May 27 — Brother let me be your shelter

Andrew Collins
Nov 5 · 1 min read

I sat on the hill behind the baseball field at lower Maple Leaf Park talking to Timmy. For the first time in years I held genuine curiosity about his life, the breakup of his engagement, his experience of our family. We hadn’t talked like this in a long time.

Actually, I don’t think we’d ever talked like this. This was real shit. This was dredging up the patterns of distance and passivity that our father modeled for us. This was our fear of sinning that kept us from showing a woman affection or knowing how to pursue her.

I watched a local little league game as we talked. Our little league days seemed so far away, so distant. We were no longer the shy, homeschooled boys that we were. We were becoming men, slowly but surely, at the tragic cost of two marriages.

Andrew Collins

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Lumberjack by day. Editor of Grassroots Pulse on the side. Writer and Jesus-follower at all times. If things were simple, word would have gotten around.