I was in a hotel with a few hundred Mennonites.

I walked into the hotel at noon. At first, I was confused inasmuch as the lobby was full of cape dresses, plain suits, and broad-brimmed hats. Some of the older men had beards, some were clean-shaven. The women wore head coverings.

I thought maybe I’d taken a wrong turn on the interstate.

I approached the hotel desk. “I feel a little underdressed,” I said.

“There is a Mennonite gathering in town,” the hotel clerk said. “This is probably my favorite time of year.”

“Really?” I asked. “Why?”

She smiled.

“You’ll see,” she said.

On my way up to my room, I rode in the elevator with four Mennonite teenagers. It was beautifully un-awkward. None of the young people had a hard time looking me in the eye. None of them had a difficult time making conversation.

“I’m Caleb,” said one boy, confidently.

I shook his hand. This set off a chain of handshakes and introductions among us all. I learned everyone’s name.

“We’re so excited to be here,” said Caleb. “We’ve never

actually stayed in a hotel before.”

“They have a free breakfast,” said one boy, using the same tone you’d use to say, “I just won the scratch-off.”

“They even have a swimming pool,” said one of the young women, covering her mouth as though she had just said something mildly risqué.

Then all her counterparts giggled.

We had a nice conversation, then I stepped off when the elevator arrived at my floor. One of the boys offered to help me with my bags.

I travel with five musical instruments, which can be a hassle. I declined his offer, but I was touched.

“Goodbye, Mister Dietrich,” they all said in unison as I wielded my banjos, guitars, and fiddles down the hallway.

The next morning, there must have been fifty or sixty Mennonite teenagers in the lobby, standing in…

Dearly Beloved,

Today is Yom HaShoah. The Jewish holy day for remembering the Holocaust. And I must admit, dear friends, standing before you all, here in this beautiful synagogue, wearing this tiny hat, I am feeling very out of place. And humbled.

I am not Jewish. I’m not even religious. Actually, I don’t know what I am. I am a seeker, I guess. A fellow human being. Someone with a heart, a liver, two eyes, and a soul. Just like you. I am proud to be here. Wearing this kippah on the crown of my head.

My rabbi friend tells me it is a custom to deliver a “hesped” or eulogy and address the departed. Instead of eulogizing, I am going to read the Holocaust victims’ words to you. I would ask you all to bow your heads as they speak through my feeble voice:

GERTA WEISSMAN KLEIN, a teenage prisoner from Sobibor Camp:

“[Sometimes, I remember] Ilse, a childhood friend of mine, once found a raspberry in the camp

and carried it in her pocket all day to present to me that night on a leaf. Imagine a world in which your entire possession is one raspberry and you give it to your friend.”

JACK ADLER, former prisoner of Dachau:

“I was liberated on May 1, 1945, while on the death march out of Dachau… [I believe that] in order for humanity to survive we must allow ourselves to be guided by the Golden Rule. There are seven billion people on this planet earth, we all belong to one race, the human race. So treat others the way you would like to be treated.”

PREMYSL DOBIAS, former prisoner of Terezin labor camp:

“The hardest thing was not the hunger, though the hunger was constant. The hardest thing was to keep your mind from becoming a desert. We would try to remember the smell of a kitchen at home, or…

She helped people die. Or maybe you’d say she helped them transition to the other side—whatever that means. She’s not a big believer in “the other side.”

Either way, she’s been helping people pass away for a long time. She has seen more death than most.

She’s a veteran nurse. She’s been in the business of end-of-life care for over 30 years. As a result, almost nothing startles her anymore. And if she’s being honest, she admits that she’s a little jaded, too. Maybe even cynical about the business sometimes. Bureaucrats.

But what she saw last Tuesday did affect her. In fact, she says it sort of changed her.

As she administered meds to the old man, making idle small talk, something occurred.

The old man was near the end when he saw someone in the room.

