Stories of repentance, renewal, redemption, and reawakening, plus one that defies categorization. The people in the stories include a young preacher, dealing with a loss of confidence and a loss of faith; a 12-year-old boy who encounters "The King of the World," who lives in a chicken coop; a farmer who wakes up one morning and starts walking away from his land and his family and encounters the spirit of Ava Gardner; three women who, each in her own way, save each other; and a moonshiner who discovers one of God's finest creations.
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The Stories—and their beginnings
LOVE
When I graduated from seminary I wished that Baptist ministers wore clerical collars. It was a sign that we had received a special calling. Now I'm glad that we don't, not just because I don't want to be seen as a person with a calling, but because, in my button-down shirt and Dockers, I don't feel quite so much like an imposter.
THE KING OF THE WORLD
I was twelve years old when I learned that the King of the World lived in a chicken coop. There it was, just like Li'l had said it would be. An old falling-down chicken coop with hens walking around pecking on the ground and an old rooster sitting in the doorway. Near the flat roof, over the door, in brown or what might have been red paint, it said, "Cursed be anybody who steals my eggs." It was signed "The King of the World."
THE MEASURE OF MORTON FINDLEY
Morton Findley wore his ordinariiness like a badge of honor. For nearly all of his life, he had deterrninedly stayed at the very center of any spectrum he encountered. He was neither tall nor short, light nor dark, slender nor heavy. When he was eight, a teacher had asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He told her he would like to be an insurance salesman or maybe a bottled water truck driver.
ONE OF GOD'S FINEST CREATIONS
It weren't much different from where I lived. It was just one room. Where I lived up in Flat Tree Gap was just one room. And there was just one window. Just like my cabin. I suppose the difference was there was a lock on the door here. I didn't have one on the cabin. And here they wouldn't let me come and go like I wanted to.
THE SPIRIT OF AVA GARDNER
By the time his scarred brown brogan hit the edge of the two-track path that May morning, Cory Messer knew that he was just going to keep walking. This was the same path he went up every day, getting to the tobacco field or to the cotton or the vegetable garden. Some days he had a hoe over his shoulder, and some days he was on the old Farmall F-30. But today was different. He didn't have his tools. He wasn't going to the fields. He was just going.
THE WORLD BEYOND THE WINDOW
There is, in the moments right after you have been told you're going to die, a sudden vacuum, a feeling that the world has been pulled out from under you and that you're suspended over nothingness. It's not like Wiley Coyote and the cliff, where you flail and fall anyway. It's simply space and no movement. And a gasp because something has sucked all of the air out of the room.