Nudge

By JOHN BACKMAN

Somewhere around the sixth month in utero, our daughter started hooking her foot over my wife’s rib. Discomfort followed: soreness, restlessness, a reminder of new life. I do not have a uterus, but I do have a rib, and several times a small foot (or something like it) has hooked thereon. People use the word calling, but that’s so grandiose. So I call it a nudge. That’s how it feels. God—whoever that is, by whatever name—was nudging me toward something. This essay needs a warning label. WARNING: the nudge is slippery, even dangerous.

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