This morning an elderly man stomped up my street half yelling and half mumbling, “There’s nobody up there! There’s nobody up there!” I stepped out of my porch on my way to work and and he turned his bright blue eyes onto me and asked, “How can you say that there’s somebody up there?” I was caught between fear of getting drawn into conversation with a mentally unstable person and a deep desire to tell this man that he is the Beloved, that not only is there somebody up there but that that Somebody created this man and loves him dearly, and cares about his struggles.

But I was caught off guard, and the man’s eyes slid off of me in a way that made me sure he wasn’t expecting me to speak to him. So I spoke. I said all that I was able to say at that moment. I said, “I believe.”

He glanced at me again in surprise. “You believe?” he said, and I didn’t hear the rest of his mumbled response as he continued up the street.