This Monday, R.A. Dickey received an honorary doctorate of Sacred Letters from the University of Toronto's Wycliffe College (Anglican). The Blue Jays knuckleballer shared how his faith helped him get through very difficult parts of his life in a convocation speech to the 2013 graduating class. Dr. Dickey spoke about how he felt the Holy Spirit interrupt his suicide attempt, being one of the few Believers in the clubhouse, and his recent trip to Mumbai.
UPDATE
For some reason Wycliffe College has decided to take down its Youtube video to replace it with this full-length video from Sportsnet.ca:
The full text to Dickey's speech can be found here, via Wycliffe College.
"Within the framework and the culture of baseball, to live a Christian life is not always easy. [...] For 112 games I'm away from home, away from my family. It's a very dysfunctional lifestyle and a it's a real challenge to live a life that would glorify God in the sense that I'm called to be a father to my children."
"To be able to sit with another human being in their sorrow and in their grief is an incredible thing, to have a capacity to do that. It takes practice and it takes prayer and it takes takes you inviting other people to sit with you in your grief. Because ultimately at the end of the day, that's what transforms. [...] Even in the culture of my clubhouse. There are a lot of people with broken pasts, just like my own."