"Now--here is my secret: I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God--that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.

I walk deeper and deeper into the rushing water. My testicles pull up into myself. the water enters my belly button and it freezes my chest, my arms, my neck. It reaches my nouth, my nose, my ears and the roar is so loud--this roar, this clapping of hands.

These hands--the hands that heal; the hands that hold; the hands we desire because they are better than desire.

I submerge myself in the pool completely. I grab my knees and I forget gravity and I float within the pool and yet, even here, I hear the roar of water, the roar of clapping hands.

These hands--the hands that care, the hands that mold; the hands that touch the lips, the lips that speak the words--the words that tell us we are whole."--From Life After God by Douglas Coupland, 1994.