In the tradition of the late Sam Levinson, Harry Golden was a popular Jewish author and after-dinner speaker whose stories I first encountered in a delightful collection entitled “Only In America.” In one of his essays, he said he was puzzled, as a child, by his father’s religious habits. For although his father loudly and frequently proclaimed his disbelief, he never missed a service at the local synagogue.

Since we have been talking together about fish and fishing, you have told me every fish story in the book. Not all of them preachable. Most all of them apocryphal. But there is this one, shared with me wistfully….but certainly, sincerely.

Not that I don’t appreciate the generous introduction, Peter. I really do. It’s just that I don’t feel entirely comfortable here. I’d feel more comfortable up there. Back where the choir loft used to be. That’s where I sat with the tenors. In fact, nobody ever sat there before I sat there. I was here the day they opened the doors.

A cherished colleague writes: I went to see a lady in our church who was facing surgery. She had never been in the hospital before, and the surgery was major. I walked in there. She was a nervous wreck. Then she started crying.