who HAVE BEEN SAVED are his children. How about you, Sean? Do you KNOW the one who sits in judgment over the nations?

A: I sure hope it ain’t you.

Q: Someone told…

There was once a young son of a farmer. His name was Willy.

Willy was a good kid. He always said please and yes ma’am. Made his bed every morning. He was even dutiful to remember to close the lid on the toilet after peeing.

But then, disaster struck.

Nobody could explain how it happened. But one day, Willy sort of lost his mind.

Namely, because Willy walked into the kitchen and declared that he was a chicken. Not a proverbial chicken, mind you. But literal poultry. The kind that go bawk-bawk, cock-a-doodle-doo, and all such manner of clucking.

Willy also announced that he would no longer go to school because—in case you haven’t noticed—chickens don’t do long division. Neither would he continue wearing clothes.

And so it was, Willy stripped, right there in the kitchen, until he was wearing nothing but his socks and the Joy of the Lord.

Willy’s mother had to be revived with cold water.

Then, he quit speaking, started making chicken noises, crawling around, and pecking the floor.

“Willy!” shouted his father. “Stop this madness!”

But it was

no use. Willy TRULY believed he was a chicken.

So Willy’s father called the doctor. Doc Brown said it was probably a problem with Willy’s glands. They chased Willy around the house, trying to forcefeed him medicine. But Willy escaped and perched atop the barn.

The next expert was a famous psychologist with a fancy German accent and an official-sounding last name. Doctor Von-Something-Or-Other.

The doc suggested Willy’s problem could be cured with a spanking, then sending Willy to bed without supper.

That didn’t work either. After the doctor tried to spank Willy, the physician left with a black eye. Also, his German accent had disappeared.

Willy’s parents consulted every expert in the state, but nobody could cure him.

Finally, on old woman in town offered to help, but Willy’s dad said not to bother. It was…

The year is 1941. The place is Auschwitz. His official name is Prisoner Number 16670. But his real name is Max.

Max isn’t old, but he looks ancient. Prison camp will do that to a man. He is here because he was caught sheltering 3,000 Polish refugees—half of whom were Jews.

At age 47, Max looks like he is in his eighties. The bruises on his face are fresh. But the smile has been there for years.

He’s always so cheerful. On the day he was captured, for example, while being herded into cattle cars, he told fellow prisoners, “Courage, brothers. Don’t you see, we’re going on a mission! And they’re paying our fare! What a bargain!”

Likewise, whenever Max is roughed up by angry guards, everyone in camp can hear Max shouting, “Please forgive this man, Lord, he doesn’t understand what he’s doing!”

Today, however, is a pivotal day for Max.

Last night, a prisoner was caught escaping. The fugitive was led into the camp at gunpoint. The guards sentenced him, along with 9 randomly selected men,

to the starvation bunker.

The starvation tank was a cruel game played on prisoners. They would toss 10 people into a cramped bunker, naked, then lock the doors. No food. No water. No nothing. For weeks.

The objective of the game was to cause the prisoners to go mad, to get aggressive, and… Well. It doesn’t matter.

What matters is that today one of the young men randomly selected for the starvation bunker is Franciszek Gajowniczek. Try saying that three times fast.

Franciszek is Polish. A family man. He starts pleading. “Please, not me!” he begs. “I have a wife and child!”

And that’s when Max steps forward.

“Take me instead,” Max says.

The guards laugh. “You?”

Max glances at Franciszek and gives smile. “Please, sir. I will go in his place.”

And so it is. The guards herd the men into…

The following is a true story.

She was a kid. Maybe 5 years old. Her mom was driving, and she was in the passenger seat. They saw the older homeless man standing at the intersection, just like every day.

He was perched by the stoplight, holding a cardboard sign which read, “God Bless.”

He was there every morning. If it wasn’t him, it was usually some other hapless person, holding a similar cardboard sign. Heck, maybe they all used the same sign.

Her mom auto-locked the doors as they eased toward the stoplight. But the little girl was digging in her backpack. The child had just left school, and had something for the man.

The girl rolled down the window before Mom could stop her. Mom evidently forgot to child-lock the windows.

The little girl flagged the older man over. By now, Mom was thinking to herself, it was too late to roll up the windows, the guy was already coming this way. She didn’t want to be THAT rude.

Mom was fidgety. Hoping the light would change before

he arrived at their vehicle.

But it didn’t.

The man was dressed in rags. He smelled foul. He hadn’t shaved in three, maybe four presidential administrations.

“I made this for you,” the little girl said, handing him a colored picture. Purple construction paper. Stick figures. That kind of thing.

The man took the page into his grime-covered hands.

“This is for you,” explained the girl. “Because we see you standing here every day, and lots of people just drive past you.”

The old man was looking at the picture. One stick figure obviously represented him. There were other smaller stick figures standing around him.

“It this me?” he said.

The girl nodded.

“And who are these other little people?” he asked.

“Those are kids,” the girl replied, pointing to the image. “This kid is me. And those other kids are YOUR…

Abel Rodriguez had no car. He’s a janitor at Community High School in Collin County, near Dallas.

Abel is nice. Not a big guy. Easy going, mostly quiet. Friendly. He deals with teenagers all day. He cleans spills from the floor. The occasional vomit from the hallways. Messes in the bathroom. You name it.

He’s a big supporter of athletics. Including the women’s volleyball team. He even warms up with them if they need someone to run drills.

Well, having no wheels makes life difficult for Abel. Getting to and from work is a giant pain in the proverbial intergluteal cleft.

Recently, for example, he was stuck at the high school until 1 a.m., waiting for his ride to arrive.

Students eventually heard about his situation. Rumors of Abel’s transit issues started making their way around campus. And if you remember high school, you know how fast such gossip can travel. Gossip is the love language of the pubescent.

News of the janitor’s transportation crisis finally made its way to the Lady Braves volleyball team. The girls

could hardly believe it. They didn’t even know about his problem. Namely, because he never complains.

Jorryn Collins is a senior on the volleyball team.

“He has a million reasons to be sad,” she says, “and never has a smile NOT on his face… he’s always more happy than you will ever be, honestly. And you would NEVER guess the reality of his situation.”

“He’s just really helpful, honestly,” said Addee Kuenstler, another student athlete. “He’s our biggest cheerleader.”

So the volleyball team got an idea. They started a GoFundMe campaign. They told their friends. Friends told their friends. Parents got involved. Sometimes, gossip can work in your favor.

On the first day of the campaign, the girls raised $3000. And te numbers kept growing. It wasn’t long before they had raised $9,000.

A local dealership heard about the team’s efforts. The dealership…