Let’s face it: suffering discredits goodness. I’m agnostic in practice though faith-based in theory. I used to pray but now know he’ll do what he darn well pleases when he darn well pleases. Will he listen? Maybe. We have a book that says so, b...
Do you go see her?" "No," I said, refusing to acknowledge that I'd just seen Lissa last night. "That's not my life anymore." "Right. Your life is all about dangerous vigilante missions." "You wouldn't understand anything that isn't drinking, smoking,...
All I know: I could only encounter you, my oasis, coming out of a desert. Deserted myself. This is all right. My futureless and solitary self. When suddenly I hear the voice of the springs--Right away you made me want to sing. To cry. Then to drink. ...
Yes, I read. And yes, I do it a lot. And yes, I did it before you because life can suck and living in a fantasy world is a lot more fun than living in the real world sometimes. This was not a weak choice, it was an informed one. ... There's not one t...
The little kids by the water threw their hands in the air and squealed, chasing each other in circles. It was hard to believe that I’d ever been that small. That young. That happy and clueless. They had pain ahead. Heartbreak. Loss. They didn’t k...
this is how you smile to someone you don't like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don't like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely; this is how you set a table for tea; this is how you set a table for dinner; this ...
You know what punk is? a bunch of no-talent guys who really, really want to be in a band. Nobody reads music, nobody plays the mandolin, and you're too dumb to write songs about mythology or Middle-earth. So what's your style? Three chords, cranked o...
I’ve never needed a bodyguard, Evan.” His hands stilled on the glasses. “Maybe that isn’t such a bad idea now.” “It’s a terrible idea. I would never want anyone watching every move I make. It’s unnerving. There are fresh lemons in the...
He slid over to me and grabbed me closer to him. My smile fell from my face with the unexpectedness of it. His hands cupped my face, his lips hovering above mine. “You seriously want to know, Tess?” He closed the space and claimed my mouth with a...
He died at the wrong time, when there was much to be clarified and established. They hadn’t even started to be grown-ups together. There was this piece of heaven, this little girl he’d carried around the shop on his shoulders; and then one day sh...
What to wear on a Minnesota farm? The older farmers I know wear brown polyester jumpsuits, like factory workers. The younger ones wear jeans, but the forecast was for ninety-five degrees with heavy humidity. The wardrobe of Quaker ladies in their mid...
It is one thing to read the Scriptures and affirm their truth. But until you are in the trenches of trial, until you are faced with life circumstances that test your faith, until you are pressed to the absolute limit of your physical and emotional ca...
The brief story of the supper at Emmaus carries within it a number of core principles of the Christian life as Luke understands it. First, the idea that one comes to know Christ through acts of generosity to other human beings. It is because of their...
He decides he wants both more or less. He’d like to hang with Beyonce in a nice way, get to know her by doing small pleasant things together like playing board games and going out for ice cream, or how about this, a three-week trial run in some tro...
I was born upon the prairie, where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there are no enclosures and where everything drew a free breath. I want to die there and not within walls. I know every stream...
Is this about what happened to you and the old Sector 7?” I asked with a growl of my own. His hands tightened their grip on my shoulders. “How did you know about that?” “Tabby-Chan told me.” “Freaking Meko-Chan,” Kuroi uttered, “I swe...
The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread....
Opportunities may come along for you to convert something -something that exists into something that didn't yet. That might be the beginning of it. Sometimes you just want to do things your way, want to see for yourself what lies behind the misty cur...
These comments recall Turkle's distinction between two kinds of "transparency" in technological cultures. Modernist transparency is the notion that users can and should have access to the inner workings of a technology. It evokes the aesthetic of ear...
It is just when people are all engaged in snooping on themselves and one another that they become anesthetized to the whole process. Tranquilizers and anesthetics, private and corporate, become the largest business in the world just as the world is a...
I have no way of knowing whether you, who eventually will read this record, like stories or not. If you do not, no doubt you have turned these pages without attention. I confess that I love them. Indeed, it often seems to me that of all the good thin...