There is nothing unusual about this. It happens all the time. Dying people see deceased loved ones in empty rooms. They’ll have elaborate conversations with a great-grandma. Or they’ll see a miscarried baby, all grown up, sitting in the corner, smiling. Whether these are hallucinations or not,

she has learned to just go with it. It’s part of the job.

The brain does strange things when it’s in the process of dying.

“I see a woman,” the old man said.

“Is that right?” she said, still checking his oximeter.

“Yes, it’s a woman. She is standing behind you.”

The nurse glanced behind her and saw nobody.

“Really?” she said absently, going about her work, making notes on her iPad.

“She looks a little like you,” he said.

“Okay,” said the nurse vacantly, checking his pulse again. “What a hottie she must be.”

The old man muttered. “She has brown hair. She says her name is Carol.”

The nurse stopped. She stared at him.

The old man said, “Carol is talking to me. She’s saying something now.”

The nurse was all ears. “What’s…

Tonight, 6 million Americans will be watching the historic event on television. The Orion spacecraft, named Integrity, is estimated to return to Earth at 8:07 P.M. The little boy who lives inside me can hardly contain himself.

The crew of NASA’s Artemis II has traveled farther into deep space than any human beings before them. They are heroes. Each one of them. Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Jeremy Hansen.

Before splashdown, the crew has a lot to do just to survive. The little boy inside me would like to tell you about it:

Last night, while you were winding down for bed, the crew ignited thrusters for a total of 15 seconds to guide Integrity to the correct Earth-trajectory course.

Whereupon they finished a few odd jobs, worked on a few calculations, then made calls to loved ones. Then, each crewperson took turns using Integrity’s $30-million “hygiene bay.”

Unlike the old Apollo days, when astronauts used adhesive hygiene bags, Integrity came equipped with a state-of-the-art john. The craft features a vacuum

hose, with funnel attachments designed to fit—ahem—the anatomical plumbing apparatus of each gender.

Also, Integrity has an actual toilet with an actual lid, which the male coworkers keep forgetting to close. This latrine canister is really just a giant vacuum. Using the toilet is a full-contact sport. In the words of one male astronaut, “Ride ’em cowboy.”

The reason I’m telling you about the bathrooms is not because I am a little boy. But because the spacecraft’s toilet broke during flight. This was a huge complication that threatened the mission.

The venting pipe outside the ship froze solid. For days on end, the crew succumbed to using what amounted to fancy Ziploc bags until they could fix the problem.

But anyway, that’s just one of the problems NASA astronauts had to contend with. Today, their efforts will be focused on re-entry. Re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere is no…

I like ducks. I watch the same two mallards visit this area of Lake Martin. Almost every morning.

I don’t know if they’re married. Ducks are seasonally monogamous. So this could just be a one-season stand.

Still, they are my friends. I guess they’re here to find food. Sort of like going to Piggly Wiggly with your spouse, minus the buggy, and the rolling of your spouse’s eyes whenever one of you places six jars of something you don’t need into the basket because it’s BOGO.

One of the ducks is male, with an iridescent green head and a yellow bill. The female is brown, with a black bill.

I call them Lucy and Desi. I don’t know why. It was either that or George and Gracie. But he isn’t a George. Sometimes you can just tell.

Each morning, I sit on the dock with coffee in hand, legs dangling off the edge, and I talk to them as they paddle by.

I ask what they’ve been up to. I ask what’s going on in their lives. How’s the family?

How do you like this weather? Do y’all have any summer plans?

They’re unafraid of me, even though I am a big scary human, located only a few feet from them. They come near me sometimes. Not too close, mind you. But close enough that I can see Lucy’s pretty eyes and Desi’s amazing emerald hood.

Desi is definitely the friendlier of the two. I get the feeling that Desi is the kind of duck you’d want to party with. Whereas Lucy is more driven, and highly focused on making sure everything is just so. Sometimes I wonder whether she’s holding Desi back.

For a long time, they showed up. And for a long time, I’d sit there, watching them undergo the seasonal changes of life.

