A small-town Walmart. Rural. Lots of rusty trucks and 20-year-old cars. Busy. Tons of people from different walks.

The first thing you pass when you enter the crowded store is the greeter. An older Black woman, sitting on a stool. Blue vest.

Her smile is communicable. There’s something so happy in her eyes. Not fake. A warm, maternal energy.

Remember when you were little, and you’d show up to a church potluck with your mom? And all the church mothers would be there, buzzing around, setting up various casseroles, erecting card tables? All that maternal energy. All those smiles.

Remember how everybody knew everybody else? And everyone there was basically family? Remember what that felt like? Remember how even as a small child, you felt so… I don’t know. So not-alone. You felt so loved.

That’s what her smile somehow does to me.

Whereupon, I walk through this average Wally World, finding that I, too, am now smiling at random people.

There’s the guy at the pharmacy. He’s wearing construction clothes. Big

guy. Covered in grime. Marlboros in his shirt pocket. He’s missing teeth. He’s holding his little boy’s hand. And you can just FEEL how much his son worships him. You can also feel amazing love being exponentially returned by the father.

I smile at them. They both smile back.

In another aisle, a teenage girl, helping her mother. Mom is riding a motorized scooter. Mom has a surplus of tattoos on her bare shoulders and thighs, her head is half shaved, half permed. She doesn’t look that much older than the daughter.

They’re talking about something important, I can tell by body language. The girl is underconfident, struggling with something, and her mother is actively encouraging her child. I sense a deep, profoundly deep everlasting affection between…

Lake Martin shimmers beneath a heavy midday sun. I am sitting on a dock.

There are distant sounds of splashing. Kids laughing. All the children are swimming. All their respective adults are sitting ashore, dry. As adults often are.

There is nothing like July on the lake.

A boater comes speeding by, towing several middle-aged men on a water tube. The tube men are all yelling gaily, shouting two of the seven major American swear words.

The whole lake can hear these men. But nobody is offended by their language. We instead move in for a better look. Namely, because these men are well into their upper sixties, and yet here they are, traveling upwards of 187 mph behind the nautical thrust of approximately 350 horses.

Soon, everyone is watching these men. Then, the boat driver, who looks like a 12-year-old girl, throws the wheel and makes a donut in the water. The tube is whipped like a slingshot. The group of grandfathers lose their collective grip

and become instantly airborne, sailing into the great expanse of space-time, screaming barnyard expletives as they make their Wile E. Coyote-like journey into the lake, accompanied by splashes shaped like mushroom clouds from a nuclear field test.

I am drinking iced tea, taking it all in. The lake is teeming with youthful joy.

Nearby, I can hear kids playing Marco Polo. I hear them, giggling. Those poor kids. Marco Polo is pox on humanity.

I was a chubby boy. A redhead. A hopeless athlete devoid of coordination. Marco Polo was not my game. I hate Marco Polo. I once got caught in a game of Marco Polo that lasted over six years. This is why it has been my longstanding policy to cheat at Marco Polo. Life is too short.

Along with noises of…

There are a lot of things you can be. In fact, you can be anything you want in this life.

You can be social, or you can be anti-social. You can be an introvert, be an extrovert, or be an ambivert—which is both.

You can be alone. Or you can be a friend.

You can be cautious, be adventurous, be carefree.

Be exhausted, or be lively. Be wild, be peaceful, or you can be aggressive—be, be, aggressive!

You can always be right. A lot of people like to be this. They prefer to be an authority on every subject. These are probably the same people who were told by their parents to “be smart,” “be a winner,” or “don’t be an embarrassment.”

Meanwhile, some people would rather be quiet. Be in the background.

You can be other things, too. You can be a hard worker, be prepared, be responsible, be on top of things, be ready, or be a doer. Or you can be easy going, be chill, or be as lazy as

a house cat.

Then again, you could also be what other people want you to be. You can be a pleaser. You can be obligated. You can be busy, fulfilling everyone else’s needs. Be dutiful. Be committed to all causes but your own.

Or you can just be yourself. You can be free. Be empowered. Be comfortable with who you are. Be invested in your own life.

Likewise, you can be angry. Be upset. Be a victim. Be rageful. You can be crisis-centered. You can be the star of your own life’s movie.

Or you can be selfless. You can be nice. Be humble. Be part of the solution rather than the problem.

Be a helper, instead of a critic. Be a…

They say blind dogs shouldn’t run.

Namely because you can’t run when you’re a blind dog. You might run into stuff. Too many dangers. It’s scary.

Even if your owner takes you to a big park, where there are no obstacles, only a big green field, you still can't run wide-open.

Too many variables. What if you collide with a park goer? What if you get disoriented and run the wrong direction, and head straight into traffic? What if you outrun your owner and then you’re on your own?

Your owner, your dad. He’s your security blanket. You can’t be without him.

