Can we stay faithful and persistent in our fidelity even when things seem not to succeed? I suppose Jesus could have chosen a strategy that worked better (evidence-based outcomes) — that didn't end in the Cross — but he couldn't find a strategy m...
Zoe readied her arrows. Grover lifted his pipes. Thalia raised her shield and I noticed a tear running down her cheek. Suddenly it occurred to me: this had happened to her before.She had been cornered on Half- Blood Hill. She'd willingly given her li...
His eyes drifted leisurely back up to my face and he smiled at me appreciatively, “Kelsey, when a man spends time with a beautiful woman, he needs to pace himself. I quirked my eyebrow at him and laughed. “Yeah, I’m a regular marathon alright.�...
If the world allows the people of Darfur to be removed forever from their land and their way of life, then genocide will happen elsewhere because it will be seen as something that works. It must not be allowed to work. The people of Darfur need to go...
Are you going to threaten to kill anyone?" Vega asked dryly. Even though he knew she wasn't being completely serious, the truth was, he would kill someone if they attempted to harm her. "I won't threaten anyone." Which was the truth. If he had to act...
If you're going to be my Valentine then I expect chocolates. Lots of them." He'd already planned to get her some considering how much the female ate chocolate. She was tall and slender and her high shifter metabolism meant she was often eating someth...
He continued to attack the gate. His arm started to ache. The hammer was designed for neither brute nor force. "Are you all right up there?" asked Eleanor. "Want me to go see if I can find a small child to give you a lift?" "Maybe if we swapped posit...
Probably your biggest mistake was doing funk-dance to Unchained Melody,” the dog offered earnestly. “It’s a ballad, Alf, and to be honest, it’s one of the slowest songs I can think of. You’d have been better off doing a slow waltz to someth...
I gaze up at the ceiling. Through it. Past Kim and Chip's room on the second floor into the sky, space, heaven, hell. Who says hell is down? It could be up. It could be next door to heaven. Hell could be a subset of heaven, like a ghetto in the middl...
Often, then, the stories came pouring out, and often they were set before us slowly and quietly like tea. These slow stories were told with understatement that made my eyes and voice fill as I translated; for when people seem to have no emotion remai...
I remember watching an old Dracula movie once with Alphonse and having him laugh himself sick at the sight of a vamp only a few days out of the grave supposedly raising another one.He'd been impossible for weeks afterwards,mercilessly teasing all the...
Tizzy squawked, and he bounced like a ball on the floor. “I completely forgot; Santa said something more. He said that a book gives your very thoughts wings, That carry you off to see wonderful things, That lift you aloft, throughout time, throug...
Fantastic accomplishments seem like something unattainable and everyone doing the extraordinary seems to be unlike you until YOU do something amazing. Then you realize those talented, heroic leaders are not different from you in any important way." C...
I'm not particularly in favor of doctrine or creed, ordination, the elevation of holy texts, the institution of church, or, for that matter, Christianity. Like most religions, it has irreconcilable shortcomings and an unforgivable history. What I do ...
All too often we think of community in terms of being with folks like ourselves: the same class, same race, same ethnicity, same social standing and the like..I think we need to be wary: we need to work against the danger of evoking something that we...
Probably the wisest words that were ever uttered to me. Came from a therapist. I was sitting in her office, crying my eyes out. . . and she said, "So let me get this straight. You base your personal happiness on things entirely out of your control.
I shall expect my husband to have no pleasures but what he shares with me; and if his greatest pleasure of all is not the enjoyment of my company - why - it will be the worse for him - that's all.' 'If such are your expectations of matrimony, Esther,...
Adieu! but let me cherish, still, The hope with which I cannot part. Contempt may wound, and coldness chill, But still it lingers in my heart. And who can tell but Heaven, at last, May answer all my thousand prayers, And bid the future pay the past W...
But they gave me Finn. He said it like maybe it was worth the trade. Like it was something he would do again if he had the choice. Like he would take a man's legs and give away years of his own freedom if it was the only way. I thought how that was w...
Daemon laughed "I'm only at the service of one person in particular" My cheeks flamed as I scooted my chair over. "You are not servicing me in any way." He leaned in, closing my newly gained distance. "Not yet." "Oh, come on, Daemon I'm right here." ...
, I found the whole modern world talking scientific fatalism; saying that everything is as it must always have been, being unfolded without fault from the beginning. The leaf on the tree is green because it could never have been anything else. Now, t...
