I have spent my whole life as a writer trying to string together these kinds of moments. Moments when the veil has been slit open, when I have been able to catch a glimpse of how God has held my life together.

None of us chooses a religion because of its dogma.

Much as the Greeks lived in close proximity to their gods, who dwelled on Mt. Olympus, my family lived in Odessa, Missouri, only a half-hour’s drive from Kansas City, where the Royals loomed larger than life for me.

Some days I can’t remember: am I Abel or Cain?

And on this festival day, I am feeling once again my status as the Chief of Sinners, slipping out of the house with unwashed hair in a faded, above-the-knee, sleeveless, beach sundress.

I am not the kind of man who routinely stands hip-deep in anything, but the kids are still asleep, and I need to pray somewhere—God knows—so here I stand. The water is frigid and it soothes my feet, sore from stumbling over stones to rescue my lure. All I’ve caught in this damned river are rocks.

My son makes the sign he learned before he could say his first words, fingers and thumb together at the side of his mouth. He’s hungry. He’s asking.

Among those who work on behalf of them, it has become a truism that our first obligation toward our less fortunate brothers and sisters is to first recognize and celebrate their humanity. What is less often recognized is the vital role that art can play in such a process.

Poverty is the kind of topic that makes someone like me uncomfortable. After all, my bailiwick is the world of high art—literature, painting, sculpture, classical music, and so on.

As I lay there, I anticipated—dreaded—the half-hour intervals of time. The midnight gongs were the worst: the official passage into the next day, the extended knell of loneliness, the reminder that I was the only person awake in the world.