David

About the Book

GOD, GIVE ME THE STRENGTH TO WRITE. IT IS POWERFUL. IT IS TRUE. SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, WILL LISTEN.

I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. I followed a path that always seemed clear, but that in reality was unseen. The path led me here...and now I must stray. Remain until my judgment. My body can travel on, and I can still laugh, but I cannot clear the dust from my feet. I may regret, but cannot repay in this life. If I still live, someday I will try. All that I now can do is write, write in agony for all who travel this way. They will not heed, but at least they will know where they are when they reach these flat lands. You see, there are no more hills to hide behind. I have flattened them all.

Danny is dead - who is speaking?

About a boy, written by himself and seen in the writing.

So wrote eighteen-year-old David Schwimmer in the waning months of his life. And all during his seventeen years David also brilliantly recorded - in his journals, poems, and stories - his agonizing struggles with his soul over his psychological and sexual dilemmas.

Through his journals, we also see David strive to become a writer, a long distance runner, an outdoorsman and a friend. We are with him as he begins to experience his sexuality an we watch his spirituality flower beside it. We observe him wrestling with personal relationships in high school and college, see his efforts to question and direct his body, mind, and spirit, carefully nurturing his own conception of himself, while attempting to deal with his inner problems. We watch him work at practicing unconditional love.

This record of David's inner life has been compiled and edited by David' s father, George Schwimmer, Ph. D. It is a ritual journey through the mind and soul of David, in which David tries to search out who he is and why he is on Earth. This is the fundamental search that all human beings undertake during their life, to discover who they really are. Everyone who has read David's journals describes David's writing as deeply moving, touching all who experience it.

About the Author

David Schwimmer was educated at Kings Hospital School in Ireland, at Broughton High School in Raleigh, NC, and at Duke University.

He was first in his class when he left Kings Hospital and in his first year was awarded the school's annual Bible scholarship prize. At Broughton, he was elected to the National Honor Society in his junior year and also won the state Latin competition and its college scholarship that year. At Duke University he was elected to the national freshman honor society, Phi Eta Sigma.

In Ireland, he learned to ride and jump horses; He also ran track and cross-country at Kings Hospital - and atBroughton, where as a senior he was voted most valuable player of the cross-country team. At Duke he was actively involved with Project WILD, a demanding outdoor program. He was also interested in sailing, and was lost at sea in a storm while kayaking with a group of students in Mexico's Sea of Cortez, off Baja California.

In addition to keeping personal journals for seven years, David wrote poetry, part of a children's book and had written a chunk of an autobiographical novel. He had a delightful sense of humor, loved to tease family and friends, and was very fond of animals and nature, heading for the woods or the sea whenever he could. He had a wonderful love of God.