If you pray. His physical torments are hard to fathom; his spirits and ability to write unchanged. I haven't seen him in a long while, and he is now still in Houston undergoing the effects of brutal chemo, as his luminescent piece in the latest VF reveals. I don't know why, but he is suddenly in my mind and soul constantly these days, and the kindness of a returned email even now takes me aback, given where he is.
He is the greatest advertisement for the existential courage of the atheist I have ever known. And I say that not just from his writing, but from two and a half decades of debate and discussion with him in person. I don't know what else to say: but pray for or think of him today, if you will. He is worthy of a particularly intense form of love.
The Dish 