Because we live truths worth telling.

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Dear Readers,

Over the past year or so, I have been quietly preoccupied with a simple question: Why do humans need to keep writing?

In a world where machines can put words in order for us, why do I feel in my bones that continuing to write is existentially important—not just for me (I’m a writer, after all) but for my children and yours and all our future descendants?

Over the coming weeks, I’m going to share several reflections related to this question, starting with this one: Humans need to keep writing because we live truths worth telling.

Our truths are not eternal or universal truths. They are not “The Truth.” They are more mundane than that. They are made of the things we see when we look around the world, the stories we live when we engage with one another in meaningful ways. They are truths we learn by living and relate by writing and telling.

What do I mean by “truths we learn by living and relate by writing and telling”?

When I was 12 years old, my family went Christmas caroling at a local nursing home in Northern Virginia, with a few dozen other people from our church. It was cold enough that night for me to wear my heavy pullover puffer coat, a hip look in 1983, and a fitting match for my feathered hair and the burgundy Super Bowl champions sweatshirt underneath.

Even as a pre-teen boy, I didn’t mind going out to sing carols. I have always been musical and have always loved singing, especially in a group. Truth be told, I don’t have the voice I wish I did, but I can mostly carry a tune.

What scared me was the nursing home.

More precisely, what scared me were the people inside the nursing home. People whose memories were failing. People who were frail and feeble. People whose skin looked sickly pale in the fluorescent light of the place.

It’s shameful to say this now. It was even more shameful to have felt it then. But it’s the truth. I was 12 years old, hale and hearty. I wasn’t afraid of ghosts or monsters or imaginary demons. I was afraid of people who were living close to death.

Notwithstanding my secret fear, the church group and my family were going. So I went, too, ensconced in my pullover puffy coat and determined to stay near the center of the pack of carolers, surrounded by warmth and comparative youth.

What I didn’t anticipate was my mother’s behavior.

Mom was our church’s pianist and also a public health nurse. She sang much better than I did. She also knew a lot more about sick people and old people. Also compassion.

In theory, I was well aware of this before we set foot in the nursing home. In practice, I was in for an awakening.

As we walked down the sparsely decked halls, Mom stepped forward to lead the singing. When others (not just me!) struggled to find their voices and enthusiasm, she sang louder and smiled brighter. 

Subtly but insistently, she stirred the spirits within us and amplified the chorus moving through us.

And the people responded. Both those of us who had come to sing and those we serenaded.

We were no Mormon Tabernacle Choir, mind you. Just a small group of local Baptists conveying what good cheer we could on a winter’s night. But the nursing home’s residents smiled and clapped. Some even sang along. One grabbed her walker and joined our procession.

The energy and good cheer swelled until we reached a room whose residents were almost entirely nonresponsive. 

Here, three men lay flat on their backs in hospital gowns and rolling beds. The room smelled like chemical disinfectant and worse.

Here, I could feel my secret fear crawl back across the skin beneath my sweatshirt. 

Here, we had paraded and sung our way into a place where the still and ancient darkness of death was nigh.

When we reached the end of “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” the group fell silent.

There was no place to go next. Nothing to say here, really.

Then my mother walked forward into the room, sat down beside one of the men, and took his hand in hers.

She didn’t sing. That would have been too much, I think. She just held his hand and sat, keeping him company for a moment.

It was someone else who restarted the singing. One of the men from our church choir, standing just a few feet behind me.

“God rest ye, merry gentlemen,” he began in a capable baritone.

“Let nothing you dismay,” a few startled sopranos joined in. 

“Remember Christ, our savior, was born on Christmas Day.” 

Spirits were stirring, and the chorus was building again.

I looked at my mother, holding the hand of a stranger near death, and I opened my mouth and sang.

“To save us all from Satan’s power when we had gone astray.”

I sang as clearly and as joyfully as I could, in my imperfect 12-year-old voice, from inside my pullover puffer coat. Because it was suddenly starkly apparent to me that this is what you do.

In fact, this is the least you can do—until you are brave enough and kind enough to be the one who holds the hand of the dying man yourself.

In the meantime, you stand and you sing. Shoulder to shoulder with the humble human chorus around you—the capable baritones, the startled sopranos, the trembling 12-year-olds, and all.

“Oh, tidings of comfort and joy—comfort and joy,” we sang. 

“Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.”

There’s nothing more to tell you about that night. 

We didn’t change the world or turn back the still and ancient darkness of death. 

We sang. We shared happiness and warmth on a cold night as best we could. And I saw my mother in a new light.

That’s all. 

And that’s all it takes to live a truth worth telling. 

That’s reason enough to keep writing forever.