A Father Who Trusts in the Lord

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,

whose confidence is in Him.

(Jeremiah 17:7)

"But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,

     whose confidence is in him.

They will be like a tree planted by the water

     that sends out its roots by the stream'

It does not fear when heat comes;

     its leaves are always green.

It has no worries in a year of drought

     and never fails to bear fruit."

(The Bible, New International Version: Jeremiah 17:7-8)

Competition: Runners

THE RUNNER

On a flat road runs the well-train'd runner,

He is lean and sinewy with muscular legs;

He is thinly clothed; he leans forward as he runs;

With lightly closed fists and arms partially rais'd.

Walt Whitman

I can be precise about the day it began. It was December 10, 1974. That was the day I met Billy Sive, and he asked me to coach him.

So begins Patricia Nell Warren's novel The Front Runner (1974), a landmark classic novel that is the most celebrated gay love story of all time. As the back cover of Wildcat Press's 20th Anniversary Edition of that novel says, "Harlan Brown is a tough, conservative track coach -- hiding from his past at a small college. Billy Sive is a brilliant young runner who is homosexual -- and doesn't mind who knows it. When they fall in love, they will enter a race against hate and prejudice that takes them to the '76 Olympics and a shocking, shattering conclusion." To read more about the novel The Front Runner, click here.