Twenty years ago, more or less, I was invited to join some other writers who were touring the Appalachian Mountains, visiting colleges and giving readings. Jeff and Reid, then age three, came along. This was a fun group. They joked and talked about their work and formed a loose camaraderie with just about everyone. “Just about” is the operative phrase.

As the days unfolded, I became aware that a poet and essayist from Oregon named Kim Stafford kept abandoning the central group and making a point to talk to those on the fringes,

It’s happened again: I’ve fallen in love, head over heels. I haven’t done this for a while, years actually. But this time it’s a doozy.

As usual, the object of my affection is a book. This one is titled, quite appropriately, Tattoos on the Heart. It’s a quote from a gang member in Los Angeles who was struggling to quit his life of violence. Father Gregory Boyle, the Jesuit priest who founded Homeboy Industries, was telling the young man that in trying to leave his gang, he was acting with far more courage than he’d ever shown shooting at enemies in his hood. The homie looked at Boyle and replied, “Damn, G. . . . I’m gonna tattoo that on my heart.”

Poverty and environmental destruction have many things in common, including this: They’re frequently hidden in plain sight.

 I thought about this last month, when I wrote about Latino neighborhoods in my blog Finding Your Way, and on a recent drive through West Virginia, when I saw a series of high, utterly flat ridges. Nature didn’t create perfect table tops in West Virginia. The mountain peaks that used to sit on top of them were blasted away by coal companies.

Suffering through a tragedy will change you in ways you can scarcely imagine. It’s often a matter of choice as to whether those changes will be positive or negative. Not always, but often.

 I’ve been thinking about this a lot since I heard a radio clip about a woman named Karen Robards, whose son David was born with Down Syndrome. That would be a blow to any parent, and Karen and her husband, Tom, were devastated. In time, though, they founded a special education center near their home in New York City. The center has helped hundreds of students and their families. Karen considers her experiences with children at the center and with her own son to have been an incredible journey.

At a recent Seva talk in Delaware, an audience member asked the trickiest of questions: How can people get involved in the type of service that will do the most good—while bringing meaning to their lives? There are a thousand roads into service. But each of us is suited only for certain roles.

This is a tough issue, and I wasn’t prepared to address it. I don’t remember much about the answer I gave, except that it wasn’t very good. I stood in front of 75 people feeling a little naked—you know, exposed as the dummy that I really am. I did manage to say that, having finished my book, I’m wrestling with the same dilemma: What should I do now?