The talk

“Sit down, son. There’s something I want to tell you.”

“What’s that, dad?”

“Life is painful.”

Axial man

Many are willing and even eager to die for their country, but a country is not the truth. Where is the man who knows the truth and is willing to die for it?

The first fact

Life is painful. This is the first fact, sounded at birth in groanings too deep for words. If I don’t know this, I’ll devolve into that most coarsened of figures—the pleasure seeker.

Arms wide open (2)

During the sacred penultimacy of the crucifixion, that’s how his arms were—wide open, his palms nailed to a length of unfinished wood, as innocent and vulnerable as it is possible to be.