What I Learned When I Was Ten: Lessons that Shaped My Life and Faith
"I read somewhere that for most people the tenth year of life is the most important. It shapes, perhaps even controls, much of what follows....My tenth year is a long one. It began in August 1932 when I was still nine, and concluded in February 1934 just as I reached eleven. Everything that has happened to me in the more than sixty years since then is a product of those eighteen months....Our food was unimaginably simple, our clothing so limited that some of our bedrooms had no closet....And of course we lived very close to poverty and pain; our elders didn't try to shelter us from such realities. But we had a surprising sense of dignity and self respect, and we believed that virtue had its own rewards, and we intended to pursue those virtues. And even in the least religious homes there was likely to be a wall hanging with a Scripture verse, or a reminder of God: 'Christ is the head of this house; the guest at every meal; the unseen listener to every conversation.