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…

His name is Callum. He is a Labrador. He is brown. He has a little white developing around his snout. All the best dogs have white on their snouts.

Callum is blind.

He was found walking along the backwater highways of rural Alabama, lost, staggering headfirst into obstacles.

Imagine being completely blind and being a stray.

You are alone in a midnight-black world. You are nameless. You are unwanted. You are nothing. No—you are lower than nothing. You are trash. You have no value on this earth. At least that’s how you feel.

You stumble along, trying to feel your way through life. You wander through dangerous intersections, avoiding speeding vehicles. It’s a wonder you aren’t already dead.

You walk facefirst into guardrails on highway shoulders. You search for food and water and shelter wherever you can find it, but rarely find anything more than a discarded McDonald’s wrapper.

You sleep wherever. Anywhere will do. Anywhere warm. Anywhere safe. Anywhere you can eke out another day.

That was Callum’s life. He was starving to death, of course. What

he needed was nutrition. Hydration. Calories. Fat. Sodium. What he needed was love.

When they found him, love was what he was most deficient of. He was emaciated. The gaps between his ribs showed. He could barely stand up. You could see the joints of his bones.

Moreover, he had the hangdog demeanor most strays have. I have a blind stray. I remember when I first met her. Don’t ask me how I knew this, but I could just tell that she had the knowledge that someone thought she was better off dead.

Nevertheless, none of Callum’s previous life matters. Not anymore. What matters now is that he’s not suffering.

A New Leash on Life program, in Huntsville, has been helping him get back on his feet. He’s been in a foster home for months. A place where people love him. A…

Lately, I’m receiving more negative emails than ever before. I don’t know what’s in the drinking water, but something has shifted.

I need guidance on how to respond to these angry emailers. So, I turn to my dog, Marigold. Marigold is the most non-judgemental soul I know. I read emails aloud to her, then base my responses on her reactions.

“You’re a [bleeping] coward,” one emailer writes. “By not taking a political stance you have, in effect, taken a stance… Innocents are dying because of you.”

Marigold licked herself.

“I’m done reading you,” another writes, “you talk too much about politics.”

I turned to Marigold for an answer. She was now licking her private parts.

“There is only one way to heaven, Sean…” wrote the angry emailer. “You waste your talent for Satan… If you don’t ask Jesus into your heart and make a public profession of faith, I’m sorry, but you are a fraud.”

I looked to Marigold once again. Marigold was now emitting smells, some powerful enough to knock a buzzard off a honey wagon.

Another emailer: “...I can’t stand your drivel… Every

time I see one of your stories I delete it, but my dad keeps sending them to me… I’m about to block you for good.”

Marigold sighed. And as I stroked my dog’s head, I heard another soft noise discharged from her backside.

“WHY HAVEN’T YOU WRITTEN ABOUT CHARLIE KIRK? YOU ARE A LIAR AND A [BLEEPING] FAKE!!!!!!!!!”

Nine exclamation points.

Marigold put her head into my lap.

“I’m sorry, Sean, but I just expected more from you…”

Marigold was falling asleep. She was lightly snoring.

Another email: “You talk way too often about spiritual things you don’t understand… I thought you were supposed to be a humor writer…”

And the next emailer: “Sean… I keep wishing you’d tell less jokes and talk more about spiritual things…”

Marigold was now dreaming. At least that’s what…

I think of the Camino often.

Every day, actually. The Camino sort of lives inside me. Wherever I go. Whatever I do. I think about it.

I remember who I was as I walked the ancient trail. I remember those 40 days. Living out of a backpack. Hardly any possessions. Two T-shirts. One pair of boots. I had a fiddle on my back.

I remember the camaraderie along the way. I remember how we made friends with fellow pilgrims. Deep friendships. Pilgrims from every nation. We could not speak each other’s languages, but it didn’t matter. Love is its own language.

Whenever we were together—all us pilgrims—there existed no Americans, no Russians, no Jews, no Muslims, no nationalities between us. No Black, no white, no political persuasion. We were just people.

People with basic needs. Who needed water, shoes, good sleep, and a secluded place to pee.

And, of course, we had to eat. Which wasn’t always easy.

There was the time we were all miles from the nearest village, without enough food. So

we all pooled our lunches together, sitting beneath an old oak tree.

A man from Switzerland brought a bottle of wine. A woman from Brazil had a loaf of bread. A guy from Italy had anchovies. We passed around the fish and loaves, and gave thanks. We ate all we wanted. There was enough leftovers to fill 12 backpacks.

There was the blind man I met on the trail. Walking toward the nearest village. Shuffling along on a highway, and yet, pausing to give me—me, a Big Dumb American—some encouraging words.

There was the time I was injured, when my wife and I parted ways on the trail. I compelled her to leave me, to find her own Camino. To find her own truth out there. I would follow her by cab.

I cried as she walked away. Because I wished her so much joy. So…

Dear Young Me, I am sending this letter back in time. I hope you get it. Tell everyone I said hello. Brush your teeth.

The main reason I’m writing is because the world is going to go nuts someday. And I mean totally, flipping nuts. I can’t even describe the level of nuttiness you’re about to experience.

But believe me, someday you will wake up and the current state of the world, and all its wacky human inhabitants will suddenly seem so screwed-up, you will feel like a giraffe.

This will be especially evident in the young generations that follow yours.

Certainly, young people have always differed from their elders, but with the current techno boom we are undergoing, young people will become a different species.

In generations past, the highest form of technology was the walkie-talkie radio in the handle-bar basket of your Schwinn. You bought this radio at the five-and-dime using a wad of crumpled cash from your piggy bank.

