When the police come asking about your mentor's past

I was 18, grieving at the loss of my mother and confused about the immediate future, when I met a remarkable man. He was fascinating, challenging, charismatic, thrilling, and intriguing. Around him was a community of young men and women. I was captured by his directness.

He said, “In a way it’s good your mother has died now. You’ve grown out of the shadow of a parent, but you haven’t yet developed a friendship as an adult. That means you’ve only got one grief, not two. It’s easier.” I’d never met anyone who said things like that with such pastoral wisdom, unsentimentality, confidence in his own judgment, and without fear of giving offense.

I moved into his house where many members of the community lived. Everyone slept on the floor as a practice of humility. We rose to pray at 6 a.m. each day—he rose much earlier.