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My mother comes at me with the book spread open wide. She is pointing to a picture. She is yelling, face contorted by fear. Eyes wide. This is my introduction to the history of art, and it is my introduction to sex. I am six years old. For many years I will regard this moment as traumatizing. I will tell myself that the event shouldn’t have happened. The story I […]

Today is the 6th of October, my father’s birthday. He lies in the ICU at The Himalayan Hospital, Dehradun, India, in a mesh of wires and tubes. My sister and I are in the hospital room that was allotted to him before the surgery. It is 4:00 a.m. and I have not slept a wink. I can’t remember the last time I slept in the past two weeks but my […]

Dear Human Kindness Foundation, I have been in and out of prison for 30 years. I’m currently on my 6th term of incarceration with eight years in. I was raised in a good Christian family, but I strayed away and never came back to it. When I caught this case in 2009, I was shot and left to die. I cried out to God while in the hospital, and he answered. […]

For transgressions against God, the Day of Atonement atones, but for transgressions of one human being against another, the Day of Atonement does not atone until they have made peace with each other.—Gates of Prayer, Reform Jewish High Holiday prayer book Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine. – Patti Smith, “Gloria” “Hindsight is 20/20” the saying goes but it’s not true. My own sight hasn’t been 20/20 since […]