I watched Desi lose his green plumage during molting season, and turn brown. I…

My first concept of robots came from watching The Jetsons before school in my underpants. My boyhood morning routine consisted of sitting on the sofa in my tighty-whities, eating Cap’n Crunch, watching television, and listening to my mother say, “Get those underpants off my couch, Mister!”

Rosie the robot was the Jetsons’ fun housemaid who skated from room to room, wearing an apron, completing important daily tasks such as vacuuming, cooking, and using her mechanical claws to forcibly administer baths to Elroy, whose father she called “Mister J.”

I liked Rosie. In fact, I think Rosie was one of my favorite cartoon characters with the exceptions of Yogi Bear and Farrah Fawcett.

Back in those days robots were a far-off idea. They were sci-fi. This was pre-internet. Pre-cellular phone. The only computers anyone ever heard of were the size of an average Chuck E. Cheese.

Robots weren’t real back then. They were imaginary concepts. Like the Tooth Fairy, or the Department of Agriculture.

Which is why, yesterday, I was stunned to have an

actual conversation with a robot.

This all started when my brother-in-law first downloaded an AI app onto my phone a few years ago.

Now, I had heard of this app before. I had even used this program when doing research for a piece I wrote on AI. During my research, I remember asking the app to produce a well-written 500-word column, and to do it in the style of the writer “Sean Dietrich.”

In seconds—this is an astonishing display of intelligence—the app replied: “I thought you wanted something well-written.”

I remember the first vocal conversation I had with AI. When you first set up the app, you must select a voice. They offer a male voice, female voice, and a voice that sounds like a real teenager except they are only partially repulsed by you.

I chose the female voice. Then I asked the voice if she…

“Yeah, I got a story for you,” said the old woman in the nursing home.

She had midnight skin, dandelion-fuzz hair, and she smoked Newports. Each day she liked to park her wheelchair in the parking lot where she could face the supermarket, and watch all the happy customers walk in and out of Publix.

At the time, I was a cub reporter, looking to scare up a story for the local paper. Back when Americans still read newspapers.

The old woman faced Publix. She flicked her lighter, drew in a breath, then began to speak.

“You ain’t old enough to remember the flood,” she began.

The Great Flood of 1927 is not often remembered in our selective pop-culture history. Historically, we Americans tend to only remember wars, good-looking movie stars, and crappy pop songs. If you ask a schoolkid about the flood, odds are they’ll look at you as though you’ve got three heads, blink twice, then resume texting.

In 1927, the Mississippi remained at flood levels for 153 days.

Rain kept falling. Waters kept rising. The icepacks of the north kept melting.

The river in Vicksburg broke 40 feet. Nashville and Chattanooga flooded. Creeks and tributaries as far away as Kansas and Iowa were inundated.

Nationwide, 170 counties and parishes were drowned, seven states flooded, and 900,000 were driven from their homes. The flood claimed lives from Virginia to Oklahoma.

“This story happened to my uncle…” she said.

Her uncle was married with kids. When the floodwaters invaded his home, the family moved upstairs to stay dry. When the second story flooded, the family moved to the roof. When waters finally engulfed the rooftop, her uncle swam ashore to find help, tied at the waist by a rope attached to his chimney.

“I don’t know how he made it to shore against those currents. Shoulda killed him.”

The family found safety in a church with about 200 others.…

DEAR SEAN:

I’m pregnant. My husband and I have been going back and forth on name options but have no ideas. So right now I have a baby without a name. I know this is a strange request, but can you give me some name suggestions? I don’t want one of those modern names.

Thanks,

NEW-MOM-IN-GRAND-RAPIDS

DEAR GRAND-RAPIDS:

The night I was born, my mother took me into her arms and decided that she was going to name me Elvis.

My aunt recalls: “Your mama loved Elvis. Plus, you were a Capricorn, you know. Elvis and Jesus were Capricorns.”

Case closed.

In the end, my mother gave me a Scots-Irish name. But over the years I’ve wondered about how differently my life would have played out if my mother had gone with Elvis.

