Confessions of a Contemplative Crossing Guard

Book excerpt: This book is intended to help manage the messiness of adulthood. Serving as a crossing guard at a local elementary school, the author found himself moved and inspired by the experiences and encounters that greeted him each and every day. This book is a record of his reflections on those moments and how they led him to a deeper understanding of the concise ambiguity of what it means to be an adult. He watched his charges and wondered not “Why did the chicken cross the road?” but, rather, “What are all these chickens going to do once they get there?” Life is an effort to “cross the road,” and we do so every day. Now that we are there, what, and how, are we going to do so that our lives are “more than long”? Using especially his experience as a pulpit rabbi for over four decades, the author offers answers to those questions that can help everyone put one foot in front of the other and move forward confidently—once the crossing guard says that it is okay to go!