An oncology ward is a battlefield, and there are definite hierarchies of command. The patients, they're the ones doing the tour of duty. The doctors breeze in and out like conquering heroes, but they need to read your child's chart to remember where ...
He greeted me in his usual attire - pajama pants. "Hey stranger!" he said, hugging me for a few long seconds. "I've already set up the board. Can I get you some rose" I nodded, overwhelmingly relieved to be with another human being - even if he was r...
Perhaps swimming was dancing under the water, he thought. To swim under lily pads seeing their green slender stalks wavering as you passed, to swim under upraised logs past schools of sunfish and bluegills, to swim through reed beds past wriggling wa...
Claire started to unbutton her blouse and looked over her shoulder at Sam, who tried to discreetly sneak a peek at her. She reached down to the bed and picked up the nightshirt the hotel staff provided, per Lacy's request, an extra-large white cotton...
The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the whole moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook on life. That I feed the hungry, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ -- all these are undoubtedly great virtues. W...
Together we learned why God has given us His name as "I AM" (Exodus 3:14). His grace always proved itself sufficient in the moment of need, but never before the necessary time, and rarely afterwards. As I anticipated suffering in my imagination and t...
A dying man asked a dying man for eternal life; a man without possessions asked a poor man for a Kingdom; a thief at the door of death asked to die like a thief and steal Paradise. One would have thought a saint would have been the first soul purchas...
No I am not okay. I've just been pulled out of play tryouts where I had to be the first to audition and everyone's trying out for the same parts, I just had a very bizarre conversation with the school secretary, Megan may be throwing up her cucumber ...
When I first met Cara, she was twelve and angry at the world. Her parents had split up, her brother was gone, and her mom was infatuated with some guy who was missing vowels in his unpronounceable last name. So I did what any other man in that situat...
Progress is hardly ever dramatic; in fact, it is usually very slow. As every parent and teacher knows, education is never a matter of ten-step plans or quick formulas, but of faithful commitment to the mundane challenges of daily life: getting up fro...
Carmack was of the moment. His ruling force was focus. Time existed for him not in some promising future or sentimental past but in the present condition, the intricate web ol problems and solutions, imagination and code. He kept nothing from the pas...
Once upon a time there was a mother who, in order to become a mother, had agreed to change her name; who set herself the task of falling in love with her husband bit-by-bit, but who could n ever manage to love one part, the part, curiously enough, wh...
Hello, Miya.” His smooth tone speaking my name made a warm sensation tingle across the surface of my body. A hundred questions ran through my head, wanting to be spoken. How do they know who I am? Who are they? What do they want with me? I was a si...
There are times...when we are in the midst of life-moments of confrontation with birth or death, or moments of beauty when nature or love is fully revealed, or moments of terrible loneliness-times when a holy and awesome awareness comes upon us. It m...
When he returned, Edith was in bed with the covers pulled to her chin, her face turned upward, her eyes closed, a thin frown creasing her forehead. Silently, as if she were asleep, Stoner undressed and got into bed beside her. For several moments he ...
I ground my teeth. "Just when I thought I was getting a handle on this whole Dark One/demon lord/imp thing, you go and throw knockers into the mix. I'm going to have to request that you stop, Adrian. I'm about at my limit of how many impossible thing...
I feel that there is much to be said for the Celtic belief that the souls of those whom we have lost are held captive in some inferior being, in an animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object, and thus effectively lost to us until the day (which to ...
We are accustomed to think of ourselves as a great democratic body, linked by common ties of blood and language, united indissolubly by all the modes of communication which the ingenuity of man can possibly devise; we wear the same clothes, eat the s...
He whistles. Que viva Colombia. Hands you back the Book. You really should write the cheater's guide to love. You think? I do. It takes a while. You see the tall girl. You go to more doctors. You celebrate Arlenny's Ph.D defense. And then one June ni...
So how long have you been together? Two months?' 'Five.' 'Five? Jesus, Steve, you might as well get married. I should buy a hat.' 'Don't. They give away your Spock ears.' She laughed. 'This is the Romanian girl?' 'Croatian.' 'Right. She's a painter?'...
Beside me, Molly rolled her shoulders in a few jerky motions and pushed at her hair in fitful little gestures. She tugged at her well-tattered skirts, and grimaced at her boots. "Can you see if there’s any mud on them?" I paused to consider her for...
