Mrs. Panabaker is ten years older than God and probably smarter. She stops into the offices every other Thursday to tell my dad what she didn't like about his sermon the previous Sunday. She makes fudge-covered marshmallows at Christmas time and forc...
[Medieval] Art was not just a static element in society, or even one which interacted with the various social groups. It was not simply something which was made to decorate or to instruct — or even to overawe and dominate. Rather, it was that and m...
I stepped to the tank's edge, leaned in, and concentrated on keeping my eyes open. Which fish would be the shooter? The fish were all facing me, but one in particular seemed to be staring directly at my left eye, like a hunter targeting his prey. Wha...
Three weeks ago, he’d seen hail fall from the sky, only to be followed minutes later by a spectacular rainbow that seemed to frame the azalea bushes. The colors, so vivid they seemed almost alive, made him think that nature sometimes sends us signs...
... there is no quicker way of growing old than undue indulgence in regular habits. Indeed it seems probable that the reason why so many people die sooner than they should is because they have organised their lives in such a way that there is nothing...
Grace knocks us flat, preventing any form of self-congratulation. All the good we achieve is to be attributed to God rather than to ourselves. What makes our lives good is not anything we are ourselves but the presence within us of what we are not, a...
The first verse that comes to mind that refutes all of Calvin’s points is “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Whoever means whoever. Not just some, not just the elect; that means that anyone who wants to come to God and repe...
The fundamental biological variant is DNA. That is why Mendel's definition of the gene as the unvarying bearer of hereditary traits, its chemical identification by Avery (confirmed by Hershey), and the elucidation by Watson and Crick of the structura...
When we dislike someone, or feel threatened by someone, the natural tendency is to focus on something we dislike about the person, something that irritates us. Unfortunately, when we do this--instead of seeing the deeper beauty of the person and givi...
Continuous external growth, like continuous inhaling, is not sustainable. But because we have been inhaling for so long, consuming for so long, even though we see that it can't go on this way, we don't know how to alter the pattern. We have to recove...
She had taken him for granted, she thought with surprise and shame, watching the flickering candlelight. She had assumed his kindness was so natural and so innate, she had never asked herself whether it cost him any effort. Any effort to stand betwee...
A misbegotten hatchling of consciousness, a birth defect of our species, imagination is often revered as a sign of vigor in our make-up. But it is really just a psychic overcompensation for our impotence as beings. Denied nature’s exemption from cr...
It was the nature of his profession that his experience with death should be greater than for most and he said that while it was true that time heals bereavement it does so only at the cost of the slow extinction of those loved ones from the heart's ...
It´s natural to want someone you love to do what you want, or what you think would be good for them, but you have to let everything happen to them. You can't interfere with people you love any more than you're supposed to interfere with people you d...
Had I been placed among those nations which are said to live still in the sweet freedom of nature's first laws, I assure you I should very gladly have portrayed myself here entire and wholly naked. Thus, reader, I am myself the matter of my book; you...
So all night long the storm roared on: The morning broke without a sun; In tiny spherule traced with lines Of Nature’s geometric signs, In starry flake, and pellicle, All day the hoary meteor fell; And, when the second morning shone, We looked upon...
The...act of surrender—or devotion, as the case may be—was, to him, a kind of lifeline for those who sought a quick answer and didn’t want to stick around long enough to see their doubt through to its ultimate conclusion. A conclusion, which, o...
You can neither lie to a neighbourhood park, nor reason with it. 'Artist's conceptions' and persuasive renderings can put pictures of life into proposed neighbourhood parks or park malls, and verbal rationalizations can conjure up users who ought to ...
I am willing to be vulnerable and embrace the natural flow of life rather than trying to direct it to my own course and yet it has given me new courage because there is no consequence that could come as close as wanting to die… The ver worst thing ...
He who has experienced the mystery of the nature is full of life, full of love, full of joy. Radiance emanates from the whole existence itself, it does not know the meaning of holding back. It is pure giving-giving of love. For the great writers, lov...
The nature of compassion isn't coming to terms with your own suffering and applying it to others: It's knowing that other folks around you suffer and, no matter what happens to you, no matter how lucky or unlucky you are, they keep suffering. And if ...
