I apologize that, during a week when everyone appropriately dropped all labels and no one was seen as liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, religious or secular, I singled out for blame certain groups of Americans," Mr. Falwell said in the statement. He said his remarks were "insensitive, uncalled for at the time and unnecessary.

Article can also be seen on NYTimes.com

I dreamed I was an undergraduate again, walking around my old college town in the wee hours of the morning - the small town was quiet, daylight was soon to break. Near campus was an old rooming house which I imagined I had occupied rooms the semester before but lived there no longer.

I approached the house and noticed that the door was ajar - and a cat was sitting on the threshold looking at me. Seeing me approach, it rose off its haunches and turned into my old rooms. I followed it inside, knowing that surely someone else lived inside now, that I was entering while the rest of the house was asleep, with only this strange feline invitation to justify my being there.

And so I stood in my former front room looking toward the open door to the bedroom. The cat scuttled through the open doorway to the bedroom. I followed it quietly - knowing the new inhabitant surely was sleeping just inside. This felt conscioulsy dangerous to me but I entered regardless, with a careful stillness.

I stood away from the bed in the edgy shadows of the dim room, near the window. I saw someone sleeping there completely covered with a patchwork quilt.

I was thrilled, terrified and very aware that I had crossed a line of criminal voyeurism. I had no justifiable reason for being in this unknown person's room. I decided to exit as quietly as I had entered. The cat was weaving around my legs - I bent to pick it up and carry it out with me when there was an explosion of sound in the corner of room beside the bed.

My God - it was the sleeper’s alarm clock sounding with a racket. I backed toward the far wall as I watched a lithe boy approximately my own age leap from the bed to quickly switch off the alarm and pull on some jogging pants lying nearby. Then he saw me standing there.

But he didn't just see me - he saw into me, for lack of a better description. Our eyes were locked together and were frozen there in each other’s gaze. It was like looking into the eyes of a lover - yet there was this unspoken history that neither of us knew each other "in real life." We had never met before, never seen each other before.

I was lost in those pale blue eyes peeking out from beneath a tousled shock of dishwater blonde hair.

He spoke to me - though not breaking our eye contact for a moment. He had no suspicion or hint of anger in his eyes, or his voice when he spoke.

After what seemed an eternity he asked me simply, "What are you doing here?" and finally broke our gaze when he saw the cat in my arms.

He knelt down onto the bed, onto the crumpled quilt. I let the cat jump from my arms and I sank onto the nearest corner of the bed - and our eyes locked onto each other's again.

You might think this dream is taking a certain turn - I can say that there was a strong degree of electricity between us. But that was not the point - we both knew that.

What was important in this encounter, was that we knew each other's mind. I knew without knowing that this boy had no guile in his body and was completely earnest and kind in every way and that I was welcome in his life despite our unorthodox circumstances of our meeting.