The Northwestern Carpathians, in which I was raised, were a hard place, as unforgiving as the people who lived there, but the Alpine landscape into which Zlee and I were sent that early winter seemed a glimpse of what the surface of the earth looked ...
What I have learned from the year past is something about miracles--miracles of healing and answered prayer and unexpected happy endings. Each came quietly and simply, on tiptoe, so that I hardly knew it had occurred. All this makes me realize that m...
I'm going to go out on a limb here. I've thought a lot about this one, as a feminist, and as an author. How traditional roles be portrayed? In fantasy literature there is a school of thought that holds that women must be treated precisely like men. O...
As a first-generation Ethiopian immigrant, Sheba had lived in Charleston since she turned five years of age. She was Ethiopian by birth, but American by preference. She had worked hard, studied and sacrificed plenty to get where she was today, no eas...
...and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and ...
You want to cry aloud for your mistakes. But to tell the truth the world doesn’t need anymore of that sound. So if you’re going to do it and can’t stop yourself, if your pretty mouth can’t hold it in, at least go by yourself across the forty ...
I am Kian.” “Mercy ” she replied. Swallowing hard she forced her gaze away from him. She was being too bold in her perusal but she could not stop looking at him. “Kindness ” he whispered. Their eyes locked and Mercy felt a jolt of some fore...
So what I want to know is why it is that I can no longer find you, in my mind. You are still there, just, but you are there like a ghost, a will o' the wisp. Not long ago you burned--your heart burned--in my mind like silver fire. But after that nigh...
Why do you do that?” Torrin’s voice echoes in the empty hall. His hand is holding my arm gently, not at all like Derek does. I can’t have this. I can’t. I shouldn’t have ever come here with him. I draw in a shaky breath and pull my arm away...
I know it’s hard when other children are called home but we can find purpose and good in all things when we can see things from the Lord’s perspective. There is goodness to be found and lives are still touched and changed for the good when little...
Death is a personal matter, arousing sorrow, despair, fervor, or dry-hearted philosophy. Funerals, on the other hand, are social functions. Imagine going to a funeral without first polishing the automobile. Imagine standing at a graveside not dressed...
The best I can say, it's like this. A man's in his skin, see, like a nut in its shell ... It's hard and strong, that shell, and it's all full of him. Full of grand man-meat, man-self. And that's all. That's all there is. A woman's a different thing e...
A tailwind, on the other hand, is one of the most beautiful experiences you can have on a bike. There’s no wind in my ears, so I hear everything around me. The chain purrs sweetly as it pulls the gears under the coaxing of my legs. The soft hiss of...
Her face crumpled and he felt her pain as if it was his own. He wanted to take it back, but just like that memory, it was always going to be there. She worked to get control over her features, then said, “I’m sorry I didn’t defend you. I’m so...
Her face crumpled and he felt her pain as if it were his own. He wanted to take it back, but just like that memory, it was always going to be there. She worked to get control over her features, then said, “I’m sorry I didn’t defend you. I’m s...
Jack was too absorbed in his work to hear the bell. He was mesmerized by the challenge of making soft, round shapes of hard rock. The stone had a will of its own, and if he tried to make it do something it did not want to do, it would fight him, and ...
There exits within the ecclesia and among its citizens a phenomena I refer to as 'Spiritual Correctness'. Essentially it says: 'Don't say anything that could offend anyone, focus on what is right with the 'church' and its leadership, don't be critica...
How hard it is, to be forced to the conclusion that people should be, nine tenths of the time, left alone! - When there is that in me that longs for absolute commitment. One of the poem-ideas I had was that one could respect only the people who knew ...
But in any case, validity, offender self-reports have dubious validity, especially when the offender's self-interest is at stake. The only rule for deception in sex offenders I have ever found is this: If it is in the offender's best interests to lie...
I mean it,' he said. 'I love your nose.' Love. He'd said it. Though only for her nose ... Her eyes grew larger, wider behind her eyeglasses. She looked afraid, yet full of hope. She was dying to believe him about something she couldn't see in herself...
Do you know, it's really hard to be a parent. I blame it on Santa Claus. You spend so long making sure your kid doesn't know he's fake that you can't tell when you're supposed to stop." "Mom, I found you and Calla wrapping my presents when I was, lik...
