I've never been much of a religious man. I know I don't seem it, anyway. My hands are rough. My body lingers in the empty, old house, not in the tall steeple among the heavens or the barren earth and the hells.

My family were farmers. They harvested, and when they didn't, they played cards at the dinner table and slept heavy nights. The dark was always darker and the night always deeper. But the days, my god the days, they were bright and mean like you can't believe.

I've worked my whole life. I was so young I could barely wrap my hands around the levers I was pulling, or reach the pedals I was pushing. But I can still feel the work, the tough, wreck your head, break your body kind of work. Carrying, lifting, burying, digging, dirt-under-your-finger-nails kind of work. It made my hands rough. It made me tired. But my father, he never tired. He never fought shy of the heavens and the hells. His spirit rejoices in the tall steeple, and he laughs when I try in vain to learn from the preacher these many Sunday mornings.