Presenting the gospels rhythmically took me four years to complete and it was for me more than an academic exercise. The task brought the life of Jesus and the relevance of his message closer to me. It became, as much as anything else, a way of staunching the wound of a personal tragedy.

My wife, Pat, lived with dementia during the latter part of her life. During this period, and after she died in 2014, I turned to the only place of comfort I knew: my faith. It was this faith that she re-enforced, daily, by the way she lived during sixty-two wonderful years of our happy marriage.