Open Hands · Week 4 · Saturday · HURT I pray for about the same three things most mornings, and I have for years. A heart that forgives. Integrity solid enough that nobody can reasonably question my motives or my…
Outside the Circle
He Would Probably Win
Open Hands · Week 4 · Friday · HURT The invoice on his desk is dated two years ago and he is owed every cent of it. The short version is that his partner was taking work out the side…
Every Friday Since February
Open Hands · Week 4 · Thursday · HURT The jacket has been on the hook by the door every Friday night since February. What happened is almost nothing, if you write it down. Four girls she had been friends…
A Story She Tells Well
Open Hands · Week 4 · Wednesday · HURT She tells it well, and that is most of the problem. About six years ago a woman she had been close to for a long time did something to her. I…
Whose Voice That Was
Open Hands · Week 4 · Tuesday · HURT It was a Tuesday evening and somebody had left shoes in the doorway again, and he heard a voice come out of his own mouth and he knew immediately whose it…
The Sentence in the Will
Open Hands · Week 4 · Monday · HURT The will said what he already knew, and somehow that made it worse rather than better. His sister gets the house; he gets a third of what is left over after…
He Says It to Their Faces
Open Hands · Week 4 · Sunday · HURT I want to start with what actually happened to Joseph, because we tend to skip over it on the way to the nice ending. His brothers took his coat off him…
Why Me
Open Hands · Week 3 · Saturday · INSECURITY On Sunday I said that a man who builds on credentials has a particular problem waiting for him. Here is mine, in the words it actually uses. These people are paying…
Taped Inside the Drawer
Open Hands · Week 3 · Friday · INSECURITY There is a card taped to the inside front panel of her desk drawer. The corners have gone soft. She has had some version of it for most of her working…
Still Consulting the Old File
Open Hands · Week 3 · Thursday · INSECURITY They asked him to lead it. He said no inside four seconds, and the reason he gave out loud was a conflict in his diary, which was not true. The real…