The Spiritual Wanderer
My 26 Hank Aaron baseball cards, saved from when I was his biggest fan.
The text came in from my cousin, “RIP Hank Aaron.”
“Damn,” was all I could respond. Read More…
Judy Watson and her great-granddaughter Avery Yau.
Our sweet, sweet granddaughter entered our lives on Sunday night.
Her great-grandmother — my wife’s mother — left us on Wednesday night. Read More…
My doctor’s notes from this day, ten years ago.
My life ended ten years ago. But it’s okay; I got over it.
That morning, I guest-lectured in a friend’s class at MSU, had some pizza with her husband, played a quick round of golf with him, then at 3:30 pm, June 9th, 2010, my doctor dropped a death sentence on me.
His sentence was, “This is not a death sentence.” Read More…
Before the funeral, he is curled up in a little ball on his daughter’s bed. Outside, Saturday happens. Lawnmowers whine, trucks bang by; his subdivision is subdivided.
Nothing stops The Spiritual Wanderer, as Rodney Curtis is known to readers far and wide from the title of his first humorous book about the many quirky challenges of life in America. Then, suddenly his life went from quirky to terrifying as he was hit with a double whammy: a layoff notice and a diagnosis of cancer. Many would have folded under the pressure, but Rodney’s approach to life remains undimmed. As he says in his introduction, he keeps laughing in the face of fear.
The shocking L-words struck like hammers: “Laid off,” then, “Leukemia.” Like millions of Americans, Rodney Curtis feared for his life and his family. But what that deadly acute leukemia didn’t know was: It was dealing with the Spiritual Wanderer, the columnist who is famous for finding humor and wisdom in daily life. Rodney started by renaming his foe: “A Cute Leukemia.” He explains, “Nothing makes cancer madder than belittling it and pinching its darling baby cheeks.” If you’d like to try chuckling in the face of your fears, join Rodney on his quest to recover both humor and health.
Who is the Spiritual Wanderer? He’s an ordinary person like you and me. When he crawls out of bed each morning, he needs to find a cup of frozen coffee before he can contemplate searching for spiritual answers in the cosmos. As his day unfolds, Rodney Curtis looks everywhere for meaning and hope–and always for humor. He wanders through the lives of people around him, through the streets with his beloved dogs and even searches for spiritual guidance in the lights high above us, although that winking glow up there sometimes turns out to be a streetlight. In these 40 short adventures with the Wanderer, you’ll likely find yourself standing very close to your own home.
