David A. Phillips

Often on a particularly stressful day, I will make the intentional decision to visit a nursing home or the home of one of our church's shutins. Whatever is wrong keeps me from concentrating on sermon preparation or background reading, so I go and try to do some small, good thing. It works every time: I spend an hour listening to the stories that folks want to recall and share. Some are happy stories from the past, others an acknowledgement of…