The Buddy System

1967. We were at war with Vietnam. And there I was, at the U.S. Army Ranger School at Fort Benning, Georgia. It was brutal.

I can still hear the raspy ...

Sharing the Unique in Ourselves

I have found that the very feeling that has seemed to me most private, most personal, and hence most incomprehensible by others, has turned out to be ...

Tragic Loneliness

We need to see that universal sickness, that innumerable throng of men and women laden down with their secrets, laden down with their fears, their sufferings, ...

The True Purpose of Marriage

I once met a man who said, "In the forty years we've been married, my wife and I haven't had an argument."

I said to him, "Well, ...

No Solitary Religion

It was one of the Wesleys, I think, who said that the New Testament knows nothing of solitary religion. We are forbidden to neglect the assembling of ...

How to Be a Friend

Often the most loving thing we can do when a friend is in pain is to share the pain--to be there even when we have nothing to offer except our presence ...

The Comforts of Friendship

Oh, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they ...

World of New Thrills

People get from books the idea that if you have married the right person you may expect to go on "being in love" for ever. As a result, when ...

The Unknown Hero of Everest

In 1953 Sir Edmund Hillary climbed to the summit of Mount Everest, the first man ever to do that. The man who impressed me most, though, was not Edmund ...

We Need Each Other

Communion is strength; solitude is weakness. Alone, the free old beech yields to the blast and lies prone on the meadow. In the forest, supporting each ...