A Tempest in My Soul

A baptist minister in a small Southern town learns acceptance and leans on his faith after his gay son dies of AIDS:

“In the meantime, word spread from the AIDS outreach organizations across the Chattanooga area that a minister’s son had caught the virus, and the Nevelses were asked to speak at an evening service at First Baptist in the Golden Gateway. It was considered a watershed moment, because few parents were willing to talk about the infection at the time.

“It would be Matt’s first plea with a church to alter its thinking.

“‘All have sinned,’ he said.

“‘We have got to quit trying to play God.'”

Published: Jun 24, 2012
Length: 17 minutes (4,499 words)

A Burden So Great

Police know him. They’ve arrested him 160 times on paper, and countless times without documents, after his binges. He is a nuisance who owes the county nearly $30,000 in court fines and has paid nothing more than $1,000 toward the bill since he started getting locked up for public intoxication in 1993 as an unemployed 28-year-old. And so it comes to this day, when the judge and the district attorney and the public defender want to know why Darryl is still plaguing East Ridge, and why, at 45, he keeps flirting with a roadside death, and does it again and again and again. Darryl, his mother and sister are called to the defendant stand.

Published: Jun 12, 2011
Length: 13 minutes (3,487 words)