Bob David (BD): Bill, at age 84, you are about to retire as chaplain at Boston Medical Center. You’ve been there for 18½ years, which means you were around 65 when you came onboard. Can you give a rundown of your rich history and experience before then, which I understand was not without controversy? ...more

“Lift her up, Lord! Take that fluid from her body. I’m going to keep on praying to you day and night... Almighty God, make her well. Which will be a great testimony to you for all patients and doctors and nurses to see.” These were prayers of the sister of a 47-year-old black Baptist woman who was critically ill with cancer. ...more

In high school, I briefly dated a girl who liked me a lot but couldn’t stand that I was always late to meet her. Whether it was going out to dinner or a movie, I would always show up late and she would always get mad. One time we were supposed to meet at South Ferry to go the Statue of Liberty. I was late. She took the rest of the afternoon to plot her revenge. On some pretense she managed to get me to give her all my money, then she escaped on the subway leaving me at the very southern tip of Manhattan. I walked for a long time then snuck onto the subway at 34th Street. ...more

After our ceremonies a few of us
Crossed Puget Sound to MacNeill Island
To the grim fortress where the Brotherhood
Of American Indian prisoners had donated
To help our intertribal spiritual gathering.
I held my breath as the iron doors
Slid and clanked behind us, but
Through an open door down the hall
The pounding of a drum, lusty voices sang— ...more

HOME FROM IRAQ

In August 2009, Reverend Denis Como, S.J. returned to Boston from a 3-year assignment in Iraq. Born in Massachusetts in 1936, he came home for well-deserved R&R. He did not suffer any wounds, post-traumatic stress disorder, or physical or mental injury. When told that he had recently been in Iraq, people who just met Father Como would ask “Oh, were you there with our boys?” He would reply serenely, “No, I was there with their boys.” ...more

The poem below distills for me the year 2003, when I was diagnosed and treated for ovarian cancer. I was partway through chemotherapy when the inspiration for the poem arose. It took seconds to write.

I had joined a meditation group for patients at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. We were drumming and shaking tambourines and other instruments during one of the sessions. My heart was beating real fast. The boom boom boom was going right through me. With a passion I wanted to beat this cancer. ...more

Frank McGuire was a 51-year-old United Methodist minister dying of pancreatic cancer who wanted to share a message with others but was too weak to put his thoughts on paper. So I volunteered to write down what he wanted to say. We did not meet in the hospital, but in his home in Virginia, where I drove to see him. The year was 1991. A social worker as well as a minister, Frank and I were longtime close friends. We did street work together night after night during the summer of 1968, when thousands of so-called “hippies” flocked to the Boston Common. ...more

When I relocated my family in 1970 from our comfortable suburban home a few miles southeast of Trenton, NJ to the idyllic woodlands of Hunterdon County twenty-five miles north of Trenton, I thought I was doing the right thing: building a new, larger house on five acres of wooded land next to a shallow, rippling trout stream. ...more

[written from prison]

There are very few things
more pathetic
than watching a man
anticipating a visit
that never happens
the labors of sadness begin
when he doesn’t make first call ...more

Went several days last week without tears, then came upon Rosie’s straw hat hanging by the front door. What is it about hats?? Went a couple of days more and came upon a pair of socks she’d worn while in Mexico and rubbed them on my cheek. I light a candle for her at night—I forget sometimes and feel guilty. I feel ok sometimes and feel guilty about that. I know Rosie would think me foolish. ...more