Then there was the church and the villagers on the sidewalks, the red geraniums on the graves in the cemetery, Perez fainting (he crumpled over like a rag doll), the blood-red earth spilling over Maman's casket, the white flesh of the roots mixed in ...
When you sit in silence long enough, you learn that silence has a motion. It glides over you without shape or form, exactly like water. Its color is silver. And silence has a sound you hear only after hours of wading inside it. The sound is soft, lik...
Life is a test. It was designed to be so. It is where we taste the bitter and the sweet; where we feel pain and pleasure; where we learn right from wrong; where we pass through both darkness and light. It is a time to make choices. And throug...
The night creeps in by subtle degrees while a show of fierce colors attracts and distracts me. I look up, suddenly aware of remote lights scattered overhead. I gasp as the last streak of fire dies on the horizon, and I comprehend it all too late. Tha...
The sun, moon, and stars God gave to the world, but He embedded their glories in your countenance just for me. Woven in your hair are the sun's shimmering golden rays. From your face glows the pale luminescence of the moon. And in your eyes God sprin...
He fell in love with Manhattan's skyline, like a first-time brothel guest falling for a seasoned professional. He mused over her reflections in the black East River at dusk, dawn, or darkest night, and each haloed light-in a tower or strung along the...
Thus it is said: The path into the light seems dark, the path forward seems to go back, the direct path seems long, true power seems weak, true purity seems tarnished, true steadfastness seems changeable, true clarity seems obscure, the greatest are ...
One more salt to try," Kellan said, reaching into the box. He brought a jar of black, flaky crystals up to the light. "Black diamond finishing salt. Extremely rare and too bold for those with meek palates. But, for a true connoisseur, the flavor is i...
What was it Danilov told me before I left? Something about how one day I would stand at a crossroads where I could choose the Light, which illuminated the sky with its warmth and golden glow - or the Darkness, which at first seemed soothing and invit...
Actually, Elizabeth realized, when he laughed like that, he did look quite handsome. His dark brown hair and his eyes, so light a brown as to seem almost gold in color, were not quite as nondescript as she'd once thought. Maybe the giggling young ing...
Love is nothing more than elevated levels of dopamine, nor-epinephrine, and other chemicals. But the way Uncle Antionio's face lights up as they dance... I wonder what it would be like to feel that. To let the chemicals of romance take over for just ...
I had kissed my share of men, particularly during the war years, when flirtation and instant romance were the light-minded companions of death and uncertainty. Jamie, thought, was something different. His extreme gentleness was in no way tentative; r...
Liz pasted on a smile, trying to appear normal in light of the fact that he had possibly incriminating knowledge on her from the background check. She hoped her application for a marriage license with Craig wasn't in the report. Or her long shopping ...
The seeking of a mate shall be undertaken with due preparation and care. A life-bond should never be contemplated as a light thing--unlike a legal union or sanctified joining, the sealing of souls CANNOT be severed. When a mate is SOULBOUND to anothe...
At seventeen, the smallest crises took on tremendous proportions; someone else's thoughts could take root in the loam of your own mind; having someone accept you became as vital as oxygen. Adults, light years away from this, rolled their eyes and smi...
Holiness has most often been revealed to me in the exquisite pun of the first syllable, in holes- in not enough help, in brokenness, mess. High holy places, with ethereal sounds and stained glass, can massage my illusion of holiness, but in holes and...
Part of a moon was falling down the west, Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills. Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand Among the harp-like morning-glory strings, Taut with the dew from gard...
I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me--that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includ...
Why do some persons 'find' God in a way that others do not? Why does God manifest His Presence to some and let multitudes of others struggle along in the half-light of imperfect Christian experience? Of course the will of God is the same for all. He ...
The Presence and the manifestation of the Presence are not the same. There can be the one without the other. God is here when we are wholly unaware of it. He is manifest only when and as we are aware of His Presence. On our part there must be surrend...
Once upon a time, the Reindeer took a running leap and jumped over the Northern Lights. But he jumped too low, and the long fur of his beautiful flowing tail got singed by the rainbow fires of the aurora. To this day the reindeer has no tail to speak...
