There’s nothing that knocks me off my game like a pimple. And not just the shy kind that’s easily disguised but the brazen bump that arrives on a chin or a cheek and refuses to budge as if to say, “And you thought you were going places, love?” and “Let’s order-in tonight.”

A pimple, an illness, a blow-up, a death, they all come bearing the same sly news: “Your humanity is showing.”

My humanity decided to throw a pageant for itself at a retreat I once led for young clergy. Everything was amiss...