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...
Whether you realize it or not, you are a theologian. You come to a book like this with a working theology, an existing understanding of God. Whether you are an agnostic or a fundamentalist — or something in between — you have a working theology t...
At the beginning of the war…I had to look in on the War Office, and in a room I found a fellow…What do you think he was doing…what the hell do you think he was doing? He was devising the ceremonial for the disbanding of a Kitchener battalion. Y...
People who are too optimistic seem annoying. This is an unfortunate misinterpretation of what an optimist really is. An is neither naive, nor blind to the facts, nor in denial of grim reality. An optimist believes in the usage of all options availabl...
Our great mistake in education is, as it seems to me, the worship of book-learning–the confusion of instruction and education. . The children in our elementary schools are wearied by the mechanical act of writing, and the interminable intricacies o...
Once a person has been poisoned by self-deception, he can't make decisions about himself as neatly as all that," Himiko said, elaborating her friend's terrific prophecy; " You won't get a divorce Bird. You'll justify yourself like crazy, and try to s...
He wanted me to understand two big things: First, that nobody, no group, is above others. Public servants are obliged to level with everybody, whether or not they'll like what he has to say. And second, that politics was a matter of personal honor. A...
For our own part, we learned a great deal about the techniques of love, and because we didn't know the words to denote what we saw, we had to make up our own. That was why we spoke of "yodeling in the canyon" and "tying the tube," of "groaning in the...
These were the kids who would take LSD for recreational purposes, who relied upon tape recorders to supply the weird studio effects their music required and who could repeat the cosmic wisdom of the Space Brothers as if it were the Pledge of Allegian...
And I would tell him, so full of twentysomething wisdom, that life is almost never about choosing between one thing you really want and another thing you don't want at all. If you're lucky, and healthy, and live in a country where you have enough to ...
Oh, now my Erin, she'd smile down on me no matter where I walked." Grandpop smiled that little smile again. "But I'd be separated from her, and I'd feel that separation in my soul, you see?" Nathan shook his head. Grandpop sighed. "You have the Irish...
But what I knew in my head stayed up there, swirling about the other ten zillion things I had retained. That knowledge informed my actions, what I did and how I did it. What Emma knew filtered from her head down into her heart and informed who she wa...
The central attitudes driving Mr. Right are: You should be in awe of my intelligence and should look up to me intellectually. I know better than you do, even about what’s good for you. Your opinions aren’t worth listening to carefully or taking s...
Where is God when it hurts? We know one answer because God came to earth and showed us. You need only follow Jesus around and note how he responded to the tragedies of his day: large-scale tragedies such as an act of government terrorism in the templ...
In the beginning when the world was young there were a great many thoughts but no such thing as a truth. Man made the truths himself and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts. All about in the world were the truths and they were a...
While learning others, respect demands that one never takes issue with another's freedom to choose their 'get down' - their way of living... and don't be mad. But carefully listen, observe, and compare mental notes before you open your heart's desire...
They say love is blind...but it isn't. Love is perfect sight. Love is the ability to see a person, I mean really see him-his strengths, his weaknesses, his flaws, all his past triumphs and mistakes-and view that person not as the world says you're su...
For God's sake, Gwen," he said gently. "What matter that I love you. That's not the bit that's always been missing." Her lips parted. They wished to ask a question she could not bear to bring herself to ask. He was never less than honest. The answer,...
Winter Liar" by Liam Doyle the Incubus What come once here will never come again, no matter monument nor memory; all sunwarmed green succumbs to winter's wind. And you, my love, were also my best friend, and had your life to live. The tragedy was not...
Jeeter?" Grace whispered into her walkie-talkie. "Are you awake?" She waited. A few weeks ago, she and Jeeter had started chatting on their walkie-talkies late at night when she couldn't sleep. He always answered her call no matter how late it was. "...
In the days after my heart attack & before I began to write again, all I could think about was dying. I'd been spared again, and only after the danger had passed did I allow my thoughts to unravel to their inevitable end. I imagined all the ways I co...
