{ } I realised as if for the first time, the menace of these queer shaven men in lace and petticoats who had been intoning, responding, and going through ritual gestures at me. I realised something dreadful about them. They were thrusting an incredib...
Skylar: Do you have lots of brothers and sisters? Will: I'm Irish Catholic, what do you think? Skylar: But how many? Will: You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Skylar: Why? Go on, what, 5? 7? 8? How many? Will: I have 12 big brothers. Skylar: You d...
The Anselmian call for "faith seeking understanding" may start and gather its energy not in rational study of past theological points but in the pursuit to make sense of our concrete and lived experiences of Jesus who finds us in a hole, knocks us fr...
A lifetime spent in the study of the history of societies since the dawn of mankind presumably inclined him to skepticism and misgivings in regard to any great scheme, religious or political, that set out to create universal happiness in one fell swo...
You just have too little faith, Estella...in yourself and in God. Don't assume that because He didn't give you one thing you wanted, He isn't ready to give you something else you might want more. He knows our desires better than we do, after all.
I believe in the inevitability of miracles. I believe it because I've come in contact with this reality many times. When childlike faith is combined with love and an unfailingly positive attitude, miracles are inevitable.
We treat our stone wives with much more care than they treat their warm ones, anyway. I personally dust mine once a week, and I know Khaamil gives them presents when I am not looking. These are yours - they are in your care, and you must be faithful.
It can be coins or sports or politics or horses or music or faith... the saddest people I've ever met in life are the ones who don't care deeply about anything at all. Passion and satisfaction go hand in hand, and without them, any happiness is only ...
From my own personal experience I have consistently witness self-proclaimed Christians, get angry over insignificant issues, be unforgiving, and judgmental all while never looking in the mirror and proclaiming to the world their love for the lord. If...
Surely--But I am very off from that. From surely. From indeed. From the decent arrow that was my clean naivete and my faith. This morning, men deliver wounds and death. They will deliver death and wounds tomorrow. And I doubt all. You. Or a violet.
Time and again I hear how important the darker environment is to those at our vintage-faith worship gathering. Attenders feel they can freely pray in a corner by themselves without feeling that everyone is staring at them.
[The Lord's Supper teaches that] Rituals are good, and they are instituted and used by God to 'connect' his people with him. We learn through ritual that the church is not just made up of individuals, but is a corporate body. It is not just about per...
My practice as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel or devil is going to interfere with its course; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have achieved in my professio...
When you have come to the edge of all that you know and are about to drop off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things will happen,’ the Warmaster had told him. ‘And what are they?’ he had asked. ‘That there w...
When we really understand it, we will always find grace offensive. And that's exactly the way it should be. If we start to feel comfortable with grace, then we've lost what it really means.
Optimistic people bring a sense of hope into world. Encouraging people bring a new meaning to life. They help you see past the clouds on a glooming day. They bring sunlight everyday
I do know the sorrow of being ordinary, and that much of our life is spent doing the crazy mental arithmetic of how, at any given moment, we might improve, or at least disguise or present our defects and screw-ups in either more charming or more inti...
Our images of God matter. Just as how we conceptualize God affects what we think the Christian life is about, so do our images of God.
I suppose the best way to tell the story is simply to narrate it, without an effort to carry belief. The thing did not require belief. It was not a feeling of horror in one's bones, or a misty outline, or anything that needed to be given actuality by...
There is no logical reason to believe in God. There are emotional reasons, certainly, but I cannot have faith that nothing is something simply because it would be reassuring. I can no more believe in God than I can believe an invisible monkey lives i...
Gratitude pours forth continually, as if the unexpected had just happened—the gratitude of a convalescent—for convalescence was unexpected…. The rejoicing of strength that is returning, of a reawakened faith in a tomorrow and the day after tomo...