So you mostly live a life without running. You walk everywhere very carefully. You have the house mapped out in your head. You know how to move up and down the stairs. You know how to use your nose the same way a blind person uses a cane.

But under no circumstances will there ever be any running. It’s simply too frightening.

Still, here’s the thing. You’re a dog. You’ve got this huge part of your genealogy

that is saying, constantly, “WE NEED TO RUN!”

Your biology is alway screaming at you. That’s part of being canine. Your physiology is perpetually barking important messages to your conscious mind:

“WE NEED TO EAT OUR SECOND BREAKFAST!”

“WE MUST DRINK OUT OF THE TOILET EVEN THOUGH WE HAVE A PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE WATER BOWL WHICH IS KEPT REPLENISHED BY OUR MOM WITH DISTILLED WATER THAT IS FREE OF FLUORIDE AND PURCHASED FROM THE SUPERMARKET!”

“WE MUST REFER TO OURSELVES IN THE COLLECTIVE TENSE AND SPEAK IN ALL CAPS!”

Because you’re a dog. This is just how dogs are.

So it sucks being blind. Because when your canine brothers and sisters go outside, they are…

This story is for a young man named Anderson (12). He knows who he is. And he knows why I’m writing.

Once upon a time, there was a duck named Lucky. He was small and white with a bright yellow bill, and he was born missing one leg.

Lucky was unable to walk on land, but he could swim. In fact, Lucky never left the water. He couldn’t. Thus, while other ducks were on land, doing duck things, eating berries and acorns, Lucky stayed in the water, watching from afar.

He never understood why his mama named him Lucky. It was a weird name for a duck that wasn’t like other ducks. All his brothers and sisters had normal duck names like Donald, and Daffy, and AFLAC.

Lucky wished so badly that he could walk on two legs, like the others. Instead, whenever he tried to venture from the water, he could only hobble a single step, then collapse from exhaustion. Then he’d wiggle back into the water with shame.

One day, Lucky met a turtle

named Billy. Billy was a baby turtle with no front legs. Billy was sitting onshore, watching Lucky swim.

“Swimming looks like fun,” Billy called out. I wish I could swim. But alas, I am a mud turtle, and mud turtles are not great swimmers even WITH all their legs. But without front legs, all I can do is sink to the bottom. Alas, all I can do is scoot along the floor of the forest.”

Lucky replied, “I wish I could scoot like you. But alas, all I can do is swim.”

“Alas,” said Billy.

“Alas,” said Lucky.

Then they both said it together.

That’s when Lucky had an idea.

“Hey, I know!” said Lucky. “Would you like to…

I keep thinking about the Camino. It’s always there. In the back of my mind.

If my brain were a school bus, all the nerdy thoughts would be sitting up front. These are the responsible, grown-up thoughts, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and neckties, performing important tasks on calculators, computing existentially vital equations such as, “Do BLTs actually need the L?”

Meanwhile, all the cool thoughts would be sitting in the back of the bus. That’s where the cool kids sit.

These back-row thoughts represent notions I never have time for because I’m constantly thinking adult stuff like: “The mortgage is due!” “Don’t forget to mow the lawn!” “Make sure you’re wearing clean underwear in case you get into an automotive accident!”

But when I slow down long enough, I find that I’m always thinking about the Camino. The 40-day walk my wife and I made across Spain.

I see it all from a different perspective now.

When you’re on the trail, you’re immersed. You’re living it. You can’t see what it is because there is no “it.” You’re part of

“it.”

You’re saying “Buen Camino” to everyone you meet. And they’re all saying it back to you. You’re speaking Spanish more than English. You’re walking 10 hours per day sometimes. Hotel proprietors are serving you beer for breakfast without the slightest hint of irony.

But when you’re NOT on the trail; when you stand back to view the whole experience, “it” takes on a different light.

I am not the same guy I was when I started the Camino.

Back then, I didn’t think often about my own personal spirituality. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been a spiritual guy. Kind of.

But to me, your spirituality was just a thing. A hobby almost. Like yoga,…

Washington D.C. It was the height of summer. Early July. I was in town for a book event, to make a speech. I had time to kill, so I went to the National Mall.

The National Mall is “America’s Front Yard.” There are thousands of tourists, and even more screaming babies.

One particular tourist, however, stands out in my memory. A young woman who was wearing a shirt that read: “I’m not proud to be an American.”

I get it. Believe me, I do. Everyone is entitled to their outlook. But this was the National Mall. I mean, come on. Really?

The National Mall is definitely worth a visit. You see all the greats.

There’s the Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorial. Good old FDR.

In 1921, Roosevelt contracted an illness that permanently paralyzed his legs. They said he’d never be a politician. They called him names. He used a wheelchair. But he proved his critics wrong. When making speeches in public, he usually appeared standing, leaning on his wife or sons.

He was

the longest serving president. He served four—count’em—four terms.

