Too many people think that finding the reason God placed us here on earth will come in one assignment with a big title and complete job description. I believe that discovering our purpose will unfold slowly, like a seed planted deep in the ground.
He leans towards me for a kiss and our mouths fuse. I explode. I'm all over him, absorbing his warmth and the beat of his heart. It's like he knows my pain, and he's trying to erase it. It's like he's bringing me back to life with every brush of ou...
I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow, the million moving shapes and cul-de-sacs of shadow. There was shadow in bureau drawers and closets and suitcases, and shadow under houses and trees and stones, and shadow at the back of...
Listen, in dreams and especially in nightmares, from indigestion or anything, a man sees sometimes such artistic visions, such complex and real actuality, such events, even a whole world of events, woven into such a plot, with such unexpected details...
He was a priest. Never try to fuck a priest. Even if they're talking about leaving the priesthood. That should be a rule somewhere. A former priest, maybe. And even then I don't know. The thing is, your big competition is God. And if God wants your b...
The Creator has – I say it in all reverence - drawn a myriad red herrings across the track, but the true scientist refuses to be baffled by superficial appearances in detecting the secrets of Nature. The vulgar herd catches at the gross apparent fa...
I can't stand lies. Probably no one can. Probably everyone is, to varying degrees, allergic to them, both spiritually and physically. Lies make me feel low and ignoble, and also itchy, like there's sand under my skin. The only thing that feels worse ...
My heart almost vaulted out of my chest. I was snuggled against Ryan’s shoulder. We were burrowed under the cloak and sleeping bag, and my hand rested on his cheek, about to swat the stray hair that had fallen over my face. This wouldn’t have bee...
But with the morning almost gone, with seven bodachs in the recreation room, with living boneyards stalking the storm, with Death opening the door to a luge chute and inviting me to go for a bobsled ride, I didn't have time to put on a victim suit an...
He remembered Apollo, smiling and tanned and completely cool in his shades. Thalia had said, He’s hot. He’s the sun god, Percy replied. That’s not what I meant. Why was Nico thinking about that now? The random memory irritated him, made him fee...
He headed for the stairs, pulling me along behind him. He was forceful, yet took the steps at a slow pace so I did not stumble. It was an overwhelming experience, heightened by the fact he didn’t speak, nor once look back at me.
I learned that the search for God is a Dark Night, that Faith is a Dark Night. And that’s hardly a surprise really, because for us each day is a dark night. None of us knows what might happen even the next minute, and yet still we go forward. Becau...
I believe faith is a journey, not something that we fix when it goes wrong or that we have to follow in a set required way, but something that is always opening up in front of us with the people me meet and the things we do, becoming more meaningful ...
writing home" here in the wilderness of australia writing home becomes easy in spite of the spreading wild fires there is less heat, more certainty. writing home, writing this i think of those without real homes– our city, people say, provides hous...
With his dream of a theater program for young people, Larry Wentzler had inadvertently done an amazing thing for all these squirrels. They had a place where they belonged, and, even if it was because he didn't want to deal with their being different,...
The ancient paused for a moment, as if his strength were failing. Yet I sensed that there was more to tell. Looking deep into my eyes, he whispered: 'The Gond kingdoms have fallen, their people live dispersed in poverty: the teak trees and the jungle...
Prideep pointed to the flames of paraffin lamps as they came alive in the distance and cackled in awe at the experience. (…) I was to discover that making tasty soup with one carrot, ten peas and a little dishwater, was his greatest skill. One wond...
Inscribed on it was a verse from the Quatrains of Omar Khayyam, the eleventh-century Persian mystic. Reading the words aloud I prepared for a most amazing journey: The sages who have compassed sea and land, Their secret to search out and understand, ...
Ultima came to stay with us the summer I was almost seven. When she came the beauty of the llano unfolded before my eyes, and the gurgling waters of the river sang to the hum of the turning earth. The magical time of childhood stood still, and the pu...
From the pavement, I could see the window of Albertine’s room, that window, formerly quite black, at night, when she was not staying in the house, which the electric light inside, dissected by the slats of the shutters, striped from top to bottom w...
he night beyond the window was still, mordant white snow, punctuated only by the eerie dark of the trees, gumshoeing their way along the edge of the path outside. Their skeletal fingers clawed up at the stars, held down by an insidious, weightless la...