Time. So much of our human experience is bound up in time, I muse. It reflects in our everyday colloquialisms, and drives so much of our activities. Yet this obsession with the passing of the hours is a relatively modern phenomenon; an inevitable pro...
It is best if the guard is in love with America and wants to overawe the American by being a premium guard. This kind of guard thinks that he will encounter the American again one day in America, and that the American will offer to take him to a Chic...
I have tutored Little Igor to be a man of this world. For example, I exhibited him a smutty magazine three days yore, so that he should be appraised of the many positions in which I am carnal. 'This is sixty-nine,' I told him, presenting the magazine...
If the moderns really want a simple religion of love, they must look for it in the Athanasian Creed. The truth is that the trumpet of true Christianity, the challenge of the charities and simplicities of Bethlehem or Christmas Day never rang out more...
The warden always seems to know which book to bring. When the sun is gunslinger blue, the warden brings a western. When rain slates against the towers and the world has gone hopeless with gray, it is Bible stories. When the halls ring with the cries ...
My darling, I'm waiting for you — how long is a day in the dark, or a week? The fire is gone now, and I'm horribly cold. I really ought to drag myself outside but then there would be the sun. . . I'm afraid I waste the light on the paintings and on...
In the irresistible logic of guilt, one evil leads to another, one sin is developed out of another. There is nothing abrupt, nothing casual in the process. The road to sin is smooth, because an army of transgressions has passed over it. When such a d...
Let me tell you something you haven’t learned yet, something you learn only by living awhile. As you get older, you find that life begins to wear you down. Doesn’t matter who you are or what you do, it happens. Experience, time, events—they all...
A pastor struggled for years with sexual addiction, eventually becoming so despondent that hospitalized himself. He joined an inpatient group and was mostly silent as others shared. When he decided not to come one day, the leader found he had fallen ...
Meditation is one of the most serious things; you do it all day, in the office, with the family, when you say to somebody "I love you", when you are considering your children, when you educate them to become soldiers, to kill, to be nationalized, wor...
But we [women] are only at the beginning [of revamping feminism]. And our strictures on each other prove this. Our enforcement of thinness, of non-sexuality, of 'good' feminism versus 'bad' feminism, are proofs of our being at the beginning, not the ...
Belikov is a sick, evil man who should be thrown into a pit of rabid vipers for the great offense he commited against you this morning." "Thank you." I said primly. Then, I considered. "Can vipers be rabid?" "I don't see why not. Everything can be. I...
I was just as black as I had been the day that I was born. Therefore, when I faced a congregation, it began to take all the strength I had not to stammer, not to curse, not to tell them to throw away their Bibles and get off their knees and go home a...
Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all th...
Why does there appear to be so little magic in the world these days? It is because people have stopped believing in it or lose touch with it as they grow up. It is because we have become so sophisticated and lost our ancient and natural roots. It is ...
I just want to tell you: the only good thing in these days is that I still believe there’s something good behind all these things. I don’t know what that good thing is but the idea of it keeps me smile. Stories will be finished. Money has its way...
Are we running away from home?” I asked, giving voice to the question that had been on my mind for two days, ever since the lady at the Wok On restaurant asked where we were from and my mother lied. My mother had laughed. I couldn’t see her face,...
I think maybe, when I was very young, I witnessed a chaste cheek kiss between the two when it was impossible to avoid. Christmas, birthdays. Dry lips. On their best married days, their communications were entirely transactional: 'We're out of milk ag...
There are no guarantees that if we keep the Sabbath we will be successful. But honouring the Sabbath (and not overworking the other six days) will give us an opportunity to grow in our trust of God and experience his faithfulness. If we take time to ...
I wanted to know what had created the chasm in his spirit. Maybe it was a broken heart. Or maybe it had always been there, like mine. Because really, I could blame my existential sadness on a lot of issues, but the truth is, it’s been a part of me ...
If you listen to your body and your intuition, they’ll guide you well. There are countless ways to develop listening skills. Some helpful and classic practices include: dancing and drumming, sitting and walking meditations, t’ai chi or chi kung, ...