Then there’s the Jefferson Memorial, a pantheon standing among the cherry blossoms. Jefferson, who so eloquently gave the middle finger to the British crown.

And the Korean War Veterans Memorial. Nineteen statues stand in remembrance of a war that received almost no media coverage compared to previous wars. And yet people forget that 5 million people died. It’s not too late to remember.

There’s old Abe. The “Great Emancipator” himself sits on his chair. A 170-ton statue, composed of 28 blocks of white Georgia marble, rising 30 feet high. “In this temple, as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever.”

You have Martin Luther…

Peace. I pray for peace.

Not national peace. Not global peace. Those concepts would be nice, but they are too big for my head to comprehend. No human has ever seen world peace. I don’t even know what it would look like.

So what I pray for is small peace. Tiny, microscopic, unnoticeable-to-the-naked-eye peace.

I’m familiar with this kind. Because I’ve felt it before. So have you. It’s not a completely rare sensation. It’s an inner stillness, beginning in your chest, working its way into your whole body.

Sometimes you feel this peace in the early mornings, before everyone is awake. For a brief moment, without reason, you’re simply not worried about normal crap. You’re not stressed or frightened. In fact, you’re not even wearing pants.

You’re just cool. Everything is cool. Life is cool. God is cool. It’s all cool.

That.

That’s what I’m praying for. Because a guy at peace doesn’t think the same as regular people. Regular people are not at peace. Regular people are terrified. And do you know WHY we’re all

afraid?

Me neither.

What the hell are we so scared of?

But we are most DEFINITELY afraid of something. You can see it all over our faces. Hear it in our voices. Fear. It’s in our TV shows, social media posts, and even in the faces of our kids, who try so hard to fit in, tirelessly trying to keep up with the rest of the mainstream crowd, even though that crowd has the collective IQ of mayonnaise.

I ask myself, what are they afraid of? Moreover, why do we always need to be right? Why are we constantly playing games of one-upmanship? Why are we always looking out for Number One instead of looking out for Number Two, Number Three,…

“I am 10 years old. My name is Peyton. I am a girl. People think Peyton is a boy name. But it can be both. What is your favorite animal? Mine is a dolphin.

“…Dolphins are nicer than people sometimes. People are mean to me at school because I have a speech impediment and I wish I was a dolphin so they weren’t mean. Thank you. Have a nice day.”

Dear Peyton. I agree. Dolphins are at the top of my list. Namely, because they are so smart. And they ought to be, they’re older than Methusala. Literally.

Dolphins first appear in the fossil record about 50 million years ago, only slightly before the birth of your mom and dad. By contrast, humans are in our 300,000th year of existence.

Think about that.

This means the dolphin brain has had MILLIONS of years to improve itself, perfecting its hyper-intelligent design. As a result, dolphin brains are advanced in areas where human brains are not.

Areas like sleep. When a

dolphin sleeps, half the brain sleeps, allowing the other half to remain alert, monitor its breathing, regulate heart rate, etc. This is called unihemispheric sleep, a state of consciousness humans can only achieve during long sermons.

Also, dolphins are more advanced in communication than us. Dolphin language is a significantly complex language, built on a system of squeaks, whistles, clicks, and body language.

We humans cannot begin to understand their language because (a) many dolphin communication signals occur at frequencies 10 times higher than equipment can detect and (b) our species is still busy trying to remember each of our individualized internet passwords.

FACT: The average person has 168 individual usernames and passwords.

Some researchers believe that dolphin communication is so advanced that it borders on telepathy. Seriously.

They were good kids. Mostly. Two boys. Brothers. Lots of energy.

Friends of the family say the boys couldn’t sit still without vibrating. They were always getting into something. To call them “bad” kids would be unfair. They weren’t bad. Not at all. They were simply professional hellraisers.

To be fair, their daddy was a preacher, and you KNOW what they say about preachers’ kids.

Willie, the older of the two, was a senior at Steele High School. He was a good student and an even better athlete. He had plans. Big plans. He was going to graduate, then attend Yale Divinity School and become a minister, like his father.

His kid brother, “Bubs,” was his best friend. They rode bicycles together. They were inseparable. They were smart. They were funny. They were energetic. They brought the party. They had such bright futures.

Until everything changed.

One March afternoon, Willie was playing hockey with the high-school varsity team, when life took a sharp deviation. It was a heated tournament

between friends. All the guys were out on the ice, yelling and laughing. Willie took a stick to the face.

The boy went down. He lay on the ground, covered in blood, crying in agony. His teeth were gone, his mouth and jaw a mangled mess. The bones of his face were shattered. The surgeon had his work cut out.

After the operation, Willie was put on strict bed rest. No more sports. He fell behind on his studies. He stayed home and fell into a deep funk. There were complications after surgery. Willie developed stomach trouble, heart trouble.

Soon, Willie was no longer the picture of adolescent health. He was a shut-in. He dropped out of high school. His future in academia went “poof!”

The boy sat around the…