“A man can be in one place but
in all places he can never be.”
So said the vagrant. He was lost in
Pueblo, Colorado, on the street,
standing in harsh wind and brittle sun.
He was abject and worn and was familiar with
Becker’s The Denial of Death. I asked:
“When did you occasion such a volume?” He
was nebulous and shifty as a man with
bad secrets. His skin was gray, his
breath was a rancid pall of smoke and
whiskey. He mumbled a few words more
about a causa sui that had stolen his
longing for joy. When I wakened, he
hung ghostly off my left shoulder until
my stupor lifted. As I watched out the
bathroom window, over the creek lit in
moon and luminous pollution, for
there is no darkness anymore, I
reasoned him some share of
my spiritual atmosphere, a grizzled
mass of unclaimed dearth. I read
that book when I was twenty
nine, mending from my divorce,
wheedling on a return to
seminary and sensing that I was with
no one and was no one, homeless but for
the world before me. I was scarred of
death and heroism and got on with it.
Faith set in. I was to be in one place,
the occupant of just one life.