PATROLMAN: License and registration, please, sir?

ME: Here you are, officer.

HIM: Do you know how fast you were driving back there… (looks at license) Elvis?

ME: Uh-huh-uh-huh.

As a writer, when you start working on a novel, the first thing you think about are the names

of your characters. In fact, names are one of the most important parts of any story. Think about it. How many pieces of classic literature do you read where the hero was named Heman Pickles?

You do, however, have to be careful when you give opinions on names you like and dislike because feelings can get hurt very easily. My mother and aunt once got into a knock-down-drag-out argument after my aunt admitted that she never liked my mother’s name.

My mother was fuming. She stood from her chair and informed my aunt that she never liked my aunt’s name, either. Things got ugly. My mother said my aunt’s name reminded her of a barefoot and pregnant hick—my aunt, at the time, was barefoot, also pregnant.

So then my aunt said my mother had a bad singing voice and that…

My wife and I are in training mode. We walk 10 or 12 miles, several times per week, practicing for our second Camino. We will walk across Spain soon, and we need to get in shape.

We get up early. And we start walking. We walk for most of the day. Until we’re covered in sweat and smell like the hindparts of a filthy goat.

And with each Camino training walk, I am remembering what I learned on our first Camino. Something all pilgrims eventually learn. It’s not the magic of the Camino that changes you. It’s the walking.

When I was a kid, walking was life. I walked everywhere. I walked through the woods. I walked miles of neighborhood to see my friends. I walked to the filling station. I walked to school.

But as I got older, I quit walking. Namely, because America is not built for walking. Not even a little. We are a nation of highways and overpasses, with few sidewalks. If you don’t believe me, try

walking to Walmart and see if you survive.

In the last 10 years, pedestrian death rates have risen by 25 percent. The average American sits for 8.5 hours per day; 50 percent of all car trips in America are under three miles.

It’s a shame. Because the act of moving your legs does something to you. And I don’t mean it makes your butt smaller, although this happens, too.

As you walk, you feel your mind getting quieter. There’s less chatter up there. You become reflective. Relaxed. Your body and legs go on autopilot. Your soul begins to emerge. Although you THINK you’re walking, what you’re actually doing is praying.

We don’t know this, of course. We never knew what real prayer was. Growing up, we were taught to think that “prayer” meant clasping our hands, kneeling, and using a physical voice to ask the Celestial Santa Claus for…

The year is 250 A.D. It’s Good Friday. Although, technically, there is no “Good Friday.” Not for another hundred years.

Tonight, all people who follow “The Way” meet underground. They have to.

Followers of The Way are being martyred left and right. They can’t afford to expose themselves and get beheaded. They have families.

Tonight, they meet in a barn. They all gather among farm implements and bleating sheep. No candles.

The children sit in the center of the barn. The adults, on the periphery. They sing a few songs. The lambs and ewes join in.

Theirs has always been a singing tradition.

They sing to honor the fallen. They have many loved ones who were captured and killed for following The Way.

Everyone in this barn knows that it’s probably just a matter of time before they themselves are arrested. They have prepped their kids for this.

“If Mommy and Daddy go missing, run to Aunt So-And-So’s house. She’ll know what to do.”

They are all fasting tonight. Not just from food, but water, too. They

will fast for 40 hours to remember the death of the Nazarene. It’s just what they do on this particular Friday.

Someone gets up in front of the group. Brother Andrew. He explains why they are meeting in darkness tonight.

Because they are remembering the Jewish Carpenter’s sacrifice. Also, they remember the lives of martyred brothers. Last week, two teenage girls were beheaded in the square for refusing to light incense to Caesar.

Romans have all sorts of interesting ways of killing these followers of The Way. They dress their prisoners in fresh animal carcasses, then turn wild dogs loose. They place them in barrels with spikes then roll them down hills. They dip them in tar, light them on fire, and suspend them as torches.

Ironically, Romans call them “atheists.” Or worse, “Little Christs,” or “Little Messiahs.” This is because they have…