But

in the future, there won’t BE piggy banks. There won’t be five-and-dimes. And there definitely won’t be many Schwinns.

Likewise, at one time, the highest aspiration of kidhood was merely to build a really cool fort. But there aren’t many forts being built today.

There was a recent study done. Researchers found that Americans of previous generations played outside often. In fact, a staggering 90 percent of American kids used to play outside. Today, the percentage falls somewhere around 20 percent.

Yesterday, for example, I was on a walk when I passed a group of kids, sitting on their porch. Each kid held his or her respective iPad, playing some kind of game; each kid was simultaneously texting on a secondary mobile device; each child wore massive, noise-cancelling, reality-blocking, soul-crushing headphones clamped tightly on his or her head.

And this is normal.

Young Me, they were…

A little girl rescued a turtle from a busy highway.

This happened yesterday afternoon.

Moving a turtle is not a remarkable sight, really. It happens every day, somewhere in the world. Somewhere in the known universe, a rural kid moves a turtle off the highway. I have been that kid myself. Many times. Maybe you have too.

Yesterday, however, the unique privilege went to a little girl. She was maybe 12.

I saw her in the middle of the highway. She was flagging down traffic in both lanes.

It was a rural two-lane. In the wilds of central Alabama. Lots of mobile homes. Lots of pastures with cows. Lots of American flags on home-built trailer porches.

The child was standing in the middle of the highway, halting cars in both lanes, like a professional commercial air traffic controller.

Traffic halted at her cues. A string of vehicles was soon backing up toward the horizon—vehicles traveling both directions. The impromptu traffic jam was growing, too, accumulating more vehicles every few moments.

Among our friendly little gridlock,

there were two log trucks, a few dump trucks, and cars of every size, shape, and partisanship preference. All stalled by the singular hand signal of a child.

The girl was oblivious to the danger that surrounded her. People die every day on those old highways. She was blissfully unconcerned.

The turtle was not a small creature. It was about the size of watermelon. She had to lift with both hands.

But first, she had to gain its trust inasmuch as the turtle was hissing at her. It had huge claws that could have severed an average human limb.

Several of us gathered around the girl to watch. She looked like a tough kid. A country girl. Like this wasn’t her first tortoise rodeo.

It took a few moments for the girl to win the turtle’s good faith enough that it let her pick it…

I have an important question. How would you spend your best day ever?

This might sound like a dumb question. But if you have time, take a brief break from doom scrolling and think about your best day ever (BDE).

What would you do on this particular day? Where would you go? What would you wear? And most importantly, what would you eat?

Don’t laugh. Food is sacred. Is there a gift more precious than the taste of real, wholesome food? Is there any joy more humanly gratifying than unrefined flavors of fat, salt, and sugar?

You could be the richest, most powerful sultan on Planet Earth, with entire nations under your control, a harem of lovers who all look like professional underwear models, and a giant trampoline in your living room. But if you had no tastebuds, if everything you ate tasted like No. 9 Styrofoam… Your whole life would suck.

Who would be with you on your BDE? Why would you choose this person? Would it even BE a person? Or would

it be a canine? Feline? Ferret? Goldfish? Rare form of exotic algae?

If it WERE a human you chose, however, why them? How does this person make you feel? Do you love them? Where do those feelings come from? Have you ever wondered about this?

You cannot necessarily “choose” your feelings about a person. You simply feel how you feel. You either feel one way or you don’t. It’s a decision your soul makes, not your brain.

Ah, the soul.

There’s that word. A dangerous word, so laced with divisive religious overtones that people dare not talk about it. Thus, society just ignores the issue of a soul altogether.

But you cannot ignore your soul. It’s the true You.

Which is why there are some humans in this life who give your soul an overwhelming sense of unconditional love, joy, and kinship. Whereas others give your…

The helicopter was flying low over Sacramento Highway 50. The helicopter was rocketing toward the earth below.

The flight was losing altitude, heading directly into eight lanes of traffic below; directing into thousands of motorists and commuters.

Kenneth De Crescenzo saw it all happen. “When it was coming down,” he said, “I looked at it and said, ‘This isn’t good…’”

It was the opposite of good. The aircraft was a medical helicopter, with a three-person crew of EMTs, consisting of a pilot, a nurse, and a paramedic. The crew had just saved a life, only minutes earlier, offloading a critical patient at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento.

It took only seconds for the helicopter to lose control and strike the pavement. The boom could be heard for miles. It was a crashing, roaring, twisting, scraping of metal, scuffling along the highway. Incredibly, the helicopter pilot struck no cars.

Traffic came to a halt.

People jumped out of vehicles.

Isabella Lorenzo was taking her grandson home when it happened.

“I thought it was going to land,” she

said, “and it kept going down lower and it just nosedived. And when it nosedived, we all just was in shock.”

The helicopter lay on the highway. Inert. A mangled mess of metal and bent rotor blades.

One of the crew was lying on the pavement. One crewmember was stuck in the cockpit. The other crew-woman was trapped beneath the wreckage.

Onlookers could hear screaming coming from beneath the wreckage.

“Someone’s stuck!” somebody shouted.

Samaritans were already racing toward the helicopter. Most were waiting for the air to fill with the smell of gasoline, waiting for the aircraft to maybe explode, or catch fire perhaps. But there were no flames.

Minutes after the crash, fire-department Capt. Peter Vandersluis was on the scene. He heard the crew-woman’s voice, she was pinned beneath the wreckage.

They needed to move the helicopter. But how? How do…