The Volunteer Form I Left Blank at Question 14 My granddaughter's elementary school sent home a form last week asking for volunteers for the fall reading program, one morning a week, nothing more complicated than sitting beside a table of eight year olds while they sound out words on index cards. I filled out the first thirteen questions without slowing down. Name, phone number, which classroom, whether I could pass a background check. Question fourteen asked whether I had ever been convicted of a felony, and I sat at my own kitchen table holding a pen over that little box for longer than I want to admit, because the honest answer is yes, from twenty-two years ago, a different man living a different life than the one sitting at this table now. I am nineteen years sober, and I have told my story enough times in enough rooms that I thought I had made peace with every page of it. What that form taught me again is that peace with your own story and peace with how a form reduces t...

The Crosswalk Button I Pressed Four More Times Even Though It Was Already Lit RedeemedExistence daily devotional, October 21, 2026 There is a crosswalk two blocks from my apartment where the little white walking man lights up the second you press the button, no delay at all, and I know that because I have stood there enough mornings to have the timing memorized. Tuesday I pressed it once, saw the light come on, and pressed it three more times anyway, jabbing my thumb into a button that had already done its job, as if enough pressure from me could make the cars stop any sooner than the signal already had them stopped. A woman waiting next to me glanced over, probably wondering why a grown man needed to assault a crosswalk button that had clearly already worked. I did not have a good answer for her. I still do not have a good answer for myself. I have been praying for almost three years now that my nephew would walk through the door of a recovery program ...