The conventional term is "mystical experience," meaning something that by its very nature lies beyond the reach of language, except for some vague verbal hand-wavings about "mystery" and "transcendence." As far as I was concerned - as a rationalist, ...
The river was glossy, narrow, and quick, a beautiful green color, with the white and maroon striped college punts strung along the near bank. .... The sun, westering, heavy, and hazy, was in those great final throes of energy before the sky whitens a...
You hear stories like that all your life and think: cool, a ghost bus. But now we have to look at this stuff analytically... a The “ghost” of a A public conveyance, presumably, which didn't head towards the light, move on to join the choir invisi...
The Christmas after Mom & Dad split up, they both went crazy buying us presents. Matt, Jonny, and I were showered with gifts at home and at Dads apartment. I thought that was great. I was all in favor of my love being paid for with presents. This yea...
And Clifford the same. All that talk! All that writing! All that wild struggling to push himself forwards! It was just insanity. And it was getting worse, really maniacal. Connie felt washed-out with fear. But at least, Clifford was shifting his grip...
These Americans believed that one great male god ruled the world. Sometimes they divided him into three parts, which they called father, son, and holy ghost. They ate crackers and wine or grape juice, believing that they were eating the son's body an...
What about Danny Thomas?" Uncle Hal asks. "What happened to him? "Dead," Uncle Abdelhafiz says. "Nice Lebanese boy." "Never mind about Danny Thomas, look what happened to your whole family! Look at your cousin Farouq, Great Uncle Ziad, Auntie Seena a...
He was Antinous, wild. You would have said, seeing the thoughtful reflection of his eye, that he had already, in some preceding existence, been through the revolutionary apocalypse. He knew its tradition like an eyewitness. He knew every little detai...
Percy," Apollo said, "I wouldn't worry too much. The last Great Prophecy about took almost seventy years to complete. This one may not even happen in your lifetime." I thought about the lines Rachel had spoken in that creepy voice: about storm and fi...
The most important moments in a trial are often not seen by a jury. That is because it's one of the judge's main responsibilities to screen what they see and hear, lest they be prejudiced. It's the "you can't unring a bell" theory; once the jury hear...
Music had always had the ability to help ease my suffering. I sang a great deal at home. I sang to myself and to Lord Imery. Sometimes, I played the harp to accompany myself. Learning such a graceful instrument had filled my heart with pride. I loved...
He stared at me for several heavy seconds and then laughed—though there wasn't much humor in it. "You know what's great? You'reserious. Look at your face." He gestured, as though I actually could examine myself. "You really think it's that easy, th...
But is it an honest living?" Alec persisted, clinging to his last shred of resolve. "Most of those who employ me are great lords or nobles." "It sounds like a pretty dangerous line of work," Alec remarked, aware that once again Seregil had side-stepp...
Do you know how a pearl comes to be?" "Oysters make them, from a bit of sand." "Aiyah. From a bit of sand." He rolled the pearl between his fingers. "All pearls begin as something unpleasant that the oysters cannot expel from themselves, even though ...
Truly powerful people have great humility. They do not try to impress, they do not try to be influential. They simply are. People are magnetically drawn to them. They are most often very silent and focused, aware of their core selves. ... They never ...
I believe that at the center of the universe there dwells a loving spirit who longs for all that’s best in all of creation, a spirit who knows the great potential of each planet as well as each person, and little by little will love us into being m...
Definition of a Sufi To learn, people must give up a great deal, and this includes ritual as something from which they imagine they might learn. It is to emphasise this that Abu-Yaqub al-Susi, quoted in Kalabadhi's Taaruf, states that the Sufi is 'On...
I believe that Gaston Cleric narrowly missed being a great poet, and I have sometimes thought that his outbursts of imaginative talk were fatal to his poetic gift. He squandered too much in the heat of personal communication. How often have I seen hi...
How could poetry and literature have arisen from something as plebian as the cuneiform equivalent of grocery-store bar codes? I prefer the version in which Prometheus brought writing to man from the gods. But then I remind myself that…we should not...
Wait,” he said, pulling me to a stop when I tried to march off toward my destiny. “Is there something you want to tell me?” I looked at him, trying to think of anything I’d done recently that I needed to admit to. When nothing came to mind ot...
Really great moral teachers never do introduce new moralities: it is quacks and cranks who do that.... The real job of every moral teacher is to keep on bringing us back, time after time, to the old simple principles which we are all so anxious not t...
